An examination of the FRBR model (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) using Shakespeare's Macbeth as an example. This presentation from the RDA Workshops presented in March 2009 by LIANZA, CatSig and the National Library, concentrates on the Group 1 entities Work, Expression, Manifestation and Item. Created by Chris Todd.
2. In the beginning … When shall we three meet again? Created Macbeth Work Realised through Expression Text in English Manifestation Embodied in First folio, 1623 Exemplified by Item Shakespeare
3. Second manifestation When shall we three meet again? Work Expression Manifestations First folio, 1623 Item Second folio, 1632 Item Macbeth Created Realised through Embodied in Exemplified by Exemplified by
4. A second expression When shall we three meet again? Work Expressions Manifestations Quand nous réunir à nouveau trois Translation Text in English Text in French Items First folio, 1623 Didot fr è res, 1843 Macbeth
5. Yet more expressions When shall we three meet again? Quand nous réunir à nouveau trois? Sound recording of text in English Text in English Text in French Work Expressions Macbeth Translation Spoken word
6. New works When shall we three meet again? Hodder Wayland, 2006 5 Items (in Schools Services Collection) Manifestations When shall we three meet again? Beverley Birch Adaptation Macbeth Macbeth retold Created Created Works Expressions
7. More works Verdi Shakespeare Beverley Macbeth retold Macbeth Macbeth the Opera Transformation Adaptation Works Created Created Created
9. Musical works Score Performance, 1959, New York, with Carlo Bergonzi Performance, 1976, London, with Jose Carerras CD, RCA, 1987 Verdi 2 CDs, EMI, 1992 3 CDs, EMI, 1986 Macbeth Milano : Ricordi, 1947 Realised through Realisedthrough Work Expressions Manifestations
Tody we are going to look at the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records model. There are four entities central to that model: work, expression, manifestation and item. All the resources we describe can be viewed in relation to these entities.
We are going to explore this model using Macbeth as an example. This is the basic flow from work to item for publications. Around 80% of works only exist in 1 manifestation. Definitions: Work: a distinct intellectual or artistic creation – abstract, an idea in the author’s head Expression: intellectual or artistic realisation of a work in the form of alpha-numeric, musical, sound, image etc. – also abstract, the way a work is viewed or perceived by users Manifestation: physical embodiment of an expression of a work – a cluster of copies that are identical, what we describe at the moment Item: a single exemplar or instance of a manifestation – what you hold in your hand Everything we describe can be described using this structure.
When a work is good or popular or both it is likely to be republished – by the same publisher when copies run out, or by a different publisher. Manifestations are the first entity to increase in number for most works. With manifestations, what you see when you read it is the same, e.g. it may be large type, HTML, PDF, issued by different publishers but nothing is changed in terms of what you experience. You have a different manifestation of the same expression.
When a work becomes particularly popular new expressions are developed, often these are translations. These expressions will seem different to the user. In this case the work Macbeth is realized as text in French so the form of the content remains unchanged (it is still text), but the language is different. Macbeth written in English, translated into French – the intellectual content has not changed but the user experience has – to read this second expression you need to be a French reader.
And there can be other expressions of a work. This time we’re looking at the English version realized as spoken words. This will offer the user a very different experience of the same words. The sound recording is another way of perceiving this work – the text has not changed, but the way it is conveyed to the audience has changed. Note that there are also relationships between the expressions.
We have looked at new manifestations and new expressions of a work, now we are looking at new works. This is where it starts to get seriously interesting and we have a second work that is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s play. I’m sure that as long as there are cataloguers there will be discussions about how much difference makes a new work.
And now we have the opera. This is a new work which has a strong relationship with Macbeth but it is really not very much like Shakespeare’s play. Someone else has taken Shakespeare’s idea and recast it - it may include an Italian translation of some of Shakespeare’s text, but it also includes music so it’s clearly very different. Can you think of other works based on Macbeth that could be added to the mix?
Music provides some very interesting examples for FRBR so I thought we could explore these a bit. The relationships and the attributes (which I haven’t covered) are the important aspects of this model.
This photograph shows a number of different expressions of the New Zealand novel Mr Pip. There are expressions in English, French, German, Hebrew, Portuguese (2 different expressions here, because there are two different translations) Norwegian, Korean and there is the spoken word German expression. Just to repeat, we tend to start with new manifestations and then move on to new expressions.