Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Data (FRSAD), previously known as Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Records (FRSAR), is a conceptual entity-relationship model developed by the

International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) is the leading international body representing the interests of people who rely on libraries and information professionals. An independent, non-governmental, not-for-pro ...

(IFLA) and published in 2010. It is a continuation of the work done on the

FRBR Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR ) is a conceptual entity–relationship model developed by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) that relates user tasks of retrieval and access in onlin ...

model, detailing how "entities that serve as subjects of intellectual or artistic endeavor" can be related and controlled within the bibliographic universe. The model is intended to support global sharing and reuse of subject authority data.

The conceptual model

Work

Work is a "distinct intellectual or artistic creatio
(IFLA 1998)

Thema

Is anything that can be the subject of a work. This is the abstract idea of the

aboutness Aboutness is a term used in library and information science (LIS), linguistics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. In LIS, it is often considered synonymous with subject (documents). In the philosophy of mind it has been often consider ...

of a given work. Thema is independent of language and discipline
(FRSAR 2007)

Nomen

Any alphanumeric, sound, visual, or any other symbol, sign or combination of symbols by which a thema is known, referred to or addresse
(FRSAR 2007)
A nomen can be any expression of a thema. Ideally there will exist an authority file with every possible subject/thema. This means that it should be possible to exchange subject authority data between systems. If a user looks up a specific subject in a catalog and wants to look in other places, he or she should not have to worry about translating the query, since the system would be able to recognize the underlying thema and automatically translate it into the relevant nomen. One way to understand this is to think about how a subject can be described in different ways. For example, if one looks at a work about the city Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, there are many ways to describe Stockholm. First, one must distinguish between the city Stockholm and the many other meanings of the word; for example, Stockholm is also the name of other cities, a record label, and a syndrome. When the thema is established in an authority file, it is possible to translate across systems. The nomen for Stockholm could be anything from "Stockholm", "Stockholm (City)", "Tukholma" - the Finnish spelling of Stockholm - or a range of Zip-codes, or the longitude and latitude, or a picture of the city, or a sound. FRSAR, if implemented, enables users to perform specific and precise subject searching across multiple systems.

Relationships

Works and themas have a

many-to-many Many-to-many communication occurs when information is shared between groups. Members of a group receive information from multiple senders. Wikis are a type of many-to-many communication, where multiple editors collaborate to create content that is ...

relationship, meaning that any work can have more than one subject, and any subject can be expressed in one or more works. The same is true for the relationship between thema and nomen. A thema can be expressed in many different ways and a nomen can express many different themas, all depending on the given system. Besides these relationships, the workgroup has so far identified several other thema-thema and nomen-nomen relationships. Two nomens can, for example, be said to have an equivalence relationship, if they both are appellations of the same thema.

User tasks

The workgroup conducted two user studies in 2006 and 2007, and based on the results of these studies, four subject authority data user tasks were defined:(2008 FRSAR News Report to IFLA)
/ref> Find: to find an entity (thema or nomen) or set of entities corresponding to stated criteria Identify: to identify an entity (thema or nomen) based on certain attributes / characteristics Select: to select an entity (thema or nomen) Explore: to explore any relationships between entities (thema or nomen), correlations to other subject vocabularies and structure of a subject domain

References

External links

* Zeng, Žumer, and Salaba, eds. (2010)
Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Data (FRSAD): A Conceptual Model
Final Report Approved by the Standing Committee of the IFLA Section on Classification and Indexing. *Žumer, Salaba, and Zeng (2007).
Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Records (FRSAR): A Conceptual Model of Aboutness
In: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries (ICADL 2007), Hanoi, Vietnam, December 10–13, 2007. (Lecture Notes in Computer Science Series, Volume 4822: 487–492) Berlin: Springer. {{DEFAULTSORT:FRSAD Library cataloging and classification Library 2.0 Reference models