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The Two Worlds of FRBR And the Best of Both Worlds

October 9, 2008

Dr. Vinod Chachra, President & Dr. Vinod Chachra, President & CEOCEO

VTLS Inc. Blacksburg, VA, USAVTLS Inc. Blacksburg, VA, USA

VTLS HQ in Blacksburg, VA, USA

About VTLS Inc.

First spin-off corporation from Virginia Tech (VT) - Virginia’s

largest University – home of System X - 3rd fastest

Supercomputer in the world when built from 1100 PCs

purchased off the web. Total cost under $5M.

Vinod Chachra served as VP for Information Tech at VT.

VTLS has offices in 7 countries; does business in 40.

VTLS has three major product lines Virtua – Alexandria Egypt; many National Libraries

VITAL – Fedora based Institutional Repository – developed in

partnership with the Australian ARROW project.

VTRAX – RFID based tracking & security systems for libraries

VTLS is a Worldwide CompanyPartner or Office* Locations

Australia*Brazil*BruneiEgyptFranceGreeceIndia*KuwaitMalaysia*PhilippinesRussia

Slovakia

Spain – European HQ*

Switzerland*

Tunisia

Taiwan

Thailand

UAE

USA*

Select Customers: National Libraries

Europe: National Library of SwitzerlandEurope: National Library of WalesEurope: National Library of IrelandEurope: Royal Library of BelgiumEurope: National Library of SlovakiaEurope: National Union catalog of PolandAfrica: Library of Alexandria (Egypt)Africa: Notional Library of MoroccoAsia: National Library of IndiaAsia: National Library of IndonesiaAsia: National Library of MalaysiaUnion Catalogs (regional) of Catalan and Switzerland

Work Work

Expression

Manifestation

Item

WW

FRBR Link Types: Group 1

WE

E W

E M

M E

M I

I M

Responsibility Relationships

Item

Manifestation

Expression

Work

Person / Corporate Body

FRBR Link Types: Group 2

R e a l i zed b y

P r o d u c ed b y

Cr e a t ed b y

Owned b y

A little History – Back in June/July 2003.

Navigating FRBR with Virtua

Vinod Chachra

& John Espley

ALA/ CLA, Toronto: Sunday, June 21 2003 AALL, Seattle: Sunday, July 13, 2003

VTLS shared 11 educational Power Points

All 11 Power Points produced in 2003 were provided freely on the VTLS web site as an educational tool Several Library schools used these power points to teach students on the details of FRBR with concrete examples The examples covered the following topics

A FRBR demonstration (FRBR1) FRBR Cataloging (FRBR2) FRBR OPAC (FRBR3) FRBR Work to Work Links (FRBR4) FRBR Multi Volume Sets (FRBR5) FRBR series (FRBR6) FRBR Collected and Selected Publications (FRBR7) FRBR Music Analytics (FRBR8) FRBR Journal Indexing (FRBR9) FRBR Super Works (FRBR10) FRBR Circulation Requests (FRBR11)

VTLS purchased LC Music Database

As a demonstration project, VTLS purchased the LC music database and FRBRized it to show the power and utility of FRBR. VTLS provided this free to the public for a period of time.

Present status of VTLS FRBR

In the last five years VTLS has sold only about 20 contracts for FRBR. The view in the library community seems to be that FRBR is still an experimental idea (wrong!) with an unknown future (wrong again!). Nevertheless, this is preventing rapid deployment of systems.

Recent Important Additions

VTLS recently developed FRBR SaaS (Software as a Service)

VTLS extended FRBR concept to create an Archival System

Two World Views of FRBR

There are two world views on FRBR

First View: The catalog should contain the “flat”records (as they are now) and these records should be FRBRized on the fly for display purposes.

Second View: The catalog should contain separate record of works, expressions, manifestations and items that are linked together by appropriate linking fields to form a “hierarchy” of linked records.

Strengths of First View

First View: The catalog should contain the “flat”records (as they are now) and these records should be FRBRized on the fly for display purposes.

It is simple to implement – does not require any changes to present cataloging practices and therefore it is easier to sell.

Requires no change in ILS data base structures as the record is only collocated on display.

As FRBR display management algorithms improve, no change in data is required to improve the display

Weaknesses of First View

The hierarchical results are built on the fly. Display algorithms have to be perfect as there is no possibility of intellectual intervention by humans to improve the displayed result sets. No advantages are gained in cataloging No possibility of making requests (Holds, ILLs)

At the work level (eg: user is willing to accept any expression of the work in any language) ORAt expression level (eg: user is will accept any edition of the work in the language of choice). At present Holds and ILLs are placed at the manifestation level.

Multiple calculations – each time a FRBR record is displayed it has to be re-assembled from flat records. Reverse tree displays are not easily possible

Strengths of Second View

Second View: The catalog should contain separate record of works, expressions, manifestations and items that are linked together by appropriate linking fields to form a “hierarchy” of linked records.

The record system matches the FRBR model Substantial productivity improvements in cataloging Fewer errors -- as data related to works and expressions are not repeated at lower levels Since the data at each level can be manually changed if needed, improvements are possible by human intervention (eg: handling spelling and language variations) Holds/ILLs can be placed at three levels instead of just one. Reverse trees can be easily displayed. Many other creative things are possible (The example of Archival Systems being used at National Library of Wales).

Weaknesses of Second View

Requires change in record structure to support linked records Harder for initial implementation (see new ideas on this) Requires catalogers to be retrained

Task can be reduced by better software See VTLS cataloging work-forms for each level See VTLS validation routines for each level

Requires “inertia” of existing implementations to be overcome

Views expressed by LOC and others

A recent report published by the Library of Congress called “On the record” states: LC and the library community need to find ways of “releasing the value” of their rich historic investment in semantic data onto the Web.

Tomothy Dickey (OCLC) in the article “FRBRization of a Library Catalog” states: “VTLS, on the other hand, has since 2004 offered a complete product that has the potential of modifying existing MARC records – via local linking tags in 001 and 004 fields – to create FRBR relationships… The VTLS solution of adding local linking tags seems most appropriate…The Virtua module from VTLS offers a very tempting solution, but may require a change of vendors”. Not really … see VTLS FRBR SAAS.

The Best of Both Worlds (Short Term)

FRBR SAAS (Software as a Service)

Allows library to keep their catalogs as they are

Allows users to see FRBR record from any traditional record

Allows clean and complete navigation between the traditional and FRBR record

Simple, no hassle solution

Recommended Implementation Options

Best Solution -- Implement a full FRBR solution See what UCL has done (next presentation) See other FRBR examples

Second Best Solution – Use FRBR SAAS Simple implementation Quick results Over time move to first solution

Bad Solution – Ignore the whole issue

FRBR Cataloging ImplementationFRBR Cataloging Implementation

VTLS FRBR Features

Single database can have FRBR and non-FRBR records

Display of FRBR records are in tree structure

System is “aware” of record type and changes displays as needed

Local level fields have values of W, E, and M to indicate type of FRBR record

001 and 004 used as linking tags

FRBR Cataloging

Creating an Original RecordUse FRBR work forms

VTLS provides three default work forms

Frbrwork.wfm Frbrexpr.wfm Frbrmanifest.wfm

Users can create their own work forms

In traditional cataloging the focus is on cataloging the manifestation as material on hand is the manifestation

VTLS is studying the cataloging practices to see if this remains true for FRBR

Bring record into editor

Change profile to “split record”

Save record

Virtua automatically creates three records – W,

E and M records from the one original record

The next example (Rowling) shows the process

Load Options Method

When creating FRBR records from

traditional bibliographic records, you need

duplicate control and merge functions for

Works and Expressions

Duplicate Control

The FRBRizationof the French

record resultedin adding an

expression (forthe French) to

the alreadyexisting Work

record.

Duplicate Control

Bring up Work record (or Expression

record)

Right Click

Select “Create Expression Record” (or

select “Create Manifestation Record”)

Example follows

Adding Expressions or Manifestations

Procedure for MARC “content designation”

validation of Work, Expression, and Manifestation

records is same as validating non-FRBR records

Three new validation files for FRBR with new

rules”

Rules can be modified by users by editing text file

Examples follow

Rules Based Validation

A FRBR SaaS ImplementationA FRBR SaaS Implementation

http://poseidon.vtls.com:8000/cgi-bin/gw_xyz/chameleon










FRBR SaaS Example [1 of 10 Search]

FRBR SaaS Example [2 of 10 Display]

FRBR SaaS Example [3 of 10 Select]

FRBR SaaS Catalog [4 of 10 Tree]

FRBR SaaS [5 of 10 Expand Tree]

FRBR SaaS Example [6 of 10 Navigate]

A FRBR Reverse TreeA FRBR Reverse Tree

FRBR Reverse Tree Example

Reverse Tree (M to E to W)

Advanced Navigation

From tree to tree

From tree to tree to tree

… to tree to tree (Monkey Business)

A FRBR Archival SystemA FRBR Archival System

Archives Management - Background

Archival management functionality in Virtua was a result of functional enhancement to Virtua for the National Library of Wales (NLW).

It was designed to allow NLW to preserve the content and arrangement of their existing archival collection materials and to maintain these collections in Virtua.

The functionality was first implemented in release 48 of Virtua and carried over to Release 49. In includes changes to Virtua server, client and iPortal.


Archival cataloguing differs from bibliographic cataloguing because archives, unlike most printed material, cannot be described in isolation.

An archive is, therefore, only fully understood only when there is knowledge of both its content, and also, its context. Content is generally understood through description, but context can only be reflected through arrangement.

Archival arrangement therefore involves the ordering of material to reflect its context.

Archival arrangement is reflected in the cataloguing through the use of a multilevel description system.


Rules for multilevel description are laid down in

“ISAD(G) General International Standard Archival Description”. It has 7 core levels:

Fonds

Sub-fonds

Sub-sub-fond

Series

Sub-series

Files

Items

Not all seven levels exist at all times.


Although the general rules describe 7 levels at present, VTLS was interested in providing a more general solution.

The system takes into account the possibility that more levels could be described in the future, so the implementation had to be flexible to handle this possibility.

The features were also designed in such a flexible manner so that other customers, who may wish to use the functionality, but who did not wish to conform to the seven level architecture could do so.

Cataloging Archival Material

Core foundation of cataloguing archival material is the ability to link bibliographic records together in the system:


A new 999 “Ancestry” tag defines the context of this record in relation to the records above it:


The parent id of each record is stored in the 004 tag

Three fields are stored: ParentID, sibling position, # levels


004 tag stores the parent id, the position of the record in relation to its siblings, and the number of levels between it and its parent record (Ex: vtlsxxxx 2 2) :

Cataloging Archival Material – Functions

Change Order:


Add/Remove Levels:


Print Record Tree:

Searching Archival Material - iPortal

Accessing the record tree:


The system highlights the title in the tree that the user launched the record tree from for easy context:


New ability to expand and/or collapse the tree completely:


Expanded tree highlights:

1. Gaps are removed for easier display

2. Tree can be kept in a scrollable area to keep it in context with full card info below


Accessing the record tree from a title lower in the tree:

Searching Archival Material Database

Database that includes archival records 193.61.220.19 -- version 49.1.6 -- port 9985 Access by Bibid

Parent Bib Child Bib4180743 4171275 4180747 4171266 4180747 4171267 4180743 4171276 4180754 4171283 4180747 4171268 4180747 4171269 4180754 4171282 4180740 4171258 4180747 4171271 4180747 4171270

For Librarians

Collocation

Better organization to catalog

Easier cataloging

Reduction in cataloging load

Work only cataloged once for all expressions under it

Expression only cataloged once for all manifestations under it

Item cataloging (already simple) remains the same

Summary -- FRBR Benefits

Summary -- FRBR Benefits

Easier to find information Single search retrieves all related materials even

if cataloged in different languages or different subject headings

Greater Benefits For Users Collocation Easier to find information

Single search retrieves all related materials

Easier to see the different expressions of a single work Gives a better global picture

Library Task List

Read FRBR documentation

Study FRBR implementations to see benefits for

library

If there is interest, start a FRBR program

Have VTLS run “Virtua FRBR Analysis Program” to determine what percentage of database records are good FRBR candidates

General results: 5-15 % range

Use ThingISBN or X-ISBN id appropriate

Summary -- FRBR Preparation

The future is even brighter

Think about a discovery tools for FRBR Think about an automatic FRBR equivalent display for

Copy cataloging Discovery Search expansion Collection management

Think about a FRBR union catalog Think about a FRBR global union catalog

A Thought

Poor technology fosters competition.

Great technology

promotes partnerships

Questions …

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