Utilizing the FRBR Framework in Designing User-Focused Digital Content and Access Systems

This paper discusses the rapidly expanding environment of emerging electronic content and the importance of librarians to partner with new research and teaching communities in meeting users" needs to find, identify, select, and obtain the information and resources they need. The methodology and framework of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions" Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records could serve as a useful tool in building expanded access and content systems. ********** In today's information world, whether planned or not, mature library Web sites are used as fully fledged electronic libraries. Most major academic library Web sites offer a substantial array of library services (such as reference, interlibrary loan, reserve services, instructional tutorials, and circulation), with extensive electronic collections. Increasingly, they provide direct links to numerous external discovery tools and services, which often result in confusion for their users who, once they enter, can easily become lost as they navigate outside the walls of our electronic internal infrastructures. At one point, they may be navigating online catalogs and, with single nuanced clicks, they find themselves in remote content sites, such as Project Muse or Science Direct, with no clear way to return. As they migrate from one electronic area to another, they unknowingly may leave the comfort zones of authority control for the vast, undisciplined data content world of the Internet. Moreover, within library sites, jargon-laden library terminology used for headers and placement of services and information can be confusing and misleading as users try to guess where they need to go. Librarians need to be strong knowledge managers, with clear understanding of user approaches and needs, as libraries maintain, extend, and create pathways across their disorganized information environments. This paper looks to this broadening nature of library information services and bibliographic access, and how the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions' (IFLA) Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) might offer a framework to analyze user needs for current and emerging discovery tools and their interoperability. (1) The rapidly changing bibliographic and information environment is discussed first, with a brief scan of four emerging discovery tools (portals, digital image management systems, institutional repositories, and instructional or learning management systems) that increasingly do or could coexist with holdings catalogs, and whose accessibility to content would benefit from user-focused systems and metadata-supporting frameworks. To understand the strengths of the FRBR analytical framework and its potential application, this paper then describes the FRBR development process and standards for bibliographic control. Emerging Discovery Tools For libraries to retain their trusted place in today's information environment, it is imperative that users believe that their libraries are the first places to go for reliable vetted information and research assistance. Libraries today, with their digital or electronic libraries, are used more than they ever have been--primarily due to the impressive growth of electronic reference tools and journals. However, the architectures we have designed are problematic to our future success. We must build and manage stronger, redesigned discovery systems that support straightforward access and delivery systems combined with services and instruction. The online catalog, while still a central library discovery tool, is residing (often unconnected) with other powerful discovery tools, including other-focused catalogs or databases for such resources as government documents, maps, and course reserves; serials management tools, such as Serials Solutions; powerful commercial access systems with direct links to full-text content; digital finding aids for manuscript collections; digital image databases and management and delivery systems; federated searching systems or portals; and rich new gateways to external digital libraries. …