FRBR is indeed about both. It is a conceptual model of the bibliographic
universe: entities, their attributes, the relationships between them.

Perhaps the relationships aspect of FRBR receives the most attention
because it is the aspect represented least well in our current
cataloging corpus.

I see the OpenFRBR idea as indeed being to create this sort of open
database of bib data that people are talking about as "OpenMARC",
although I guess OpenFRBR wouldn't be about MARC neccesarily. What are
the pros and cons of storing the data in MARC? Nevermind, I dont' even
want to have that conversation again, we already did that.

[But I think MARC is _probably_, generally capable of representing fully
FRBR-congruent data. The way it's used just _isn't_ that way, and isn't
used consistently in some areas of importance.  There might actually be
value in using MARC in an OpenFRBR experiment precisely to identify:
Possibly ways to represent FRBR data in MARC, if applied consistently;
and the (probably minority) of areas in which MARC is _not_ sufficient
to represent FRBR-congruent data.

Of course, at the moment, OpenFRBR is just an idea, so it's all things
to all people. We'll see what things to what people it ends up being, I
hope.]

Jonathan

Kevin Kierans wrote:
> OpenMARC-like tool would be GREAT!
> But isn't FRBR about the relationships between things,
> not the things themselves?
> (Not that we can't do both!)
> Kevin
>
>

--
Jonathan Rochkind
Sr. Programmer/Analyst
The Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
410.516.8886
rochkind (at) jhu.edu