Navigating Through Voyager: Should FRBR be in our Future?

Jennifer Bowen

University of Rochester

October 2002

Our Dilemma: Usability + Our Vision + Voyager = ??? Usability testing: Students want a passive entry into the catalog

Our Vision: provide entre into the academic discourse of a discipline

Q: Does Voyager keyword relevance searching provide for our Vision?

Susan B. Anthony Keyword Search – The 21 top hits…

1. Biography2. Biography3. Biography4. Susan B. Anthony

Preservation District5. Her Writings6. Biography7. Biography8. Biography9. Correspondence10. Virgil Thomson opera

recording11. Biography

12 Proceedings of her Trial13 Virgil Thomson opera

recording14 Music from the Ken

Burns film 15 The Ken Burns film16 Biography17 Biography18 Analysis of her writings19 Women’s Studies

Newsletter20 Her papers21 Biography

Why is This Better?

Collocation: materials with the same or related content are grouped together.

Easier navigation through search results

Precise results with simple search queries.

Q: What could help us to achieve this?

FRBR: Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records

1997 IFLA document http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/frbr/frbr.htm

Theoretical model for library catalogs

Uses Entity-Relationship modeling

(entities, relationships, attributes)

Relates all aspects of the catalog directly to user needs/tasks.

FRBR User Tasks

Find through searching

Identify “Is this what I was looking for?”

Select Which best suits the user’s needs?

Obtain “How do I get this?”

FRBR Group 1 Entities

Work

Expression

Manifestation

Item

Goethe’s “Faust”

L. Filmore’s English translation of Faust

As published by W. Smith, 1847

The copy owned by my library

Current FRBR Applications

Framework for designing new systems AustLit – Australian literature database

http://austlit.lib.adfa.edu.au:6160/run?skel=search1

Cadensa – British Library Sound Archives http://cadensa.bl.uk

Add FRBR-based capabilities to existing systemsOCLC: redesigning WorldCatVTLS: redesigning Virtua;

FRBR and Voyager?

Voyager can now only group search results for Works (not Expressions) and only when the searcher selects either:

Name/Title Heading Search or Title Heading Search

Next steps for improving Voyager: Allow work-level sorting for All search types More options for user to manipulate search

results (both sorting and display)

FRBR and EnCompass?

Some work-level grouping of search results SHOULD be possible.

A prototype system:University of Bradford project “BOPAC2” –

Z39.50 connections http://www.comp.brad.ac.uk/research/database/bopac2.html

Why Implement FRBR in Voyager or EnCompass?

Simple Searches

with Precise Search Results

Additional Information on FRBR

Hickey, Thomas B., O’Neill, Edward T., and Toves, Jenny, OCLC Office of Research.  “Experiments with the IFLA Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR)” D-Lib Magazine 8 no. 9 (Sept. 2002) http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september02/hickey/09hickey.htmlLe Boeuf, Patrick. “FRBR and Further.” Cataloging and Classification Quarterly 32 no. 4 (2001): 15-52.