LS 500 Humphry Clinker

O'Neill, E.T. (2002). FRBR: Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records - Application of the Entity-Relationship Model to Humphry Clinker. Library Resources and Technical Services 46:150-9.

The main points of Edward T. O’Neill’s article regarding the use of FRBR for Humphry Clinker are:

• Identifying expressions was problematic.
• Reliable identification of expressions frequently necessitated the examination of the books themselves.
• In the Humphry Clinker example the enhanced record approach avoids the problem of identifying expressions while providing similar functionality. With the enhanced manifestations record, the three remaining entity-relationship structures: works, manifestations and items – the FRBR model provides a powerful means to improve bibliographic organization and navigation.

O’Neill defines WORK as a product of the intellectual or artistic activity by a person, a group or a corporate body that is identified by a normalized title and/or name.

O’Neill defines EXPRESSION as the realization of a work in the form of alphanumeric, musical or choreographic notation, sound, image, object, movement or any combinations of such forms.

O’Neill’s goal for the Humphry Clinker Study was to go beyond organizing bibliographic records to organizing the bibliographic objects represented by bibliographic records. In total 38 books were examined and close to 600 digital photos were taken. It became evident that except for the translations, the original text of Humphry Clinker had not been significantly changed. Most of the newer works focused on correcting minor errors, repositioning the date, moving the placement of chapter headings and replacing the “f” which was considered the long “s”. The supplemental material varied greatly as well, some works had only a new dedication while one other work in particular had 22 pages of notes. Another large problem was identifying the illustrators. Less than a third of the illustrated editions identified the illustrator.

Between the 1984 and the 1998 Humphry Clinker editions, the bibliography included four new editions. It was difficult to identify the differences because at least two of the editions had identical pagination. O’Neill stated even a side by side comparison of the 1984 and 1998 editions initially failed to recognize that these were different expressions.

The inconsistencies in the bibliographic records are a serious problem to identifying expressions. When it was difficult to determine if the differences between bibliographic records were real differences or simply differences in cataloging practice, an attempt was made to physically examine one or both of the books. In all cases this wasn’t possible due to the poor condition or rarity of the book, in which case O’Neill got as much information as he could via email.

Conclusions that O’Neill came to include:

• Existing bibliographic records do not contain enough information to consistently associate the records with expressions.
• Attempts to create FRBR expressions from existing records were sometimes futile.

The solution that O’Neill decided upon was to replace expressions with manifestation records that include added entries explicitly identifying the roles of the contributors, the problem of identifying expressions is avoided without a loss of functionality. O’Neill further states that the remaining entity-relationship structures: works, manifestations and items provide a powerful means to improve bibliographic organization and navigation.

O’Neill’s final words in the article states:

It is extremely unlikely that the problems encountered with Humphry Clinker are unique. The irony is that the FRBR model provides minimal benefits to the small works that can be reliably FRBRized, but fails on the large and complex works where it is needed most.

Reflection

I appreciate the irony that O’Neill found as that is most often the way life works the thing that you need the most fails when you least expect it to. I don’t believe that simply putting in a new dedication should warrant a new work. That does not change the body of the work significantly enough in my opinion. The only person that would be interested in that piece of work would perhaps be the individual that the dedication is to.

I do believe that more information is needed and necessary if FRBR is going to succeed with two of its primary objectives, the RAPID location of particular book and the provision of information concerning ALL editions, translations etc. of a given work as far as they exist in the library. If the bibliographic information isn’t sufficient enough to figure out whether or not the editions are the same or different, it is imperative that we supplement that information so that the system is usable by patrons and librarians alike. What good is information i.e. bibliographic records if they are not usable?