In the highly competitive information environment for music, users are faced with the choice of either using catalogues that are not always easy to use or turning elsewhere for information. They often opt for easier or cheaper solutions that may, or may not, completely satisfy their needs. While libraries still remain a source of reliable information and hold increasing amounts of information, it is of highest importance to design library catalogues to help users find the information they seek more efficiently. However, current cataloguing practices cannot efficiently support users in their information seeking process and the tasks of finding, identifying, selecting and obtaining resources/information. Therefore a fresh look for future cataloguing is needed. One possible answer is the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) model. The purpose of this master thesis is to find out how suitable a FRBR-based Bibliographic information system, Variations, is for retrieval of musical documents compared to the traditional catalogues. Therefore Variations has been compared with traditional catalogues COBISS/OPAC and WorldCat. The thesis describes all stages of model development and shows how the model was implemented into a Variations system. Comparing a FRBR-based bibliographic information system against a current catalogues, the results show that FRBR-based system offer better user experience than traditional catalogues. Results show that at least three of our findings support FRBR in general. Firstly, the objectives of the library catalogue (finding or collocation) are improved. Secondly, a clearer presentation of the relationships which are implicit in the traditional databases found in libraries today. Last but not least, the possibility of navigating the catalogue is improved.
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