Home July 2002 Vol 63 No 4 Smiraglia book review

College and Research Libraries
July 2002, Vol. 63, No. 4

Book Review

Smiraglia, Richard P. The Nature of “a Work”: Implications for the Organization of Knowledge. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Pr., 2001. 182p. $49.50, alk. paper (ISBN 0810840375). LC 2001-020328.

This book is concerned with the philosophical underpinnings of a topic near and dear to the hearts of all librarians: a “work.” Works are our bread and butter. We spend our days cataloging, classifying, searching, and retrieving them. We endeavor to build catalogs that adequately represent them and that function as convenient guides to their retrieval. Yet, we seldom take the time to question the essence of works, to understand the concepts behind them or their implications for our daily practice. This book goes a long way in exploring these issues.

Smiraglia begins with a philosophical inquiry into the nature of a work. Although written clearly and concisely, this first chapter would have benefited from the inclusion of a few more examples to better ground the discussion. The next chapter is a short history on the concept of a work and how it has evolved in Anglo-American cataloging. Thoroughly researched and including many quotes from the original sources, this discussion shows how changes in publishing, printing, and library collection policies fueled the need for collocation. This need, in turn, presented librarians with the difficult chore of developing principles of collocation. Similarly, a chapter dealing with bibliographic relationships presents studies that show how difficult it can be for a patron to find all the variations of a given work. Furthermore, it demonstrates how important it is to document that two works are related and also how they are related; the nature of the relationship between works is important to readers.

Enlarging the scope of the discourse, Smiraglia moves away from librarianship and considers the topic in an interdisciplinary manner from such perspectives as linguistics, philosophy, and semiotics. This discussion articulates two basic principles: Works are characterized by both their mutability and immutability, and works are social constructs that change with both each individual’s perception of them and the roles they serve in specific societies.

Two chapters are devoted to the topic of bibliographic families: The first presents an attempt to quantify the terms by which these families can be defined; the second presents a qualitative analysis in the form of case studies. Four detailed statistical studies are presented on the bibliographic family in an attempt to define certain characteristics common to the progenitors of bibliographic families. Although there is no strong evidence to support the presence of these assumed commonalities, the analysis is thought-provoking and, because an appendix clearly documents the methodology used, could be replicated in future research. Six brief case studies of bibliographic families are presented; most focus on books, but one is concerned with a motion picture. These case studies serve as concrete examples of the complexities associated with bibliographic relationships.

In the concluding chapter, the author presents a summary and, in addition, his formulation of a theory on the nature of a work. The book includes a detailed bibliography, an index, and various appendices. Two of the appendices present many of the concepts and definitions introduced in the text in charts that facilitate ready comparison. Finally, a thorough glossary is included.

The author has worked extensively with different types of works, including general texts, music, and theological materials. Although his background is in cataloging, this book speaks to all librarians about the organization of our cultural heritage of recorded knowledge. Interdisciplinary, thought-provoking, and carefully researched, this book serves as a prompt for contemplation, analysis, and additional research on how and why we organize and/or retrieve knowledge.—Isabel del Carmen Quintana, Harvard University.