ABSTRACT
SUMMARY. The identification of works according to IFLA's report on Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records offers challenges when applied to very large collections of bibliographic records. The authors describe an algorithm that identifies sets of works and discuss the experience of applying the algorithm to OCLC's W orldCat. Analysis found four main types of works: augmented, revised, aggregate, and translated works. Each of these offers challenges for proper identification and collocation. Quite apart from algorithmic implementation, difficult conceptual problems were encountered in applying the FRBR model to aggregate works. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: J-800-HA WORTH. E-mail address: <docdelivery@haworthpress.com> Website: <https://www.HaworthPress.com>; © 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.}
KEYWORDS. FRBR, Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records, works, OCLC, WorldCat, Smollett
IFLA's report on the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR Final Report 1998) lays out an intriguing approach to bibliographic control, of which the arrangement of bibliographic items into works, expressions, manifestations, and items is a central feature. At OCLC Research, we have been interested in the problem this approach addresses for some time (O'Neill and Vizine-Goetz 1989) (Hickey and Prabha 1990) and have been actively investigating how to apply it to the 50 million bibliographic records in WorldCat.
