Restructuring the Bibliographic Record for Better Organization and Representation of Knowledge in the Global Online Environment
Rahmatollah Fattahi & Mehri Parirokh
Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran
The computer technology has considerable potential for the better and more efficient management of knowledge and information sources. With the new computer capabilities, particularly hypertext technology, it is possible to provide easy, integrated and straightforward access to works of knowledge appearing in different expressions, editions, and manifestations (i.e., to bibliographic families). The online environment requires that the bibliographic record, as the surrogate for works of knowledge, should be restructured to provide users with a high-quality finding, identifying and collocating bibliographic tool. Unlike the existing flat structure, the multi-level structure of the Work Record would provide catalog users with the ability to discover if a work has been published/represented in different editions and manifestations and if there is any relationship among different works in a catalog or on the Internet. A similar structure for the Author Record would provide better access to different works by an author or about an author. This paper attempts to describe a new approach for the better and more efficient organization, management and representation of works of knowledge that have bibliographic relationships among themselves. A new structure for the bibliographic record is suggested through an analysis and categorization of the different relationships that exist in the bibliographic universe. The structure for the Work Record is based on the taxonomy of bibliographic relationships introduced by Tillett (1992, 1995) for related works. Using hypertext technology, “The Work Record” suggested here would be an efficient vehicle incorporating the different functions of the catalog identified for the bibliographic record by the IFLA Study Group for the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR, 1997). The paper also discusses the different implications, which the concept of Work Records and Author Records would have for cataloging principles and practices such as main entries, uniform headings for names and uniform titles. A prototype catalogue developed according to the new structure illustrates the ability of providing multi-level, yet easy access to voluminous works such as Bible, Hamlet, etc. and voluminous authors such as Shakespeare, Dickens, etc. Furthermore, the prototype catalog provides a clearer picture of bibliographic families and helps OPAC users decide on specific editions, manifestations, or items related to a specific work. The development of Web-based catalogs using hypertext linkages in the bibliographic record during the last ten years has also been reviewed.