Metadata for Transmedia Resources

By Ana Vukadin

Transmedia is a technique of delivering a single piece of content in individual parts via different media and communication platforms (books, films, TV shows, games, live performances, etc.). In the book transmedia is considered as a case-in-point for the need to rethink library cataloguing and metadata practices in a new, heterogeneous information environment where the ability to bring together information from various sources into a meaningful whole becomes a critical information skill. Transmedia sheds new light on some of the long-existing questions of bibliographic information organisation (the definition of work, modelling of bibliographic relationships, subject analysis of fiction, etc.) and introduces libraries to new, transient and interactive media forms such as interactive fiction, gaming events, or performances.

The book investigates how various theories and practices of bibliographic information organisation can be applied to transmedia, focusing on the solutions provided by the new bibliographic conceptual model IFLA LRM, as well as linked open data models and standards. It strongly advocates collaborative practices and reuse of knowledge that underpin an emerging vision of the library catalogue as a 'mediation tool' that assembles, links and integrates information across a variety of communication contexts.

• Explores transmedia from the point-of-view of information organisation
• Presents one of the first extensive analyses of the IFLA LRM bibliographic conceptual model
• Uses examples of recent publishing practices to assess current bibliographic data models, standards, formats and technologies

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Release date: Jul 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9780081013007

Ana Vukadin

Ana Vukadin is a coordinator for bibliographic standards and metadata in the National and University Library in Zagreb, Croatia. Her main areas of interest include bibliographic conceptual models, ontologies, authority control and semantic interoperability in information organisation across the LAM community.

Book preview

Metadata for Transmedia Resources

Ana Vukadin

National and University Library in Zagreb, Hrvatske bratske zajednice 4, Zagreb, Croatia

Table of Contents

Cover image

Title page

Series Page

Copyright

List of figures

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations and acronyms

Chapter 1. Introduction

1.1. Bits and pieces of information

1.2. New media practices and libraries

1.3. New media practices and metadata

1.4. Theoretical approach

1.5. An overview of the book

Chapter 2. What is transmedia?

2.1. Defining transmedia

2.2. Types of transmedia resources

2.3. What transmedia is not

2.4. Transmedia and transfictionality

2.5. Transmedia, interactivity and immersion

2.6. Conclusion

Chapter 3. Why organise information about transmedia?

3.1. Why transmedia matters

3.2. Transmedia, literacy and learning

3.3. Why not organise information about transmedia

3.4. What can be done

3.5. Conclusion

Chapter 4. How to organise information about transmedia?

4.1. IFLA LRM

4.2. IFLA LRM and transmedia

4.3. Works, superworks and networks

4.4. Work-to-work relationships in transmedia networks

4.5. Subject information

4.6. Modelling of games, performances and interactive fiction

4.7. Authorship and authority

4.8. Conclusion

Chapter 5. Conclusion: Libraries in a transmedia environment

5.1. Transmedia catalogues?

5.2. Transmedia libraries?

References

Index

Series Page

CHANDOS INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL SERIES

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Chandos' new series of books is aimed at the busy information professional. They have been specially commissioned to provide the reader with an authoritative view of current thinking. They are designed to provide easy-to-read and (most importantly) practical coverage of topics that are of interest to librarians and other information professionals. If you would like a full listing of current and forthcoming titles, please visit www.chandospublishing.com.

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Copyright

Chandos Publishing is an imprint of Elsevier

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Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Details on how to seek permission, further information about the Publisher’s permissions policies and our arrangements with organizations such as the Copyright Clearance Center and the Copyright Licensing Agency, can be found at our website: www.elsevier.com/permissions.

This book and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under copyright by the Publisher (other than as may be noted herein).

Notices

Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary.

Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.

To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-0-08-101293-2

For information on all Chandos Publishing publications visit our website at https://www.elsevier.com/books-and-journals

Publisher: Matthew Deans

Acquisition Editor: Glyn Jones

Editorial Project Manager: Thomas Van Der Ploeg

Production Project Manager: Joy Christel Neumarin Honest Thangiah

Cover Designer: Matthew Limbert

Typeset by TNQ Technologies

List of figures

Fig. 1.1 Relationships in the Matrix franchise8

Fig. 1.2 Relationships in the Metalocalypse series9

Fig. 3.1 Information about The Matrix represented in RDF using Dublin Core and RDA elements97

Fig. 4.1 An overview of IFLA LRM entities and relationships (IFLA, 2017, p. 86)113

Fig. 4.2 Works, expressions and manifestations in the Matrix franchise116

Fig. 4.3 Users' conceptualisations of transmedia compositions131

Fig. 4.4 Model of real and fictional authors' names in the Harry Potter universe160

Acknowledgements

It takes a village to raise a child and nothing less to write a book. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to all the ‘villagers’ who helped bring this one into existence.

I am endlessly grateful to Professor Mirna Willer of the Department of Information Sciences at the University of Zadar, Croatia, for generously sharing her remarkable knowledge and experience, as well as for providing unconditional support when it was most needed. Her admirable energy, enthusiasm and intellectual curiosity have been a constant source of inspiration both in my professional and private life.

No less gratitude goes to Ms Tinka Katić, the Head of the Croatian Institute for Librarianship at the National and University Library in Zagreb, for all the kindness and understanding she has shown me, and all the help she provided me during my writing.

I am very much indebted to Professor Maja Žumer of the Department of Library and Information Science at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, for her valuable advice and encouragement during my writing of the thesis that constituted the basis for this book.

I especially want to thank Zvonimir Barać for sharing his vast knowledge of popular culture trivia. Although his notices of ever-new cross-media entertainment releases often lead to procrastination, without them the insight into the subject would be considerably impoverished.

Last but not least, my heartfelt and eternal gratitude goes to my parents for teaching me how to set up a goal and not give up, to my husband Sven for all the love, patience and support he has shown during this time-consuming process, and to my daughter Nika, for showing me the importance of being able to observe things surrounding me with a fresh eye.

Abbreviations and acronyms

AACR2   Anglo-American Cataloging Rules (2nd edition)

ALA   American Library Association

AR   Augmented reality

ARG   Alternate reality game

BIBFRAME   Bibliographic Framework

BGG   BoardGameGeek

CCO   Cataloging Cultural Objects

CIDOC   Comité International pour la Documentation (International Committee for Documentation)

CIDOC CRM   CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model

EAD   Electronic Archival Description

EURIG   European RDA Interest Group

FOAF   Friend of a friend

FRAD   Functional Requirements for Authority Data

FRBR   Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records

FRSAD   Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Data

ICA   International Council on Archives

ICOM   International Council of Museums

IFLA   International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions

IFLA LRM   IFLA Library Reference Model

IMDb   Internet Movie Database

IRI   Internationalised Resource Identifier

ISBD   International Standard Bibliographic Description

ISNI   International Standard Name Identifier

LARP   Live action role-playing

MADS   Metadata Authority Description Schema

MARC   Machine-Readable Cataloguing

METS   Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard

MMORPG   Massive multiplayer online role-playing game

MODS   Metadata Object Description Schema

OAI-ORE   Open Archives Initiative Object Reuse and Exchange

OAIS   Open Archival Information System

OCR   Optical character recognition

OWL   Web Ontology Language

RDA   Resource Description and Access

RDF   Resource Description Framework

REICAT   Regole italiane di catalogazione

RiC-CM   Records in Contexts – Conceptual Model

SKOS   Simple Knowledge Organisation Scheme

UoD   Universe of discourse

URL   Uniform Resource Locator

VR   Virtual reality

W3C   World Wide Web Consortium

WEMI   Work, expression, manifestation, item

Chapter 1

Introduction

Abstract

The chapter introduces the concept of transmedia, a content delivery technique that disperses a single piece of content into complementary parts and conveys them via different media. Transmedia practices are placed in the context of the current information environment characterised by the flow of information across a variety of modalities. Despite the wide presence of transmedia resources in library collections, especially in public libraries, thus far there has been no comprehensive attempt to model bibliographic description of this type of resource or address the challenges it presents for current library information systems and cataloguing workflows. It is suggested that the modelling of description and access to transmedia in libraries should be accommodated within the studies of transliteracy, an emerging interdisciplinary domain that explores meaning-making across a diversity of modalities and media platforms. On a narrower scale, a logical framework for modelling bibliographic metadata for transmedia resources is found in International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions Library Reference Model (IFLA LRM), a conceptual model for bibliographic data developed by the IFLA. IFLA LRM is intended for an environment where data is shared, linked and re-used across various knowledge organising communities, which is particularly supportive for description of complex transmedia narratives.

Keywords

IFLA LRM; Linked open data; Transliteracy; Transmedia

1.1. Bits and pieces of information

¹

In a small provincial town in the American Northwest a teenage girl named Laura Palmer has been murdered. FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper is called in to investigate the case. Before long, however, he discovers that this apparently calm and peaceful place is haunted by all kinds of dark secrets, compared to which the murder itself appears almost banal.

For those not particularly inclined towards the 1980s mystery fiction, this is the plot summary of the cult TV serial drama Twin Peaks, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, and aired for the first time on the American network channel ABC in spring 1990. During a little more than a year of broadcasting the series attained an unprecedented cult following, as well as an enduring reputation of being a milestone in the history of network television. Eerie atmosphere, bizarre characters, unexpected twists and dreamy musical score kept adding endless layers of meaning to the basic detective storyline, and – according to many – envisioned the present Golden Age of television, dominated by original narratives and strong authorial voices.

The cultural impact of Twin Peaks is well beyond the scope of this book, but one of the pioneering qualities of the series needs to be spotlighted here: much before today's record-breaking, media-agnostic fiction sagas such as The Game of Thrones, this eccentric small-town mystery applied the strategy of extending its narrative branches beyond the original medium. One of its most famous extensions was the feature film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), focussing on the last week in the life of the murdered girl. But the film was both preceded and followed by a variety of other instalments in diverse media. Shortly after the first season debut the series was accompanied by The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer (1990), a novel covering the victim's teenage years. Next came the audiobook Diane … The Twin Peaks Tapes of Agent Cooper (1990), containing the messages purportedly recorded by FBI Agent for his assistant Diane. For those interested, the whole story of Agent Cooper's life, beginning from his 13th birthday, was told in the book The Autobiography of F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes (1991). All these works featured a range of authorial and compositional techniques that kept them tightly connected to the original television show. For example, while some of the recordings in Diane were written specially for the audiobook, others were compiled from the first season's episodes, and all were voiced by the actor Kyle MacLachlan who played Agent Cooper in the series. The feature film was directed by one of the cocreators of the series, David Lynch. One book was written by his daughter Jennifer (today also a prominent filmmaker), whereas the other was authored by the brother of the other cocreator of the series, Mark Frost. Obviously, the control over the expanding narrative was initially maintained by the original creators; however, in the course of the following years the story was also taken up by other authors – one such example, albeit in collaboration with the original team, is Twin Peaks: An Access Guide to the Town (1991), a visitors' guide describing the fictitious town's flora and fauna, history, buildings and other main attractions – but also, unsurprisingly, by fan communities. From the beginning fans were treated as an important factor in the process of the expansion: for example, in 1991 the admirers who joined the Official Fan Club at ABC received The Twin Peaks Gazette, a fictitious newspaper providing behind-the-scene information in the form of reports on local events. But the desire to find out who killed Laura Palmer urged fans to quickly embrace new, more immediate forms of interaction. Not only the Twin Peaks discussion group rose to one of the largest and most active online communities in the early era of the Internet (Jenkins, 2006, p. 32), but eventually many fans themselves became cocreators of the Twin Peaks world, writing stories about Agent Cooper's unrealised romances or creating video games in which the player's goal was to escape the notorious Black Lodge.

The practice of content dissemination in which parts of the whole are created with the intention of being delivered via different communication forms and channels (e.g. a novel, video game, television series etc.) is known by the name of transmedia. Literally meaning ‘across media’, at the first glance it may remind of well-known adaptation practices wherein the same story is transposed from one mode of expression to another, e.g. from a novel to a film. However, transmedia is different from adaptations in that it is not merely a transposition of an original work into another form, but all the parts logically complement each other. One part can begin where another has left off, or provide a wider context for another part, or retell it from a different perspective, thereby contributing to the overall experience. The parts can be relatively autonomous and loosely interconnected, or firmly integrated and interdependent, but each of them is designed to represent a piece of a larger jigsaw puzzle.

The term transmedia emerged in academic literature around the same time when Twin Peaks appeared on TV screens. It is generally acknowledged that the term was first used in 1991 by the American media theorist Marsha Kinder in her book Playing with Power in Movies, Television, and Video Games: From Muppet Babies to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a study of the strategies commonly used by entertainment franchises to attract children to post-modern consumer culture. The author used the word transmedia to refer to the strategy of targeting different categories of consumers by offering them multiple points of access – films, games, toys etc. – in accordance to their specific interests (Kinder, 1991, p. 40). Kinder's work reflected the great consolidation of media power that occurred in America during the late 1980s and early 1990s, decisively shaping the media landscape we know today. Social and economic aspects of transmedia will be discussed later in more detail. However, even without a deeper analysis it is evident that the increasing ubiquity of transmedia practices (think of well-known entertainment franchises such as Harry Potter, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Dr Who or Assassin's Creed and what immediately comes to mind are networks of sequels, prequels, spin-offs and background stories expressed in films, television shows, novels, comic books, games, websites and even live events) is strongly supported by entertainment companies' modus operandi which consists of distributing the content across multiple media platforms with the primary goal of targeting different audiences and increasing the profitability of intellectual property rights.

However, transmedia practices do not result solely from economic interests of media industries. They have been made possible by the fact that our media environment lends itself to great diversity of communication modes and technologies, many of which emerged during the last century and a half. Contrary to many predictions, the so-called digital revolution did not wipe out this diversity, but only added to it, complementing and enriching ‘traditional’ media rather than replacing them. The outcome is what the media theorist Henry Jenkins (2006) described as the culture of convergence: a social and cultural environment characterised by the coexistence of ‘old’ and ‘new’ media, among which communication shifts almost seamlessly:

By convergence, I mean the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they want.

Jenkins (2006, p. 2)

Jenkins famously compared today's information consumers with ‘hunters and gatherers’ experienced in tracking down content across a variety of media (Jenkins, 2003). He was also the first to introduce the term transmedia storytelling to denote stories that flow across multiple media (Jenkins, 2003), as well as the concept of transmedia navigation, the ability of the audience to follow such stories, which he counted among the core media literacy skills of the 21st century (Jenkins et al., 2009).

1.2. New media practices and libraries

The fact that people create, consume, seek and share information across different media and delivery platforms is expected to have implications for libraries. Ever since the idea of the library as an instrument of education and a place of knowledge exchange first emerged during the 18th and 19th centuries, the task of supporting literacy skills and providing access to recorded knowledge has been considered the essential mission of the modern library. When knowledge was predominantly encoded in printed text resources, libraries were promoting reading skills and providing access to books and journals. With new media forms such as films, video games or digital apps rising to social and cultural prominence, libraries started to build audiovisual collections, carry out digitisation projects and introduce new technology services. Despite still being prevalently associated with books and reading, in reality today's libraries are repositories of information available on all kinds of media. According to the Library Journal annual survey of the U S public libraries, in 2017, printed books claimed only 54% of library materials budget and 55% of overall circulation, whereas CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays and streaming media have risen to 30% of the budget and 35% of circulation (Hoffert, 2018). While the borrowing of printed books may still remain the most common reason for visiting a library, according to the Pew Research Center 2016 report on trends in public libraries in the United States, 24% of users are of the opinion that libraries should move some print books and stacks out of public locations to allow more space for technology centres and community activities (Horrigan, 2016). As persistent as it may appear, the traditional perception of the library as a place that warehouses and circulates books seems to be steadily giving way to the library as a community centre providing access to a whole range of media.

At the theoretical level, the diversity of library resources is reflected in the model of the hybrid library that emerged in the 1990s (Oppenheim & Smithson, 1999; Rusbridge, 1998) and seems to resonate perfectly with the cultural context described by Jenkins, where different media coexist and complement each other:

A simple way of defining the hybrid library is that it is a means of integrating the traditional library with the digital library. Arguably, so far, the digital library elements have served to augment, rather than replace, conventional libraries. The contemporary information-user now has to operate in a hybrid environment where electronic and paper-based sources are used alongside each other.

Oppenheim and Smithson (1999, p. 98)

During the 1990s the hybrid library was viewed as a part of the evolutionary process towards the fully digital library where all information resources would be available in a computer-processable form, whether digitised or born-digital (Oppenheim & Smithson, 1999). However, from the current perspective it seems more probable that libraries of the future will continue to collect, preserve and provide access to resources on a variety of different media platforms, both analogue and digital, to meet the whole spectrum of their patrons' needs and preferences.

Given the variety of media present in libraries, as well as the increasing pervasiveness of transmedia practices, it can be assumed that many library collections already contain a notable number of transmedia resources, especially in public or school libraries. By transmedia resources I intend those that make up a conceptual whole with resources on other media that may or may not be part of the library collection. Libraries have also grown aware of the need to support and promote new forms of learning and literacy that include communication across multiple media. In the second half of the 20th century, especially following the rise of digital technologies, the fundamental meaning of literacy – the ability to read and write – was broadened to include the ability to access, critically evaluate, use and create information in a whole range of media systems. This new idea of literacy ramified into many different conceptualisations, from media literacy to information literacy and multiliteracies, which will be briefly discussed later. Whereas they may differ in focus or methods, they all share a vision of a globalised information landscape where messages can take a myriad of forms and the ability to capture their meaning across a range of social, cultural or technological contexts is considered critical for making responsible choices about one's personal, professional and social life. Along these lines libraries have been continuing their traditional educational role through the development of programmes, projects and initiatives based on the creative use of multiple media and literacies. In this context transmedia has been acknowledged as an important tool both in educational and promotional activities (Hovious, 2016).

1.3. New media practices and metadata

While libraries may have recognised the usefulness of transmedia in supporting literacy and promoting library services (which will be discussed in more detail later), so far no attempt has been made to investigate how practices that cut across media and communication modes affect one of the core services: bibliographic metadata creation and management.

The fact that libraries collect, store and provide access to transmedia resources