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Variations/FRBR:
Variations as a Testbed for the FRBR Conceptual Model

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Variations/FRBR Project News

Variations/FRBR development team in place (April 19, 2009)

The Variations/FRBR project is pleased to welcome two grant-funded programmers to the project team. Paul McElwain joins the project following his work as a Programmer/Analyst on the Variations3 project. Alex Berry also comes to us from Variations3, having served that project as a graduate assistant. With the addition of Paul and Alex, the Variations/FRBR development team is complete. We look forward to a productive next phase of the project.

Two Variations usability reports available (April 19 2009)

Variations/FRBR project team member Julie Hardestyhas released two reports intended to inform the design of the project's search and cataloging interfaces. These reports summarize the work of two usability studies performed in the early stages of the Variations/FRBR project. Both examine features of our current Variations system with the goal of understanding how these features can be improved when re-implementing them on top of FRBRized data. The reports can be found at:

Variations/FRBR Project Featured in IU Libraries Sources Newsletter (April 8, 2009)

The Fall 2008 issue of the IU Libraries Sources newsletter features an article on the Variations/FRBR projct, entitled "National Grant for Digital Music."

Work identification algorithm available (December 23, 2008)

The Variations3 project (precursor to Variations/FRBR) has performed a series of experiments designed to maximize the information we can map to the Variations3 work-based metadata model from MARC Bibliographic and Authority records. The biggest strength of our "batch loading" algorithm is better identification of Works that are represented in bibliographic recrods. The output of our batch loading work is data that conforms to the current Variations work-based metadata model, although we will be updating our specifications to output fully FRBRized data in the future. The full algorithm and supporting documents are now available.

Variations/FRBR Project featured in D-Lib Magazine (December 18, 2008)

A news item regarding the launch of the Variations/FRBR project is featured in the November/December 2008 issue of D-Lib Magazine . The entry, in the "In Brief" section, can be read at http://www.dlib.org/dlib/november08/11inbrief.html#RILEY.

New Variations Project funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (November 20, 2008)

Indiana University's Digital Library Program has received a federal grant of $481,987 to demonstrate the benefits of an emerging form of cataloging using IU's vast collections of sound recordings and scores at the Cook Music Library. Responding to a challenge by the Library of Congress to test standards in the way libraries catalog and describe materials with multiple formats, IU's Digital Library Program will provide the nationwide library community a real-world case for testing and evaluation. This new project builds upon the work of the Variations2 and Variations3 projects in developing and testing work-based metadata models, and will result in the entire score and recording holdings of the Cook Music Library being searchable through the Variations system.

More information:

Variations/FRBR project funded

Indiana University is pleased to announce funding for a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services for a project entitled "Variations as a Testbed for the FRBR Conceptual Model" (view IMLS announcement). This project will build on Indiana University's expertise in digital music libraries and the well-known Variations digital music library system , and provide a concrete testbed for the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) conceptual model. This project is focused on testing FRBR in a real-world environment, and on providing data, code, and system design specifications that can be re-used by others interested in FRBR.

These are our primary planned project activities:

  • Convert the production Variations system to use a FRBR-compliant data model
  • Adjust our existing algorithm for use of MARC records to conform to the FRBR-compliant data model.
  • Load FRBR Group 1, 2, and possibly 3 records for all score and recording holdings in the IU William and Gayle Cook Music Library (approximately 80,000 bibliographic records for audio recordings and 105,000 records for scores) into the redesigned system.
  • Make FRBRized records available for community use via OAI-PMH, SRU, and batch download.
  • Design and implement a new, openly-accessible search interface for discovering FRBRized data.
  • Design and implement a new cataloging system for FRBRized data that takes advantage of the distinction between the FRBR entities yet supports efficient data entry.
  • Perform usability testing on the new end-user and cataloger interfaces to evaluate their effectiveness.

Our project expects to have the following concrete work products:

  • A published FRBRization algorithm that operates on multi-Work Manifestations, and evaluation of its effectiveness
  • A formal data model for FRBR, if none is available before our project begins
  • FRBRized data made available to the community for further testing and analysis
  • An openly-accessible system for searching FRBRized music data for community testing and analysis
  • Usability evaluations of FRBR-based end-user discovery and cataloging systems
  • Figures on the costs of creating FRBRized bibliographic data by both automated and manual means
  • Source code for the Variations FRBR-based discovery system.

The three-year project will begin October 1, 2008. We look forward to starting work on this project, and sharing our progress widely.