From Maunsell to Lubetzky: A journey back in search of the root of FRBR among the cataloguing codes of Anglo-American origin

Abstract

IFLA's FRBR (Functional Requirement for Bibliographic Records) has been widely accepted as providing a sound conceptual model for a new generation of bibliographic records. A lot of development has taken place in the field of cataloguing with the acceptance of FRBR. Changes of terminologies and concepts in the existing cataloguing codes are under way and even new cataloguing codes are being published. Although IFLA has designed this conceptual bibliographic model very recently for the versatile bibliographic universe of 21st century, the root of FRBR can be traced far back in the cataloguing of the 16th century. This paper is a study in search of the root of the literary unit concept on which the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) has been devised. For this a thorough discussions has been made about the presence of the concept among the cataloguing codes of Anglo-American origin. The discussion starts with the 16th century code Catalogue of English Printed Books by Andrew Maunsell and carries till Lubetzky of recent times.