BIBFRAME (Bibliographic Framework) offers a foundation for the future of bibliographic description for the broader networked world and on the web. It is an initiative designed to increase the usefulness of the bibliographic information both inside and outside the library community. It is a replacement to MARC, and it makes use of a Linked Data model by leveraging on the RDF modeling practice (Library of Congress).
The following issues arise when using the BIBFRAME as a resource in catalogs to retrieve the resource such as a book. These are the author, title, the number of copies, and published forms. When used at different levels of abstraction; for instance, the work and item appear. In the BIBFrame context, work is the highest level of work in this context by stating what the work entails (Library of Congress).
Instance refers to the possession of one or more material embodiments. Instance shows the information such as place, publisher, date of publication and the format in which the book lies. The item refers to the actual copy whether physical or electronic that an instance has and it is a reflection of information such as the location, (virtual or physical) barcode and the shelf mark.
In many cases, the BIBFrame also adds some other fields such as events, subjects, and agents. The agents refer to the organizations, the people, and the jurisdictions that are associated with a given work. These agents can include illustrators, photographers, composers, and artists. The Subjects include the concept that is discussed in the about section of the work. Events are the issues or the occurrences that happen when a transaction is going to happen.
The BIBframe vocabulary is easy, it comes from the RDF classes, and various other properties and classes are modeled in the same manner as the local people wanted.
Work Cited
Library of Congress. “Bibliographic Framework Initiative.” BIBFRAME. 2016.
http://www.loc.gov/bibframe/. Web. 26th June, 2016.
