IFLA Cataloguing Section FRBR Review Group Functional…

IFLA Cataloguing Section
FRBR Review Group



     Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records
                           Chapter 3: Entities



                  Changes approved to the FRBR text

                           Marked up Version

      Prepared by the IFLA Working Group on the Expression Entity

    Approved by the Standing Committee of the Cataloguing Section


                            9 November 2007




                           http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/frbr/
                                                                                    IFLA Cataloguing Section
                                                                           Changes approved to the FRBR text
                                                                                           9 November 2007



3.2.2. Expression

The second entity defined in the model is expression: the intellectual or artistic realization of a
work in the form of alpha-numeric, musical, or choreographic notation, sound, image, object,
movement, etc., or any combination of such forms.

An expression is the specific intellectual or artistic form that a work takes each time it is
"realized." Expression encompasses, for example, the specific words, sentences, paragraphs, etc.
that result from the realization of a work in the form of a text, or the particular sounds, phrasing,
etc. resulting from the realization of a musical work. The boundaries of the entity expression are
defined, however, so as to exclude aspects of physical form, such as typeface and page layout,
that are not integral to the intellectual or artistic realization of the work as such. When an
expression is accompanied by augmentations, such as illustrations, notes, glosses, etc. that are not
integral to the intellectual or artistic realization of the work, such augmentations are considered to
be separate expressions of their own separate work(s). Such augmentations may, or may not, be
considered significant enough to warrant distinct bibliographic identification.

Inasmuch as the form of expression is an inherent characteristic of the expression, any change in
form (e.g., from alpha-numeric notation to spoken word) results in a new expression. Similarly,
changes in the intellectual conventions or instruments that are employed to express a work (e.g.,
translation from one language to another) result in the production of a new expression. Strictly
speaking, any change in intellectual or artistic content constitutes a change in expression. Thus If
a text is revised or modified, the resulting expression is considered to be a new expression. , no
matter how minor the modification may be. Minor changes, such as corrections of spelling and
punctuation, etc., may be considered as variations within the same expression.

Examples
     · w1 Ellwanger's Tennis--bis zum Turnierspieler
          o e1 the original German text
          o e2 the English translation by Wendy Gill
          o ....

       ·   w1 Franz Schubert's Trout quintet
              o e1 the composer's notated music
              o e2 the musical work as performed by Rosina Lhevinne, piano, Stuart Sankey,
                  double bass, and members of the Juilliard String Quartet
              o e3 the musical work as performed by Jörg Demus, piano, and the members of
                  the Collegium Aureum
              o e4 the musical work as performed by Emanuel Ax, piano, members of the
                  Guarneri String Quartet, and Julius Levine, double bass
              o ....

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Defining expression as an entity in the model gives us a means of reflecting the distinctions in
intellectual or artistic content that may exist between one realization and another of the same
work. With expression defined as an entity, we can describe the intellectual or artistic attributes


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                                                                                     IFLA Cataloguing Section
                                                                            Changes approved to the FRBR text
                                                                                            9 November 2007

of a particular realization of a work, and use the differences in those attributes to signal
differences in intellectual or artistic content.

Defining expression as an entity also enables us to draw relationships between specific
expressions of a work. We can use the entity called expression to identify, for example, the
specific text on which a translation is based, or the specific score used for the performance of a
musical composition.

We can also use the entity defined as expression to indicate that the intellectual or artistic content
embodied in one manifestation is in fact the same, or substantially the same, as that embodied in
another manifestation. If two manifestations embody the same or almost the same intellectual or
artistic content, even though the physical embodiment may differ and differing attributes of the
manifestations may obscure the fact that the content is similar in both, we can make the common
link through the entity defined as expression.

On a practical level, the degree to which bibliographic distinctions are made between variant
expressions of a work will depend to some extent on the nature of the work itself, on the
anticipated needs of users and on what the cataloguer can reasonably be expected to recognize
from the manifestation being described. Differences in form of expression (e.g., the differences
between the expression of a work in the form of musical notation and the expression of the same
work in the form of recorded sound) will normally be reflected in the bibliographic record, no
matter what the nature of the work itself may be. Variant expressions in the same form (e.g.,
revised versions of a text) will often be indirectly identified as different expressions because the
variation is apparent from the data associated with an attribute used to identify the manifestation
in which the expression is embodied (e.g., an edition statement). Variations that would be evident
only from a more detailed analysis and comparison of expressions (e.g., variations between
several of the early texts of Shakespeare's Hamlet) would normally be reflected in the data only if
the nature or stature of the work warranted such analysis, and only if it was anticipated that the
distinction would be important to users.

Variations within substantially the same expression (e.g., slight variations that can be noticed
between two states of the same edition in the case of hand press production) would normally be
ignored or, in specialized catalogues, be reflected as a note within the bibliographic record for the
manifestation. However, for some applications of the model (e.g., early texts of rare
manuscripts), each variation may be viewed as a different expression.




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