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In This Document

Scope

Invitation to:
2nd World-Wide Review of Functional Requirements for Authority Data

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Links:

Core Activity:
IFLA-CDNL Alliance for Bibliographic Standards (ICABS)

IV. Division of Bibliographic Control

Cataloguing Section

Bibliography Section

IV. Division of Bibliographic Control

Working Group on FRANAR

Working Group on Functional Requirements and Numbering of Authority Records (FRANAR)

Scope

The Working Group on Functional Requirements and Numbering of Authority Records (FRANAR) was established in April 1999 by the IFLA Division of Bibliographic Control and the IFLA Universal Bibliographic Control and International MARC Programme (UBCIM). Following the end of the UBCIM Programme in 2003, the IFLA-CDNL Alliance for Bibliographic Standards (ICABS) took over joint responsibility for the FRANAR Working Group with the British Library as the responsible body.

• To define functional requirements of authority records
• To study the feasibility of an International Standard Authority Data Number
• To serve as the official IFLA liaison to and work with other interested groups concerning authority files.

Invitation to:

2nd World-Wide Review of Functional Requirements for Authority Data

Comments due by July 15, 2007

The document is available for your review and comments:

Functional Requirements for Authority Data
A Conceptual Model

[Please note that only an English-language text is available for this review.]

Following the conclusion of the 1st worldwide review, which took place from July through October 2005, the Working Group met in The Hague in December 2005 to resolve some 145 pages of comments received from 12 individuals and 13 institutions (including 6 national libraries and 3 national-level cataloguing committees). After the meeting, work continued over a number of months through a series of conference calls.

Comments highlighted considerable confusion in the draft itself as to whether the model was describing authority data or authority records. The working group's discussions confirmed that the focus must be on authority data while recognizing that, in the library context, that data may take the form of authority records. The new draft has been reorganized to make that focus clearer in various ways, including changing the title to Functional Requirements for Authority Data.

Many comments also revealed that the fundamental basis of the conceptual model is difficult to understand for those who are not familiar with data modeling and that this fundamental basis needed to be articulated more clearly. The working group has, both through the reorganization mentioned above and through the use of a new diagram, which appears in this draft as Figure 1, given more prominence to this fundamental principle: Entities in the bibliographic universe are known by names and/or identifiers and those names and identifiers are used as the basis for constructing controlled access points.

Examples of relationships have been reworked and enhanced. New graphics have been added to clarify the meaning of relationships.

After the resolution of all comments from this 2nd worldwide review, the group plans to produce a final draft for submission to standing committees of the sections of Division IV for approval prior to publication by IFLA.

Please send your comments by 2007 July 15 to:

Glenn Patton
Email: pattong@oclc.org

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