Bibliographic families in the library catalog: a qualitative analysis and graounded theory

摘要

Forty-five years have passed since Lubetzky outlined the primary objectives of the catalog, which should facilitate the identification of specific bibliographic entities, and the explicit recognition of works and relationships among their, Still, our catalogs are better clesigned to identify specific bibliographic entities than they are to guide users among the network of potential related editions and translations of works. In this paper, we seek to examine qualitatively some interesting examples of families of related works, defined as bibliographic families. Although the cases described here were derived from a random sample, this is a qualitative analysis. We selected these bibliographic families for their ability to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of Leazer's model, which incorporates relationship taxonomices by Tillett and Smiraglia. Qualitative analysis is intended to produce an explanation of a phenomenon, particularly an identification of any patterns observed. Patterns observed in qualitative analysis can be used to affirm external observations of the same phenomena; conclusions can contribute to what is known as grounded theory--a unique explanation grounded in the phenomenon under study. We arrive at two statements of grounded theory concerning bibliographic families; cataloger-generated implicit maps among works are inadequate, and qualitative analysis suggests the complexity of even the smallest bibliographic families. We conclude that user behavior study is needed to suggest which alternative maps are preferable.