Three of the Four FRBR Group 1 Entity Types are Roles, not Types

Renear, Allen H.; Dubin, David

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/9094 Copy

Description

Title

Three of the Four FRBR Group 1 Entity Types are Roles, not Types

Author(s)

• Renear, Allen H.
• Dubin, David

Issue Date

2007

Keyword(s)

• FRBR
• ontology
• informatics
• humanities computing
• digital humanities
• information science
• conceptual modeling
• data modeling
• digital asset management

Abstract

We examine the conceptual model of the “bibliographic universe” presented in IFLA’s Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) and argue, applying ontology design recommendations proposed by N. Guarino and C. Welty, that three of the four Group 1 entity types are more accurately conceptualized as roles. We show how this approach may generalize the solution to a previously identified puzzle regarding the FRBR entity type of XML documents and speculate as to the sorts of entities that might take on these roles. This view of bibliographic entities, that they are roles that other things have in particular social contexts is consistent with John Searle's notion of a cascade of social facts established through collective intentionality. We allow that even if our analysis is correct the current FRBR approach may be preferable as there are good reasons for “denormalized ontologies” that treat roles as types, particularly when the objective is not a general ontology, but a practical conceptual model.

Publisher

The American Society for Information Science & Technology

Series/Report Name or Number

Proceedings of the 70th Annual Meeting of the American Society

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/9094

Owning Collections