[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Toward a new Bibliographic-Item Model

[Duimovich, George]

>> The manifestations themselves, however, can have one or more parts.  This is one missing link in the current chain. 

I agree.

NRCan Library has the following draft requirements document. It's quick and dirty and doesn't propose or discuss any possible solutions or implications. Our main concern is to see support for sharing an item record with more than one bib record(s).

One of the criticisms against the traditional OPAC is the lack of article level content integration, especially for those in the academic context. Flip side is that some argue whether the catalogue is the appropriate place for article level content. But I think it's a matter of degree: many library settings won't need this functionality that much or at all; but for others (like us) some functionality in this direction is essential for keeping the ILS relevant in our institutional context. I'd argue that more libraries need to move in this direction as the ILS is under challenge for relevancy (again, in certain contexts more than others).

Anyways, we're interested in hearing back from anybody interested in joint-development, or tuning / suggesting improvements to the attached document. I already have some minor tweaks to add to the document so if I could find the time I'll add it as a wiki or blueprint page. Too busy right now so FWIW..

Dan, thanks for raising this,

George Duimovich
NRCan Library / Bibliothèque de RNCan



-----Original Message-----
From: open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org [mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Dan Wells
Sent: September 22, 2010 13:42
To: open-ils-general at list.georgialibraries.org
Subject: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Toward a new Bibliographic-Item Model

Hello all,

Discussions surrounding the best way to model serials have served to highlight some clear weaknesses in the traditional Record->Call Number->Copy arrangement.
 This arrangement is time-tested, so it would have been foolishly brave to abandon it too soon.  Still, perhaps it is time to reconsider our model from the ground up.

What I am about to propose is not fully thought out, and may be unreasonable in reality, but it could at least be the start of moving toward something better, a long-term solution.  It will deal with only the last two layers of the FRBR model, but could be expanded 'upward' to more abstract levels.  As it stands, bibliographic records in use today are generally at the "manifestation" level, so it makes the most sense to start there.

First, bibliographic records are, by design, singular.  They fully represent a manifestation of a given "expression" of a given "work."  The manifestations themselves, however, can have one or more parts.  This is one missing link in the current chain.  We can partially address it at the call number level, but that is ultimately overloading the meaning of call number and is a workaround we should address.  Instead, we might introduce a new concept to the model.  For lack of a better term, we will call it a "manifestation-part".

Next we have the instance layer, called the "item" layer in FRBR.  Because we have added manifestation-parts, we also must add a concept of "item-parts".  This in turn implies that "item" is not a direct representation of a single physical object, but a concept which can be split or combined as reality dictates.  To accommodate this fact, we might introduce an extra-item layer which can contain one or more item-parts.  For now, at least, we will call this entity a "unit".

What do we gain by this new abstraction?  Well, I hope a more accurate representation of reality.  Bibliographic records map one-to-one with a manifestation's contents, not its containers.  Having split things as described, a unit may contain just a portion of the contents represented by the bib record (think volume, or accompanying materials like a CD), the entire contents (the most basic unit, our current model), or even the contents of multiple bib records (bound-withs).  This model attempts a complete and deliberate separation of named content portions (-parts) from the local reality of their containers (units), and the global splitting at the record level allows accurate matching and comparison of contents, even when the containers used locally vary.

You may have noticed at this point that call numbers are absent from the model.  This is certainly intentional.  They should be nothing more than one (possibly shared) aspect of the location information for any given unit. 
Assigning any other meaning invites problems.

Dan

Previous related threads:
http://markmail.org/thread/az3bvnbz7ziyyjfm
http://markmail.org/thread/5yi5bf5hyqiwvpuw 



-- 
*********************************************************************************
Daniel Wells, Library Programmer Analyst dbw2 at calvin.edu
Hekman Library at Calvin College
616.526.7133

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