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
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