Indiana University Variations/FRBR Project News Feed

New XML Schemas for FRBR data released

jenlrile@indiana.edu (Jenn Riley) — Fri, 19 NOV 2010 09:45:00 -0000

The Variations/FRBR Project at Indiana University (http://vfrbr.info) has released version 1.1 of a set of XML Schemas designed for the representation of FRBR data in XML. The 1.1 Schema release represents some significant improvements over our earlier 1.0 release, particularly in the handling of FRBR relationships. As before, the Variations/FRBR XML Schemas are defined at three "levels": frbr, which embodies faithfully only those features defined by the FRBR and FRAD reports; efrbr, which adds additional features we hope will make the data format more "useful"; and vfrbr, which both contracts and extends the FRBR and FRAD models to create a data representation optimized for the description of musical materials and we hope provides a model for other domain-specific applications of FRBR.

A User Guide with details on the structure of the Schemas and how they relate to one another may be found at http://vfrbr.info/schemas/1.1/UserGuide.pdf, and links to all Schemas and documentation may be found at http://vfrbr.info/schemas/1.1. We hope this updated Schema release will lead to further discussion of FRBR implementation issues within the community. Comments and questions on the Variations/FRBR Schema release may be sent to vfrbr@dlib.indiana.edu.

FRBRized cataloging tool designs and screencasts released

jenlrile@indiana.edu (Jenn Riley) — Fri, 15 OCT 2010 15:05:00 -0000

One of the greatest challenges to implementing the FRBR conceptual model might be creating a cataloging interface that provides for efficient and effective data entry. The V/FRBR project has released a set of design wireframes for a FRBRized cataloging interface for musical materials, and screencasts explaining these designs. These may be found online at http://vfrbr.info/projectDoc/metadata/catalogingTool. Comments and/or questions may be directed to vfrbr@dlib.indiana.edu.

FRBRized data available for download

jenlrile@indiana.edu (Jenn Riley) — Tue, 04 OCT 2010 16:04:00 -0000

The Variations/FRBR project at Indiana University has released bulk downloads of metadata for the sound recordings presented in the Scherzo music discovery system in a FRBRized XML format. The downloadable data includes FRBR Work, Expression, Manifestation, Person, and Corporate Body records, along with the structural and responsibility relationships connecting them. While this is still an incomplete representation of FRBR and FRAD, we hope that the release of this data will aid others that are studying or working with FRBR. This XML data conforms to the "efrbr" set of XML Schemas, defined at http://vfrbr.info/schemas/1.0/index.shtml. The XML data may be downloaded from http://vfrbr.info/data/1.0/index.shtml, and comments/questions may be directed to vfrbr@dlib.indiana.edu.

Scherzo, V/FRBR search system released

jenlrile@indiana.edu (Jenn Riley) — Sat, 11 SEP 2010 20:40:00 -0000

Indiana University is pleased to announce the public (very Beta) release of Scherzo, a music discovery system designed as a testbed of the FRBR conceptual model. The system may be accessed at http://vfrbr.info/search. A product of the IMLS-funded Variations/FRBR project, Scherzo is an early proof of concept for what a library catalog built according to FRBR principles might look like. The current released system is most certainly not a finished product; rather it represents an attempt to share in-progress development work with interested individuals. It is (and will continue to be) far from perfect, and the Variations/FRBR project team hopes these very imperfections help to promote community discussion on the utility of the FRBR model and how feasible mechanisms to automatically FRBRize MARC bibliographic and authority records are likely to be. We welcome and intend to participate in public discussion on this system and the issues it raises. In addition, specific feedback may be sent to vfrbr@dlib.indiana.edu.

Scherzo currently contains records representing approximately 80,000 sound recordings from the holdings of Indiana University's renowed William and Gayle Cook Music Library in the Jacobs School of Music. Work on Scherzo to date has focused most heavily on FRBR Work identification from MARC and basic results display in a FRBRized environment. While we have paid some attention to user interface design, it is not our project's primary concern. The search system currently resides on a test server; while we expect the service to be generally available, please excuse any temporary down time or unexpected restarts.

In the relatively short term, we have a number of planned improvements to the system, including a keyword search, improved Work identification processes, representing more specific roles that Group 2 entities have to Group 1 entities (beyond created by, realized by, and produced by defined in the FRBR reports), and bulk download of the source data powering this system in XML. In the slightly longer term we hope to make the source data available as Linked Data as well.

For more information, you may see detailed specifications for our MARC to FRBR record transformation http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/projects/vfrbr/projectDoc/metadata/mappings/spring2010/vfrbrSpring2010mappings.shtml, or the project home page http://vfrbr.info.

FRBR XML Schemas released

jenlrile@indiana.edu (Jenn Riley) — Mon, 15 MAR 2010 11:30:00 -0000

The Variations/FRBR project at Indiana University (http://vfrbr.info) is pleased to announce the release of an initial set of XML Schemas for the encoding of FRBRized bibliographic data. The Variations/FRBR project aims to provide a concrete testbed for the FRBR conceptual model, and these XML Schemas represent one step towards that goal by prescribing a concrete data format that instantiates the conceptual model. Our project has been watching recent work to represent the FRBR-based Resource Description and Access (RDA) element vocabulary in RDF; however, due to the fact that this work represents RDA data rather than FRBR data directly, and that much metadata work in libraries currently (though perhaps not permanently) operates in an XML rather than an RDF environment, we concluded an XML-based format for FRBR data directly was needed at this time. We view XML conforming to these Schemas to be one possible external representation of FRBRized data, and will be exploring other representations (including RDF) in the future. We define "implementing FRBR," as the conceptual models described in the companion FRBR and FRAD reports; at this time we are not actively working on the model defined in the draft FRSAD report. Perhaps the most notable feature of the Variations/FRBR XML Schemas is their existence at three "levels": frbr, which embodies faithfully only those features defined by the FRBR and FRAD reports; efrbr, which adds additional features we hope will make the data format more "useful"; and vfrbr, which both contracts and extends the FRBR and FRAD models to create a data representation optimized for the description of musical materials and we hope provides a model for other domain-specific applications of FRBR.

A User Guide with details on the structure of the Schemas and how they relate to one another may be found at http://vfrbr.info/schemas/1.0/UserGuide.pdf, and links to all Schemas and documentation may be found at http://vfrbr.info/schemas/1.0. We hope this Schema release will lead to further discussion of FRBR implementation issues within the community. Comments and questions on the Variations/FRBR Schema release may be sent to vfrbr@dlib.indiana.edu.

Variations/FRBR development team in place

jenlrile@indiana.edu (Jenn Riley) — Sun, 19 APR 2009 12:30:00 -0000

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

jenlrile@indiana.edu (Jenn Riley) — Wed, 08 APR 2009 08:30:00 -0000

Variations/FRBR project team member Julie Hardesty has 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:

Current Variations Search Observations/Interviews Study (April 2009): Executive Summary, Full Report
Current Variations Search Logs Analysis Study (April 2009): Executive Summary, Full Report

Variations/FRBR Project Featured in IU Libraries Sources Newsletter

jenlrile@indiana.edu (Jenn Riley) — Tue, 23 DEC 2008 11:30:00 -0000

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

jenlrile@indiana.edu (Jenn Riley) — Thu, 18 DEC 2008 13:00:00 -0000

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

jenlrile@indiana.edu (Jenn Riley) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:00:00 -0000

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.

Variations/FRBR project funded

jenlrile@indiana.edu (Jenn Riley) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 08:00:00 -0000

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.

New Variations Project funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services

jenlrile@indiana.edu (Jenn Riley) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 08:00:00 -0000

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: