I DO think the individual and the larger culture have a real impact of sorts on works, stories. And my self that is more “culturally aware” is happy allowing that we all have/experience our own individual “work” of a work.

What I fail to see is how that accords with any other version of the concept of “work” I have seen so far, whether FRBR, Svenonius, Smiraglia, Tillett, Vellucci,…. And even if those are all ‘wrong’ somehow, I entirely fail to see how Levinson’s idea of the (musical) work–which he thinks generalizes (and would if we accept his thinking)–would help either libraries make things findable or users to find things.

He makes many valuable points! I just think most of them have nothing to do with the concept of a “work.” At least, one I am willing to accept [unless provided a replacement concept/term that is useful].

anyway, what i got out of it was an example of attempting to discover the boundaries between works. the values of a culture play a large role in this and of course this is one of the concerns with global implementation of something like frbr. Levinson, if i remember correctly, gave arguments for how musical works should be delineated. what features should be used to distinguish them? what is important?

it is fun to wonder if The Hobbit as read to me by my father as i laid drifting to sleep as a child might be a thing fundamentally different than The Hobbit as read by me as a college student on a train riding through the south of France. and how about if Tolkien was my father and made up that same story that went into the book as he sat by my bedside?

it’s the story that matters, right? and maybe i even read from the same item that my father did. what can that tell us about our concept of the work? about how we interact with texts?