Understanding FRBR: What It is and How It will Affect Our Retrieval Tools

Citation

du Preez, M. (2008), "Understanding FRBR: What It is and How It will Affect Our Retrieval Tools", The Electronic Library, Vol. 26 No. 5, pp. 766-767. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640470810910837

Cataloguers and bibliographers have successfully been using the second edition of the Anglo American Cataloguing Rules (AACR2) to standardise bibliographic records since 1988. However, the types of media we acquire are continuously changing and these changes are posing new challenges to the AACR2. While working on the third edition of AACR2, it was evident that a new edition would not improve access to information through the bibliographic records that represent them in online catalogues and that a whole new cataloguing theory needed to be conceptualised. The new resource description and access (RDA) format is the result of the conceptualisation process.

RDA rests on two conceptual models: functional requirements for bibliographic records (FRBR) and functional requirements for authority data (FRAD). The purpose of the book called Understanding FRBR: What It is and How It will Affect Our Retrieval Tools, is to introduce FRBR and FRAD as well as to explain the relationship between them.

The first two chapters give a basic introduction to FRBR and FRAD. Taylor (p. 4) explains FRBR is based on the entity‐attribute‐relationship model. This model identifies the entities of interest to users of bibliographic systems, identifies the attributes of interest to users for each entity, and specifies the relationships that operate between entities. Patton explains FRAD's conceptual model for authority data in Chapter 2 before discussing the entities on which authority records are based and explaining the relationships between authority and bibliographic data. Chapter 3 focuses on the relationship between FRBR and FRAD and looks at what it means to extend the FRBR model to cover the data recorded in authority records.

The following three chapters are focused on the development of FRBR. These chapters describe how ideas such as the use of axioms, user needs, the “work”, and standardisation and internationalisation came together to become FRBR. Some attention is paid to the research into and development of the new FRBR model as well as the process of using FRBR as a basis for RDA. Tillet's (p. 94) view that the foundation of FRBR and cataloguing principles will remain constant is a comforting thought for cataloguers who are wondering whether the implementation of RDA early in 2009 will revolutionise cataloguing.

The final six chapters discuss various issues involved in the application of FRBR in different information environments such as archives, art, cartographic materials, moving image materials, music, and serials. These are some of the formats which greatly challenged AACR2 as a cataloguing standard. Various authors explore the possibilities brought about by digital technology's introduction to traditional cataloguing practices.

Taylor is known for the books she has edited on bibliographic control issues. She and her colleagues have succeeded to introduce FRBR to librarians, librarians, systems designers, library and information science faculty and students in Understanding FRBR. They have managed to place the FRBR model in context and indicate some of the practical and helpful applications thereof.

No cataloguer, bibliographic systems designer or library and information science lecturers and students should be without this book. It is a useful resource in acquiring an understanding of what FRBR is about and how it will change the way in which cataloguers will think about cataloguing in future.