I seem to often hear those opposed to FRBR/RDA for whatever reasons say things like: “The FRBR user tasks were not tested with real users. We have no idea if the FRBR model actually supports what users want to do.” Those more strident simply aver that the FRBR model does not support real user tasks.
But check this:
With expressions, editions/manifestations, and works…. indeed LT might become the most full implementation of FRBR out there, as Tim suggests. Which is perhaps ironic because I’m pretty sure LT/Tim don’t care at all about implementing FRBR for the sake of FRBR,or for the sake of ‘standards’. LT is implementing what makes sense to meet their user’s needs. [Which is perhaps why initially Tim was resistant to accepting that he was ‘doing FRBR’ at all]. (src: Bibliographic Wilderness)
I think part of the reason that LT is able to do WEMI with such a relatively high success rate is that Tim is not bound to accepting the IFLA report as revealed truth, but is free to implement something that is inspired by it.
[F is to FRBR as S is to SOAP]
Tim also has the advantage of a massively parallel architecture for matching and error detection, using an early form of artificial intelligence described in early cataloging literature as “the reader”.
WEMI is incomplete, but the ideas that drove it are the real future of bibliographic description. Ignoring the theories and models of people like Seymour L. -> Elaine S. -> Barbara T., Martha Y., Allison C. leads to absurdities like iRods.
[ The UIUC approach of using the formal logical incoherence of the literal FRBR model to deny the existence of documents is less helpful. I warned Karen Wickett that the old punishment for that was to be tied between two antelopes, with the remains shelved separately:-)]
If you don’t mind, I will gank this comment and turn it into a full post, as it overlaps with a lot of stuff I’ve been meaning to comment on. Also, I’m in Chapel Hill for a bit, and have to go through a lot of the early Aslib’s, which we don’t have the back issue subscription license for, and which really need to be read with a sneeze-guard. Emerald are a bunch of Limey bastards 🙂