Karen Coyle - FRBR, Before and After: A Look at Our Bibliographic Models

G o to your bookshelf and pull off a book; any book. It may be one you have read many times, or it could be one that is still on your to read list. Take a look at it. It may be bound with the flimsy cardboard of a paperback sporting a slick, shiny cover. Or the pages could be held between the cloth-covered boards of a quality hardback. It is unlikely, however, unless you are either very wealthy or very lucky, that your fingers will be touching a fine leather binding.

It is probable that you did not purchase the book for its physical appearance, as appealing as that may be, but for its content. Thats where things get complicated in our story: complicated because it is very hard to say what the content consists of. Words, yes, but you didnt buy just a set of words, unless your book is a dictionary. No, you bought this book for the story it tells or for the information it imparts. You may have been seeking entertainment, or to learn something new (and happy is the person who gets both!). Although the story or the information came to you as words, you may not be able to recite even a small passage verbatim. We read the words but we remember the meaning, another concept that is difficult to define.

If I ask you some questions about the book, some will be easy to answer, some more difficult. I could ask you for the title, and most likely you know that. The same for the author. You could surely tell me what the book is about, either with a topic (its a history of the Venetian Republic) or a story (its about a girl who lives on the prairie and what she and her family go through to survive). Chances are, though, that if I ask you who published the book, youll be taking a sneak peek at the title page or the spine to find that information. The place and date of publication will not only be less imprinted in your consciousness but they may actually be a bit hard to find. The precise number of pages is another undeniable fact about the book that may not be on the tip of your tongue.

As a reader, it is the reading experience and what it leaves behind in your memory that makes up the inherent value of the book. And we do know that readers value their books. There would be no other reason to use the bulk of the wall space of ones home for shelves for book storage, or, when moving to a new home, to pack, lug, and unpack untold pounds of what appears to be inert tree pulp.

Now lets leave books behind and look at other media. Just as many of us love our books, we also have among us many music lovers; people with towering racks of CDs or digital devices chock full of tunes. Here, though, we find some differences from our book story. Ask a music lover the author (composer) of a tune and you may be asking the obvious (Beethovens 5th symphony) or not (Santa Claus Is Coming to Town), even though both pieces of music are easily recognizable when heard. They are recognizable also because, unlike books, we listen to the same piece of music many times, and in different versions. This is a function of the fact that music is performed. Some performances are faithful interpretations of the music, and others, like jazz or digital sampling, are creative distortions of the original.

Music lovers with sufficient talent can reproduce a version of the music either by humming, singing, or playing the music on an instrument. We remember the notes of music in a way that we do not remember the words of a book. But if asked what the music is about we are in some difficulty in most cases. Unless the music has a specific story attached to it, such as Sergei Prokofievs Peter and the Wolf, or the teen drama of Dead Mans Curve, much music does not have a plot or a message that translates to aboutness.

Other information that only dedicated aficionados of a music genre can relate about their listening choices are date of recording; names of all performers; date of composition; number and types of instruments. Asked what type of music we like, the answers are broad categories like rock, jazz, classical, or country; or sometimes a more specific category, still covering a wide swath: heavy metal; mostly Mozart; Irish folk music; Reggae.

Books and music are two common creative forms that many of us encounter in our everyday lives, and yet what we know about them and how we interact with them are quite different. Now lets look at another creative form: computer games. A player will know the name of the game, the general plot of the play (capture castle, defeat enemy, solve puzzle), and the names of characters. She will also know what capabilities she has as a player (running, jumping, opening doors). If it is a multi-player game, she will know the names of other playersthat is, the names they are using in the game. She may not, however, be able to respond to the question who wrote or created the game? Games often do not have measurable durations although some have ending points, so asking how long is it? may not make sense.