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DATE: December 14, 2010
REVISED:
NAME: Identifying Work, Expression, and Manifestation records in the MARC 21 Bibliographic, Authority, and Holdings Formats
SOURCE: Library of Congress, Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access (ABA) Directorate
SUMMARY: This paper discusses defining a new field in the MARC 21 Authority, Bibliographic, and Holdings formats to identify that the record is for a Work, Expression, Manifestation or Item.
KEYWORDS: FRBR Group 1 Entities; Field 883 (BD, AD, HD); Work; Expression; Manifestation; Item
RELATED: 2008-DP04; 2008-05/1; 2008-05/2; 2009-01/3
STATUS/COMMENTS:
12/14/10 – Made available to the MARC 21 community for discussion.
1/8/11 - Results of MARC Advisory Committee discussion: The majority of participants wanted to identify this information in the record. It will be important to tighten the definitions and provide guidance to users, including restricting the use of the field to those records that are explicitly work or expression (manifestation being the default), rather than a combination. It was noted that this supports applications that may not exist yet, but could be very useful in the future. A proposal will be prepared for Annual 2011 MARBI meetings.
RDA was reorganized in October 2007 to better facilitate using some specific relational database models that also underlie the FRBR model. Proposal 2008-05/1 (Changes to the MARC 21 Formats to Encode Data using Resource Description and Access (RDA): Introduction and Principles) discusses FRBR relational database models and support for them in MARC. As is indicated in 2008-05/1, the relational database model that RDA is built on is one internal system construct, and MARC is intended as an exchange format that can carry bibliographic data between various internal models. Therefore breaking the MARC 21 record into four parts for interchange is not the point of this indication but rather to identify primarily the work vs. expression access point records and manifestation and item records, and secondarily to enable more analysis of the record content. Then Proposal 2008-05/2 was discussed in June 2008 and because there was not clarity about the FRBR entities and further direction was needed from the Joint Steering Committee of RDA, it was deferred. And finally, Proposal 2009-01/3 was discussed at the January 2009 meeting. Participants felt that adding a method to indicate the FRBR type for a record was not vital to the initial implementation of RDA and if experimenters feel the need to indicate this explicitly a local field could be used.
Experimentation has begun and LC's ABA Directorate has requested a reexamination of the issues. Therefore this paper focuses the discussion on enabling the "explicit indication that a title or name/title Authority record is for a work, expression, manifestation, or item". They noted that "RDA now includes instructions for authorized access points only for works and expressions but the format should not be limited to those two entities." They also noted that under AACR2 practice, some institutions have sometimes already made Authority records for manifestations.
While there are currently numerous FRBR implementations that use existing MARC 21 data to provide meaningful displays for users, it is believed that explicit coding in Bibliographic, Authority, and Holdings records to identify especially records for work and expressions access points will help to facilitate more effective displays and support for user tasks. It will also assist with the implementation of RDA, as issues relating to the definition and differentiation of work, expression, manifestation and item “records” or elements can be better explored. Explicitly identifying records at the appropriate FRBR group level will support validation and quality control tools that can assure appropriate use of elements (e.g., only allowing elements defined for expressions in expression-level records). This capability will ease the transition understanding of catalogers as they learn how to render the FRBR group 1 entities in MARC.
In FRBR terms, works and expressions are both abstract entities of intellectual and artistic content. More specifically, the entity referred to as a work is defined as a distinct intellectual or artistic creation. The entity defined as expression is the intellectual or artistic realization of a work (through a mode of expression such as language). A FRBR manifestation is the physical embodiment of an expression of a work. When a work is realized, the resulting expression of a work may be physically contained on or in a medium such as paper, video tape, etc. In other words, a manifestation can be viewed as the container for an expression of a work. And finally, an item is a single example of a manifestation, a concrete entity. Normally, at least for single part items, it is the same as the manifestation itself, but variations may occur for one item as a result of actions external to the intent of the producer, e.g., an author's signature on its title page.
RDA takes all of the elements of description and indicates the entity levels to which they could apply -- many elements have a “natural” level, but under certain circumstances may be descriptors for other levels. Some entity distinctions are not entirely clear, especially for unique material. Other elements may serve at multiple entity levels. For example, a book manifestation title could also be its default uniform title if the only manifestation of the conceptual work is manifested by the publication in hand.
Proposal 2009-01/3 analyzed the current record configurations that use the Authority record for name/title records and title records that represent the FRBR entities defined as works and expressions. It indicated that the Bibliographic records were typically describing manifestations, and that the Holding record was intended to record information about items. It also discusses an alternative configuration in which the Bibliographic record was used for work and expression records, rather than the Authority record, reserving the Authority record for Group 2 FRBR entities. Given the possibility that different agencies may use different formats for the FRBR Group 1 entities, the following new field is generalized and proposed for all three formats to support various configurations.
It is proposed that new field 883 (Entity Type) be defined in the MARC 21 Authority, Bibliographic, and Holdings formats to allow catalogers to identify explicitly the work, expression, manifestation, or item level of the majority of the information in a record. For use in testing and experimentation -- or uncertainty -- the 883 field would include a note field where the cataloger can explain unusual circumstances. Defining the field for the Authority, Bibliographic, and Holdings formats provides flexibility. The absence of field 883 in a Bibliographic record could be the default for a manifestation record. Holdings records would default to item records.
Under the current record configuration, in the authority file, the cataloger would base the indication of work or expression access points on the 1XX of the Authority record. If Bibliographic records were used for works or expressions, they would not contain a 245 but would contain a 130 or 240, whereas the Bibliographic records with 245 fields would all be manifestation records.
In the MARC 21 Bibliographic, Authority, and Holdings formats, define the following field:
In the following examples, 4.1 examples use the Authority format for name/title and title heading records whereas the 4.2 examples use the Bibliographic format for name/title and title work and expression records. Both use the Bibliographic format for manifestation records. Note that in 4.1 the work record related to the expression record is indicated in the Authority 5XX fields with subfield $i used to specify the relationship, and in 4.2 the Bibliographic 7XX $i is used for the same purpose.
Example 1:
Authority record for work heading:
001 aw1212
100 1# $aOndaatje, Michael,$d1943-. $tEnglish patient.
883 ## $awork $2frbrgroup1
Authority record for expression heading:
001 ae4545
100 1# $aOndaatje, Michael,$d1943-. $tEnglish patient. $lFrench
500 1# $ihas work $aOndaatje, Michael,$d1943-. $tEnglish patient $0aw1212
883 ## $aexpression $2frbrgroup1
Bibliographic record for manifestation:
001 bm3434
100 1# $aOndaatje, Michael, $d1943-
240 10 $aEnglish patient. $lFrench $0ae4545
245 13 $aLe patient anglais
883 ## $amanifestation$2frbrgroup1
Example 2:
Authority record for work heading:
001 aw1234
130 #0 $aBible
883 ## $bw $2frbrgroup1
Authority record for expression heading:
001 ae5678
130 #0 $aBible. $lEnglish. $sDouai. $f1845
530 #0 $ihas work $aBible $0aw1234
883 ## $be $2frbrgroup1
Bibliographic record for manifestation:
001 bm9101
130 0# $aBible. $lEnglish. $sDouai. $f1845 $0ae5678
245 14 $aThe Holy Bible, $ctranslated from the Latin Vulgate
883 ## $bm (optional to include) $2frbrgroup1
Example 1:
Bibliographic record for work:
001 bw8989
100 1# $aOndaatje, Michael, $d1943-
240 0# $aEnglish patient
883 ## $awork $2frbrgroup1
Bibliographic record for expression:
001 be5656
100 1# $aOndaatje, Michael, $d1943-
240 0# $aEnglish patient. $lFrench
700 ## $ihas work $aOndaatje, Michael, $d1943- $tEnglish patient $wbw8989
883 ## $aexpression $2frbrgroup1
Bibliographic record for manifestation:
001 bm7878
100 1# $aOndaatje, Michael,$d1943-
240 10 $aEnglish patient. $lFrench $wbe5656
245 13 $aLe patient anglais
883 ## $amanifestation $2frbrgroup1
Example 2:
Bibliographic record for work:
001 bw139
130 #0 $aBible
883 ## $awork $2frbrgroup1
Bibliographic record for expression:
001 be392
130 #0 $aBible. $lEnglish. $sDouai $f1845
730 ## $ihas work $aBible $wbw139
883 ## $aexpression $2frbrgroup1
Bibliographic record for manifestation:
001 bm9101
130 0# $aBible. $lEnglish. $sDouai. $f1845 $wbe392
245 14 $aThe Holy Bible, $ctranslated from the Latin Vulgate
883 ## $amanifestation $2frbrgroup1
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