Implementing FRBR in Libraries: Key Issues and Future Directions
by Yin Zhang and Athena Salaba

Implementing FRBR in Libraries is a textbook-like review of the bibliographic model Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records intended to inform a broad range of library and information professionals about the “state of the art” FRBR.

 It is written by Yin Zhang and Athena Salaba, two Kent State University School of Library and Information Science professors, noted for their research in this field, and winners of the Bohdan S. Wynar Research Paper Competition for their paper, “What is Next for FRBR? A Delphi Study” (Library Journal 79, no. 2 p. 233-255).  They appear to be recasting the materials of the Delphi Study for a broader audience. The book covers a general introduction to FRBR and explains the FRBR model.  The authors summarize what is essentially the same as their Delphi study findings in the chapters “Impact of FRBR on Current Cataloging Standards and Practice,” “FRBR Application,” and “FRBR Research.”  They distinguish between the terms “application” and “implementation”; application pertains to FRBR treatments of different materials and settings and implementation pertains to its use in search and retrieval systems.  End matter includes a helpful appendix of acronyms, a list of FRBR implementation examples, each with a summary, developer and URL, and an index.
The explanation of the FRBR model is clear and concise.  Zhang and Salaba choose not to depart from the diagramming from the IFLA document, in contrast to what Robert L. Maxwell had done with positive results in his FRBR: a Guide for the Perplexed (2008). They point out that another way to understand the Group 1 entities is to take a bottom-up approach (p. 17).  This may be a helpful pedagogical strategy.

Chapter 3, “Impact of FRBR on Current Cataloging Standards and Practice,” is the section bound to attract the most interest from the OLAC community. The authors describe the way FRBR has infiltrated the International Cataloging Code, ISBD, and AACR3, which became RDA.  Criticisms (notably that of Coyle and Hillman) and defenses of RDA were balanced.  Two telling questions are posed about the future of MARC: can MARC formats express FRBR and is MARC the future of FRBR catalog records.  The answers appears to be under limited circumstances and maybe.  The authors anticipated the publication of RDA in November 2009, followed by national libraries testing, so they are unclear how much change RDA will bring to cataloging practice.  They do capture the current angst when they comment, “Because RDA is still under development and there is lingering uncertainty as to when and how it might be implemented, the cataloging community is anxiously waiting to see what the future holds for cataloging", but they are optimistic that "the impact of RDA on current records will be minimal, and it will not be costly to implement it” (p. 46).
Materials in chapter 5, “FRBR Implementations in Library Catalogs,” ranges beyond the Delphi Study by reviewing projects which the authors categorize as full-scale systems, prototypes or experimental systems, and algorithms and software. The full-scale, or live, systems were WorldCat.org and the UCLA Film and Television Archive’s online catalog.  In the reviewer’s opinion, more detail and better figures would have improved this section.  Some of the prototypes were already inactive at the time of writing.

Zhang and Salaba mention several times, and most explicitly in their final chapter, that FRBR is not yet validated by user research, “Although FRBR has a strong user focus, current FRBR development has largely reflected researchers’ or developers’ perspectives for the user, and there has essentially been little to no user research done in FRBR, particularly from users’ perspectives” (p. 128).  The statement is quite similar to that of the Delphi Study, performed in 2007, and unfortunately, there has still been very little progress in this area.  With RDA set for release in June 2010, followed by a 270-day testing period, and a national libraries report thereafter, FRBR development faces a dilemma: the model cannot be tested without records based on a standard, and users studies need to be based on live systems. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the Delphi Study and this monograph both rate as the number one issue the “Need to develop cataloging rules in line with FRBR” (p. 127).

The early chapters are helpful for “catching” up on FRBR.  However, the detail that practicing catalogers yearn for is not available in the text, but is located in the citations.  Some repetition occurs across chapters, as though they were written independently, which makes the reading somewhat tedious. Accordingly, the chapter bibliographies tend to repeat many of the same materials.  A single bibliography may have been more effective way to communicate the citations.  A certain amount of energy is lacking in the summaries, perhaps because the authors do not want to overstep the conclusions of the Delphi Study.  The book would have been more satisfying and thought-provoking if the authors had shared their viewpoint on the direction FRBR needs to take.  The Kent State FRBR study (to be completed September 2010) will hopefully provide them such an opportunity.

Published in 2009 by: Neal-Schuman, New York. (xiv, 154 p.) ISBN: 978-1-55570-661-6 (alk. paper $00.00).

Reviewed by Scott M. Dutkiewicz
Special  Formats Cataloger
Clemson University Libraries
Clemson University

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Understanding the Semantic Web: Bibliographic Data and Metadata by Karen Coyle

 “Metadata is data about data.”  This has been the standard definition of metadata for a while.  Understanding the Semantic Web: Bibliographic Data and Metadata by Karen Coyle finally makes the term “metadata” really mean something. The analogies and examples used turn an esoteric concept into something relatable.  In doing so, Coyle lays the essential groundwork for explaining another difficult-to-grasp concept that makes up the rest of the report. Arguing that librarians need to “data-fy the data” so that computers can better understand the information stored in library catalogs, she makes a persuasive case that it is essential to rethink the catalog in the context of an increasingly connected information world so that libraries can remain relevant. The information world that Coyle describes lives in the ever-evolving, ever-changing World Wide Web. More specifically, that world, that Web, will be more semantic in nature. 

The Semantic Web will be, or is, a network in which computers will be able to talk to and interact with other computers. Links in web documents will not simply take users to a new location on the Web, but to related information, based on computers’ ability to “understand” the context and meaning of the data itself. In this sort of environment, data on the web could provide access to library catalog data, and conversely, library data could enrich resources on the Web by using established concepts like authority control and uniform titles.

Reading Coyle’s report is a difficult endeavor and leaves readers looking elsewhere for clarification and explanation most of the way through its 31 pages. The report needed more analogies, like the ones that made her explanation of metadata at the beginning of the report so clear. She gave examples and made reference to diagrams in the text that often confused more than clarified.  Explaining something as vast and technical as the Semantic Web is a formidable task for anyone, even someone of Coyle’s great ability. The majority of catalogers and other librarians will have a very hard time grasping something so complex, preferring instead to stay in the back seat working hard at their jobs while letting Coyle and other leaders in the field do the driving. Library Technology Reports is not subtitled Expert Guides to Library Systems and Services for nothing.

This is not reading for the faint of heart.  Coyle does as good a job in taking an abstract concept and making it accessible to everyone; however, the reader must be more conversant with the terminology and conceptual models of computer networking architectures and languages to benefit more fully from Coyle’s erudite explanations. The reader can gain a surface-level comprehension of the Semantic Web it on which to build that knowledge; and therefore, the report is recommended reading to anyone who wants to see where the library catalog needs to go and why it must go there.   It is very dense reading, and might take a reader quite some time, and even longer to fully understand what the Semantic Web is all about. But hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Nor, for that matter, was the World Wide Web.

Published in 2010 by: American Library Association, Chicago. (31 p.) ISSN: 0024-2586
Series: Library Technology Reports: Expert Guides to Library Systems and Services

Reviewed by:
Chris Fox
Head of Cataloging
Brigham Young University—Idaho