Documenting Performance and Contemporary Data Models: Positioning Performance within FRBR and LRM

Abstract

Documents relating to the performing arts have proven a complex and somewhat unresolved part of the data models which fuel modern bibliographic cataloguing standards. The model of bibliographic data known as FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records), which is now superseded by LRM (IFLA Library Reference Model), underpin cataloguing standards, yet do not easily deal with materials relating to performance. The article introduces FRBR and LRM, and highlights existing literature which explores these models as related to performance documentation. An exposition of an important paper by Miller and Le Boeuf from 2005 is given, and their model forms the basis of discussion. Three particularly rich areas are discussed through a FRBR and LRM lens: the relationship between theater programs and performance; the relationship between performance and recording; and, whether Miller and Le Boeufs solutions can and should be extended to all the performing arts. Considering how performance documentation fits into the key bibliographic models of FRBR and LRM, reflects and enriches the general conceptual questions about what is a performance? and the idea of performance-as-document.