Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records The Changing Face of Cataloging William E. Moen Texas Center for Digital Knowledge School of Library and Information Sciences University of North Texas

MoenTexas Regional Group of Catalogers & Classifiers Round Table -- Texas Library Association -- April 13, FRBR – Who, When, What IFLA Study Group on Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records, Final report published in 1998 “A conceptual model for the bibliographic universe” (B. Tillett, 2003). The aim of the study was to produce a framework that would provide a clear, precisely stated, and commonly shared understanding of what it is that the bibliographic record aims to provide information about, and what it is that we expect the record to achieve in terms of answering user needs.

MoenTexas Regional Group of Catalogers & Classifiers Round Table -- Texas Library Association -- April 13, Context Historical tradition and theories, such as Cutter’s Objectives of the Catalog Paris Principles Research such as Tillett’s on bibliographic relationships Increasing complexity of the information landscape/bibliographic universe Born digital resources Digitized resources (a scanned image of a photo of a painting) Networked environment and associated technologies Revision of Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules

MoenTexas Regional Group of Catalogers & Classifiers Round Table -- Texas Library Association -- April 13, The FRBR Model Based on Entity-Relationship modeling Entity – something that can be described Attributes – the features of the entity that characterize it Relationships between entities Three groups of entities in model Group 1: Products of intellectual or artistic endeavor Group 2: Entities responsible for the intellectual or artistic content, the physical production, etc. Group 3: Entities that serve as the subjects of intellectual or artistic endeavor Remember: what it is that the bibliographic record aims to provide information about

MoenTexas Regional Group of Catalogers & Classifiers Round Table -- Texas Library Association -- April 13, FRBR – Group 1 Entities

MoenTexas Regional Group of Catalogers & Classifiers Round Table -- Texas Library Association -- April 13, FRBR -- Group 2 Entities

MoenTexas Regional Group of Catalogers & Classifiers Round Table -- Texas Library Association -- April 13, FRBR – Group Three Entities

MoenTexas Regional Group of Catalogers & Classifiers Round Table -- Texas Library Association -- April 13, Attributes Work Entity Attributes title of the work form of work date of the work other distinguishing characteristic intended termination intended audience context for the work coordinates (cartographic work) equinox (cartographic work) Expression Entity title of the expression form of expression date of expression language of expression other distinguishing characteristic extensibility of expression revisability of expression extent of the expression summarization of content context for the expression

MoenTexas Regional Group of Catalogers & Classifiers Round Table -- Texas Library Association -- April 13, FRBR User Tasks Remember: what it is that we expect the record to achieve in terms of answering user needs Four user tasks: Find: Discovering if something exists by searching one or more attributes Identify: Examine retrieved records to determine the items that met user’s search request Select: Examine retrieved records for those that meet other user needs/requirements Obtain: Using data in retrieved records to gain physical access to the described object

MoenTexas Regional Group of Catalogers & Classifiers Round Table -- Texas Library Association -- April 13, FRBR’s impact and influence Decision by Joint Steering Committee for revision of AACR: AACR3  Resource Description and Access Working Group on Functional Requirements and Numbering of Authority Records (FRANAR) To define functional requirements of authority records, continuing the work that the “Functional requirements of bibliographic records" for bibliographic systems initiated Working Group on Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Records (FRSAR) Statement of International Cataloguing Principles, by IFLA Meeting of Experts on an International Cataloguing Code These new principles replace and broaden the Paris Principles from just textual works to all types of materials and from just the choice and form of entry to all aspects of the bibliographic and authority records used in library catalogues. This is an era of conceptualizing and theorizing about cataloging

MoenTexas Regional Group of Catalogers & Classifiers Round Table -- Texas Library Association -- April 13, Impact on cataloging and catalogs Introduces new terminology and conceptual model incorporated in: RDA Statement on cataloging principles Assisting in understanding better the range of relationships in the bibliographic universe Collocation function of the catalog Improve linking mechanisms May need to think of creating work and expression records A resolution to the multiple version problem Inheriting metadata from work  item Implementation in catalogs to improve user experience

MoenTexas Regional Group of Catalogers & Classifiers Round Table -- Texas Library Association -- April 13, The MCDU Project Provide empirical evidence of catalogers’ use of MARC content designation Identify commonly used elements of bibliographic records Contribute to community discussion about core elements in MARC bibliographic records Explore the evolution of MARC content designation Develop research approach to understand the factors influencing levels of MARC content designation use MARC Content Designation Utilization

MoenTexas Regional Group of Catalogers & Classifiers Round Table -- Texas Library Association -- April 13, Richness of MARC MARC 21 Field Groups Currently Defined (MARC 21 or OCLC MARC Bib.) MARC x63 0xx xx7640 2xx xx1554 4xx4537 5xx3448 6xx xx xx xx16 TOTAL

MoenTexas Regional Group of Catalogers & Classifiers Round Table -- Texas Library Association -- April 13, Example results 7,595,887 LC-created records in dataset Type of Record: Book, Pamphlets, and Printed Sheets Total number of unique fields use in dataset: 167 Number of fields accounting for 80% of occurrences: 14 fields (8.3%) Number of fields accounting for 90% of occurrences: 21 fields (12.6%) Approximately 110 fields (66%) occur in less than 1% of all records [Note: Fields are cataloger-supplied, not system-supplied ]

MoenTexas Regional Group of Catalogers & Classifiers Round Table -- Texas Library Association -- April 13, Making sense of the numbers Frequency counts provide raw but informative data Determining commonly occurring elements Comparing to recommended core records Comparing to recommendations for national level records MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic Data: National Level Record – Bibliographic Full Level & Minimal Level Comparing the FRBR user tasks data

MoenTexas Regional Group of Catalogers & Classifiers Round Table -- Texas Library Association -- April 13, Field/subfield utilization and FRBR tasks FRBR describes four user tasks for FRBR entities Find (e.g., find work, find expression) Identify Select Obtain Delsey mapped these tasks to MARC fields/subfield for FRBR entities Analysis of MCDU data for each of the tasks

MoenTexas Regional Group of Catalogers & Classifiers Round Table -- Texas Library Association -- April 13, FRBR user task: Find (search) MARC 21 fields/subfields that can contain author, title, or subject data Author-related fields/subfields : 119 AuthorTitle-related fields/subfields: 21 Title-related fields/subfields: 253 Subject-related fields/subfields: 144 In FRBR context, Delsey identified: Approximately 460 fields/subfields can support this task for the FRBR entities In MCDU dataset, only 59 (13%) of these occur at or above the threshold of use (i.e., commonly occurring) in OCLC book records

MoenTexas Regional Group of Catalogers & Classifiers Round Table -- Texas Library Association -- April 13, Questions What is really needed in a bibliographic record? Support for the four user tasks? Management of information resources? What about all those infrequently fields/subfields? In context of FRBR, what does it mean to support a user task? What is the cost/benefit of the cataloging enterprise (current or in a FRBR world)?

MoenTexas Regional Group of Catalogers & Classifiers Round Table -- Texas Library Association -- April 13, References IFLA. Division of Bibliographic Control MARC Content Designation Utilization Project What is FRBR? A Conceptual Model for the Bibliographic Universe. Barbara Tillett. For a copy of this presentation, go to: