From Open Knowledge Foundation

About FRBR

FRBR = Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records

• Work
  • Expression (aka Edition)
    • Manifestation
      • Item

Good overviews in [1] and [2].

Notes

• Bibliographic records correspond to a Manifestation (or even an Item).
• Manifestation: actual book with isbn, cd, dvd etc
• Translations: either new work or new expression (hard to tell -- see diagram in [1])
  • From our point of view prefer they count as new works but marked as derivative (derivative) works by copyright law.

Examples

Book: The Forsyte Saga by Galsworthy

• au: Galsworthy
• work: Forsyte Saga
• expression: Forsyte Saga X Edition
• manifestation: Penguin book isbn XXXXX published ...

Book: Guizot's Hamlet (tr. of Shakespeare's Hamlet)

• au: Guizot
• work: Hamlet (by Shakespeare or by Guizot?)
  • translation-of: Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• expression: Hamlet by Guizot (first created/published at ....)
• manifestation: isbn YYYY published

Recording: von Karajan recording of Beethoven Symphony No. 1 in A minor

• work (composition): Beethoven Symphony in A minor
• work: (recording/performance): von Karajan recording
  • performance-of: composition work
  • date ...
• expression: ???
• manifestation (release)
  • may contain many recordings
  • has tracks etc

Bibliography

1. http://www.loc.gov/cds/downloads/FRBR.PDF
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_Requirements_for_Bibliographic_Records
3. http://openlibrary.org/about/frbrization
4. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicat#Design
5. http://vocab.org/frbr/core.html
6. http://cidoc.ics.forth.gr/docs/frbr_oo/frbr_docs/FRBR_oo_V0.8.1c.pdf
7. http://knowledgeforge.net/pdw/hg/file/tip/docs/frbr.txt
8. http://www.frbr.org/