Brushing up on FRBR

All catalogers in the CU-Boulder Libraries have been engaged in reading FRBR together. That is about 35 catalogers in the central Cataloging and Metadata Services Department as well as the catalogers in specialized areas – Music, Government Publications, Maps and Special Collections. The main objective was to discuss its implications, applications, advantages, and shortcomings, in advance of the implementation of RDA.


To begin, James P. Ascher, the rare books cataloger and our invaluable resident techie, posted sections of FRBR online called UCB FRBR Discussion. This was created using digress.it. This approach allowed the readers to comment and post questions paragraph by paragraph. This was done in advance of the first meeting to discuss FRBR. Even before the first in-person meeting, there were nearly fifty comments and several philosophical discussions. There is also an additional reading section where catalogers could post interesting and related articles they found. The workshop comments section recorded the summaries from the discussions and serve to remind us about the challenges as well as the positive aspects of FRBR we observed as a group.

The first workshop was dubbed “FRBR with Strings”, as James prepared color-coded strings to indicate relationships, as we explored Group 1 relationships together. The second workshop had more color-coded strings, as we explored Group 1, 2, 3 and Bibliographic Relationships, e.g., Work-to-Work, Work-to-Expression. At the conclusion of the second workshop, most expressed sighs of relief as they felt more comfortable with the concept of FRBR and felt they understood it, if not totally in agreement with all concepts expressed in FRBR. Whereas the first workshop generated discussions focusing on challenges with FRBR as a conceptual model and challenges with applying FRBR, the group was able to discuss some positive aspects of FRBR at the second workshop.

For the next workshop, we plan to read FRAD together, rather than delve more deeply into FRBR. Please direct any questions or comments to James P. Ascher or Jina Wakimoto.