[Web4lib] FRBR and beyond - can you draw it?

[Jakob Voss]

Hi Lars,

> Clear the table, cover it with a really big, blank paper and grab the
> finest pencil.  This work was written by this author, edited and
> printed by this publisher.  Then this person translated it to that
> language.  This actor with a smooth voice recorded an audio book of
> it.  But the 2nd edition of that audio book contained some 
> corrections.  The next printed edition had illustrations by this 
> artist, who had previously also illustrated a work by author B. 
> Authors A and B did not only have the same illustrator, but the same
> actor recorded audio books for booth.  After some years, the 
> illustrator and audio book recording actor teamed up and formed a 
> company, since they liked to work with the same authors.  Can you 
> draw that?

I bet this will not come out of libraries but only in the context of the
emerging Semantic Web and Information Visualization. For the data part see

http://fgiasson.com/blog/index.php/2007/04/15/the-bibliographic-ontology/

It's a shame that IFLA was not able to present an official RDF
representation of FRBR for years because of some silly licensing 
issuses, so Richard Newman and Ian Davis just did it on their own.
I bet like now libraries are running behind the Web 2.0 wave, they
are currently missing the beginnings of Semantic Web.

> Now imagine we're surfing over this huge paper, as if it was Google
> Maps.  It doesn't have to be entirely flat.  Subcategories could fold
> in and out, but at any one point we'd see more than just one library
> catalog card.  At the center of the screen might be one illustrated
> edition, but from there we'd see a line going to the illustrator and
> further on to the next book illustrated by the same person.  If we
> zoom out a bit, each edition becomes just a dot, but we could get a
> clearer view of the larger pattern of translations and adaptions.
> 
> Has anybody done even a demo, a prototype of this?

I don't think so, but information visualization is surely one of the 
next big things. Is there a master degree program or something like that 
to dig into it?

Greetings,
Jakob

-- 
Jakob Voß <jakob.voss at gbv.de>, skype: nichtich
Verbundzentrale des GBV (VZG) / Common Library Network
Platz der Goettinger Sieben 1, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
+49 (0)551 39-10242, http://www.gbv.de