[DCRB-L] Re: General principles draft, 20021116 (fwd)

[Laurence Creider]

I worked on the following last night and again this afternoon and am not
completely happy with this response to John's thoughtful considerations,
but I have reached the point where someone else's eyes will be more likely
to advance disucssion. My comments are interpersed following John's
points.
	Larry	

On Fri, 6 Dec 2002, John Attig wrote:

> 
> I'm going to pull out one paragraph of Larry's response for comment.  It 
> hit me immediately, and is also a significant issue that the DCRB revision 
> must face.
> 
> By way of preface, one of the issues that we have to deal with is 
> granularity of description:  what do we call the various aggregates of 
> individual copies that we need to deal with, and how do we decide which 
> aggregates to describe.  At this time, we are caught between two different 
> terminological schemas.  On the one hand, we have the traditional 
> bibliographic terms: edition, issue, impression, state.  On the other hand, 
> we have the more formal data model contained in the Functional Requirements 
> for Bibliographic Records. Unfortunately, it is not exactly clear how these 
> two conceptual schemas overlay each other.  That's the point that Larry is 
> addressing below and on which I believe the DCRB revision process needs to 
> come to some conclusions.
> 

Another way of putting this is what exactly are we cataloging?  What is
the subject of the bibliographic record?  As far as I can tell FRBR is
intended to be sufficiently flexible that the traditional bibliographic
terms can all be included under Manifestation and Expression.  FRBR also
seems to be saying that while the other distinctions are valid, they need
not be explicitly mentioned in the FRBR scheme for their objectives to be
accomplished.

> At 10:46 AM 12/6/2002, Laurence Creider wrote:
> >While John is correct to say that a different manifestation means a
> >different expression when there are changes, the FRBR report does say that
> >a different manifestation may mean a different expression, but not always.
> >Octavo, quarto, duodecimo, and London and Dublin 18th century editions of
> >the Spectator are different manifestations but not different expressions.
> >On the other hand, the Spectator and the essays from the Spectator are
> >different expressions, as are groups of the essays by the individual
> >authors.  The FRBR report does say that the manifestation and item
> >entities can be used to describe subgroups, but the writers do not expand
> >on this.  We need some terminology for the classes between manifestation
> >and items, such as states and issues.  Sometimes we need to or feel the
> >need to make bibliographic records to represent individual states and
> >issues, sometimes even (as in the case of the Folger's First Folios or
> >some incunables), we need to create separate records for individual items.
> >These obviously fit into the category of serving the user function of
> >identification, but perhaps we need to propose that the categories of
> >manifestation and item need fuller amplication in the FRBR model.  Of
> >course, these issues may also fit in with Group 6's mission.
> 
> I agree with Larry's first point.  A manifestation that contains changes in 
> content (as opposed to simple changes in form) would be a new expression, 
> but a manifestation which was an unchanged reprint of a previous 
> manifestation would not.
> 
> I'm not sure, however, that I agree with his application of this principle 
> to differences in bibliographic format.  Unless my knowledge of descriptive 
> bibliography is seriously deficient, I believe that octavo, quarto and 
> duodecimo manifestations BY DEFINITION must involve distinct settings of 
> type.  To my mind, this means that it is almost impossible that the 
> resetting does not involve changes of content -- those changes may be of 
> varying significance, but there are differences.
> 

Absolutely, a resetting of type inevitably will involve differences.  The
same is true of every manuscript representation of a text.  Is every
manuscript or every resetting of type a different expression?  If so, the
only time there would _not_ be a one-to-one correlation between expression
and manifestation would be in the case of reproductions.  I always assumed
that the notion of an expression could include the same text issued by
different publishers.  What is the conceptual utility to the distinction
between expression and manifestation for anything other than facsimiles
and micro/macro-reproductions?  I am assuming that the developers of FRBR
felt there was some purpose to the distinction between the "incarnated"
manifestation and an expression not bound to a particular physical
embodiment (can one have a virtual embodiment for an electronic text?).


> In terms of cataloging rules for hand-printed books, we need to decide 
> whether "change of content" in the FRBR use of the term means only 
> significant and/or intentional changes, or whether -- in the special case 
> of hand-printed books -- any resetting of type is by definition a new 
> expression.  I don't think it would be difficult to make a case for the 
> latter; it is certainly the basis of the definition of "edition" in the 
> current DCRB (based on a definition by Tanselle).  Personally, I find this 
> to be more in keeping with traditional bibliographic treatment of 
> hand-printed books.  On the other hand, it would be possible to justify the 
> former interpretation on the grounds of similarity to how we handle 
> machine-printed books.
> 

If we do adopt the second of John's interpretations and say that any
resetting of type is a new expression, then we could end up saying that
states and issues are different expressions unless we specify complete
resetting of type after the forms have been broken up and the type
redistributed (is this always easy to determine?).  We then have a concept
of expression that covers everything from translations to attempts to
produce the same character strings in a different format.  Again, what is
the usefulness of such a concept?  And what do we do with texts issued by
the same publisher from "corrected plates" with or without a new date on
the t.p. verso?  From what I can read, the relationship between expression
and manifestation is either too restrictive or too loose to be useful for
folks dealing with rare materials of any sort.  We need to have some
language to deal with these intermediate steps not merely for handpress
books but also for moving graphic images, electronic resources and
manuscripts.  I do think we can and should point out that FRBR is perhaps
too loose here and that we need some other terms between expression and
item or expression and manifestation.


> Group Six, I understand, will be looking at questions of edition, issue and 
> impression -- and basically when to make a new record.  Although we don't 
> have to map our decisions to FRBR terminology, it might be helpful to use 
> FRBR terms to describe what we are doing.  We definitely have to be clear 
> about when to make a new record; as Larry notes, there may not be a single 
> answer -- I'm thinking of a default position, with guidelines to help the 
> cataloger decide when a more detailed treatment (describing variant states 
> of an edition, for example) might be appropriate.
> 

I agree that we should allow for differences here.  Even in a shared
database, there must be room for local needs to determine what is actually
being cataloged.  

One of the strong points of the FRBR framework is that it allows the
notion of a work to be "socially" determined, determined by the needs of
the particular group describing materials.  One can talk about the "work"
called Reynard the Fox, but one can also talk about a particular version
as a separate work.  Similarly, the Lindisfarne Gospels are a work to some
scholars, but to students of the history of the text of the Latin (and Old
English) Bible, they are a particular manifestation.  Maybe we need the
same sort of flexibility to be more explicitly brought out in the
definitions of expression and manifestation (I know it is there already to
some extent).

> There is a lot more to say about this, but I'll stop here. > 
> Further comments welcome.
> 

Ditto.  I'm not quite sure where I or we are headed with all this, but the
process should be interesting and, I hope, useful.

Laurence S. Creider
Head, General Cataloging Unit
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, NM  88003
Work: 505-646-4707
Fax: 505-646-7477
lcreider at lib.nmsu.edu