Phylomemetics as a framework for bibliographic synthesis

Abstract

The description of texts based on their title, author, publisher, and with appeals to authority records, has been a cornerstone of bibliographic description as practiced in library catalogues. There are also many parallel or alternative descriptive projects from other fields. Examples of these include fairy tale motifs, literature tropes, character archetypes, story patterns, subject headings, semantic features, citations, allusions, musical influence, theater family trees, and more. Each of these projects represent understandings of texts that are valued by people and could enhance the library catalogue. What is needed is a framework for synthesizing a diversity of descriptions into the catalogue.