Kelley, this is great! Thanks. And since you already have so much written up, would you consider going a bit further and offering it to the code4lib journal? My reasons are selfish -- i'd like to be able to find and cite this in the future. Later I may have a few comments. kc Quoting Kelley McGrath <[log in to unmask]>: > We called it "FRBR-inspired" since it probably wouldn't pass muster > as an orthodox FRBR interpretation. We were looking to experiment > with a practical approach that we thought would make it much easier > for patrons to discover moving images in libraries and archives. If > you haven't read it, the "about" page gives a general overview of > our approach at http://blazing-sunset-24.heroku.com/page/about > > Our top level is a combination of FRBR work information and > information about what we are calling the "primary expression." We > haven't made any internal distinction between these two types of > information. This enables us to record together the data that we > think people expect to see about the generic moving image and > reflects the sort of information that is given in IMDb, the All > Movie Guide, and film and TV reference sources. This is also the > data that we would want to re-use in every MARC record for a > manifestation of a given movie. > > This also allowed us to get around some of the areas of more > orthodox FRBR modeling that we found unhelpful. For example, FRBR > doesn't allow language at the Work level, but we think it is > important to record the original language of a moving image at the > top level. In addition, RDA has mapped a number of functions, such > as art director, costume designer and performer, to the expression > level. We would prefer to present these at the top level. It is hard > to imagine a version of Gone With the Wind with a different costume > designer or cast that would still be the same work. So all the Seven > Samurai data you listed above belongs either to the work or the > primary expression. > > We mingle expression, manifestation and item information in the > version facets on the right. We don't show any explicit expression > records. In this demonstration we are not actually identifying any > unique expressions, although in the future we will probably want to > do this for what I think of as "named expressions." Since this is a > demo, we are working with a limited number of attributes and the > only expression-level facets we provide are soundtrack and subtitle > languages. > > In this sense, our approach is similar to the near manifestation > idea that Simon mentioned. We are not trying to assert that we have > identified particular expressions. Rather, we are trying to provide > a mechanism for the user to identify the set of items that meet > their needs. It is not clear to me that libraries are always in a > position to accurately identify expressions. > > Rather than providing a hierarchical view where the user selects a > work, then an expression, and so on, as is common in FRBR > presentations, we permit the user to begin at any FRBR level. The > user is invited to limit by as many characteristics as they desire > to delineate the set of things that they are interested in. They > only need to select as many attributes as are important to them and > no more. This may not meet the needs of all scholars, but we hope > that it will meet the vast majority of general purpose user needs. > > It's a bit of a different approach than I have seen elsewhere, but I > think it works particularly well for moving images. One of the main > reasons I think this is because of the types of expressions that > predominate in commercial moving images. I will try to explain some > of my thoughts on types of expressions below. > > 1. Expressions that can be reduced to controlled vocabulary options > > These are the most common types of commercial moving image > expressions, especially in the DVD era. They are distinguished by > characteristics that such as > > Soundtrack language(s) > Subtitle language(s) > Accessibility options (captioning, SDH, and audio description) > Aspect ratio (although in this era of widescreen TVs, full screen > modifications are less common) > Colorization > Soundtracks for silent films > > These can be full described based on standardized data (although for > the silent film soundtracks, this would involve multiple pieces of > information, i.e., musical work, composer, conductor, performer(s), > etc.) > > DVD often contain what essentially are multiple expressions in that > they offer multiple soundtrack and subtitle options and may offer > multiple aspect ratios. A silent film on DVD may come with alternate > soundtracks. All of these can be combined in various ways by the > viewer, which can make for a large number of expressions contained > in a single manifestation. > > 2. Named expressions > > These are versions that are different in moving image content due to > have been edited differently. Examples include > > Theatrical release > Director's cut > Unrated version > > Although Martha Yee found a strong correlation between differences > in duration and the likelihood that two things represented two > different expressions, this doesn't always work. The archetypical > example of Blade Runner was released on DVD with five different > versions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versions_of_Blade_Runner), > all of which had run times within a few minutes of each other. These > types of expressions would benefit from their own identifier and > some sort of separate display. In public and academic libraries, > this type of moving image expression is far less common than the > first type. There are no examples of this type of expression in our > sample data. > > Many more subtle expressions of this type cannot practically be > identified by the individual library cataloger because the > publishers do not provide the necessary information. Many films > released on DVD have been remastered or restored or modified in some > way, but it is not clear how to usefully or consistently record this > information even when it is provided in some form. For example, it > sometimes seems like every release of the Star Wars films must be > slightly different, but the videos don't come labeled in any way > that's useful for identifying them. There is a page at Wikipedia > tracking some changes > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_changes_in_Star_Wars_re-releases) and > an enormous thread on the release of the original theatrical > versions > (http://sideshowcollectors.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12157). > > > 3. Manifestations with additional content > > Many manifestation could be considered to be new expressions because > of the presence of additional content. These types of expression > don't affect the content of the moving image work itself. These > additions could be potentially treated in a couple ways and the > decisions of individual cataloging agencies are likely to vary. > > a) Additional content recognized as a work in its own right > > Any additional content is theoretically a work in its own right, but > there is a cost-benefit analysis involved in deciding to treat it > that way. In some cases, DVDs come with bonus features that contain > content that the library might potentially have bought (or has > already bought) independently. These would benefit from being > described as separate works. There are a couple examples of this in > our data set. If you do a search for Citizen Kane, you'll get the > movie plus a TV documentary called The Battle Over Citizen Kane. > Both of these have been issued separately, but the manifestation > listed as " DVD (2001)" under both titles represents the same > manifestation, which includes the TV documentary as supplementary > content. Whether it is necessary to inform users in some way that > these are on the same disc at this point or not, I am not sure. > > b) Undifferentiated additional content listed with the manifestation > > DVDs often come with an abundance of special features, most of which > are probably not worth the time it would take to describe them as > separate works. We have not included any of this type of information > in the demo, but one possibility would just be to list the content > with each manifestation. > > > Merging the expression and manifestation facets gave us a simpler > interface and we don't think it harms most viewer's ability to find > what they want. The four levels of FRBR make a lot of sense from a > theoretical perspective (although it is easy to see that there often > are multiple layers of expressions and that works have many > recursive relationships). For moving images, in many cases, users > care more about the manifestation format (DVD vs. VHS vs. Blu-ray > vs. streaming) than about expression characteristics. > > There is also not always a hard and fast line between what goes in a > record as expression and manifestation information. For example, > Criterion Collection is generally recorded as a publisher. However, > for many users, it likely serves as a proxy for expression since > Criterion is known for the quality of its videos. According to their > website, "Every time we start work on a film, we track down the best > available film elements in the world, use state-of-the-art telecine > equipment and a select few colorists capable of meeting our rigorous > standards, then take time during the film-to-video digital transfer > to create the most pristine possible image and sound. Whenever > possible, we work with directors and cinematographers to ensure that > the look of our releases does justice to their intentions." > (http://www.criterion.com/about_us) > > Well, that was a bit of a long-winded reply and didn't really answer > your question, but I hope it was helpful in framing what we're > trying to do. This is still very much an experiment and there are a > number of data modeling problems that I glossed over in order to > make the demo work, but which would have to be resolved for a > larger-scale application. > > Kelley > > > Karen Coyle wrote: >> >> Kelley, >> >> do you have somewhere documentation on which properties/attributes are >> associated with each FRBR entity? I ask this in part out of my >> ignorance of moving image cataloging, and therefore I am having >> trouble translating from the FRBR documentation to what appears in >> your prototype. I did my usual search on "seven samurai" and the >> display (which I assume represents the Work) reads (in part): >> >> Alternate Title: >> Seven Samurai >> Director: >> Kurosawa, Akira, 1910-1998 >> Genres: >> Feature; Fiction; Drama; >> Language: >> Japanese >> Country: >> Japan >> Original Aspect: >> Full screen ( 1.37:1 ) >> Run Time: >> 206 >> Color: >> B&W >> Sound: >> Sound >> >> I'm curious as to which are Work attributes and which are Expression >> attributes. Also, is there an example that shows one work and multiple >> expressions? >> >> kc > -- Karen Coyle [log in to unmask] http://kcoyle.net ph: 1-510-540-7596 m: 1-510-435-8234 skype: kcoylenet