FRBRlignende

FRBRlignende is a term used in library and information science to describe metadata models and cataloging approaches that resemble the FRBR framework while not necessarily implementing it in full. FRBR stands for Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records and provides a theoretical model for organizing bibliographic information into a hierarchy and a network of relationships to support user tasks.

The core idea of FRBRlignende systems is to structure descriptions along a Work–Expression–Manifestation–Item (WEMI) axis and to make relationships explicit between entities and the entities’ representations. FRBR-lignende approaches aim to enable more flexible discovery, identification, and retrieval by exposing relationships such as “this edition expresses that work” or “this item is part of that manifestation.” They often seek to support user tasks like find, identify, select, and obtain.

In practice, FRBRlignende implementations may adopt only parts of FRBR terminology or structure, renaming components, or mapping to other models. They may drop certain FRBR groups (for agents and subjects) or replace concepts with similar notions. Such approaches are common in modern cataloging environments that seek FRBR-like user tasks while remaining compatible with existing MARC-based or RDF-based workflows.

Prominent examples include BIBFRAME, the Library of Congress initiative for transforming bibliographic data into Linked Data, which is widely described as FRBR-inspired or FRBRlignende. Other efforts include FRBRoo, an ontology that aligns FRBR with CIDOC CRM, and various national catalog data projects that emphasize WEMI-like organization and explicit relationships.

The term FRBRlignende emphasizes similarity rather than equivalence to FRBR; it signals an approach rather than a formal standard. When referencing FRBRlignende, practitioners typically mean systems designed to improve discovery and resource identification through structured relationships, even if not fully FRBR-compliant.