3.1 Bibliographic models

In Principles, Rules, Standards and Applications (Gorman, 1980), a report published in AACR2 Seminar Papers in 1980, Michael Gorman distinguished between these terms as follows: principles have a broad scope (Paris Principles), standards define a circumscribed framework (e.g. ISBD), rules present precise instructions (e.g. AACR) and applications propose local solutions and variants. By rules, we mean codes of cataloguing, often internationally inspired, but sometimes adjusted to meet the needs of national values and language communities.

Bibliographic models have been added to this list of terms since 1998. Developed in the computer environment and used in the librarianship field, they have been created for the purpose of understanding, describing and providing access to the bibliographic universe. They constitute a reference for those who create collections, those who elaborate descriptions and those who produce tools in order to help readers discover the resources that compose them.

One type of bibliographic model is a conceptual model. A conceptual model is by definition abstract and can be implemented with various interpretations. It expresses the meaning of concepts and terms used by experts of a domain, that is, a context, a pertinent field.

Models of the librarianship domain underlie the compilation of codes of cataloguing rules and metadata standards. Creating a model is affected by transformations due to constant acquisitions and innovations. The impact of technological evolution is evident when comparing the models of the FR family with IFLA LRM; the latter is specifically conceived for the Semantic Web context (Pisanski and Žumer, 2010).

Conceptual models have a historical reference in the E-R data model developed by computer scientist Peter Chen, professor at the Carnegie Mellon University, in the essay ‘The Entity-Relationship Model. Toward a unified view of data’ (Chen, 1976). Any Entity-Relationship (E-R) model that aims to describe a domain of knowledge has, as the main aspects of its design, entities, attributes and relationships.

Bibliographic models, standards and codes are situated on different levels. The former defines a way to interpret the bibliographic universe by providing an abstract framework in order to understand significant relationships among entities of a given environment. Standards and codes provide a set of criteria, reunified – according to Lubetzky – around principles of recognition (and consequent treatment) of conflicts arising from particular bibliographic situations.