In the context of popular culture, a successful work or a work with broad cultural or scientific impact often prompts the publication of many derivative works across multiple formats and by multiple creators, works that share elements with the original work such as topics, characters or universes. We argue for reconceputalization of the “Superwork” entity to aggregate these relevant works into a single bibliographic entity about which facts in the form of metadata, exploitable by library users, can be recorded. In this paper, we aim to conduct a deeper investigation of the superwork concept and establish an initial definition for and some boundaries of the concept. In order to further develop the idea of superwork, we provide a prominent example and explain different characteristics of superwork identified via entity analysis. We conclude by discussing examples showcasing the multiple challenges for conceptualizing and representing superwork.

Purpose Multiple studies have illustrated that the needs of various users seeking descriptive bibliographic data for pop culture resources (e.g. manga, anime, video games) have not been properly met by cultural heritage institutions and traditional models. With a focus on manga as the central resource, the purpose of this paper is to address these issues to better meet user needs. Design/methodology/approach Based on an analysis of existing bibliographic metadata, this paper proposes a unique bibliographic hierarchy for manga that is also extendable to other pop culture sources. To better meet user requirements of descriptive data, an aggregation-based approach relying on the Object Reuse and Exchange-Open Archives Initiative (OAI-ORE) model utilized existing, fan-created data on the web. Findings The proposed hierarchy is better able to portray multiple entities of manga as they exist across data providers compared to existing models, while the utilization of OAI-ORE-based aggregation to build and provide bibliographic metadata for said hierarchy resulted in levels of description that more adequately meet user demands. Originality/value Though studies have proposed alternative models for resources like games or comics, manga has remained unexamined. As manga is a major component of many popular multimedia franchises, a focus here with the intention while building the model to support other resource types provides a foundation for future work seeking to incorporate these resources.

Background. Multimedia franchises may have a single origin, but over time develop into a network of related creative works in various media formats such as film, novels, animation, and video games. A single entity to represent a whole franchise is often utilized on the Web, but the ability for existing bibliographic models to represent this entity, which we refer to as the Superwork, is unclear.Objective. This research sought to determine whether entities representing multimedia franchises and the relationships they contain can be accurately portrayed using current models and, if not, how a new entity can be differentiated from the entities in the existing models. It also examines the role of existing franchise-level concepts on the Web and their ability to define properties and boundaries. Methods. We contrasted the franchise-level concept against official documentation and past research into similar entities (i.e. FRBR Work and FRBR OO Complex Work). A mapping and analysis of franchise articles on Wikipedia was performed to identify user-created boundaries and relationships between related instances. Results. The analysis revealed that the concept of a singular entity for a multimedia franchise was not the intended use for existing bibliographic entities, and that users will create such entities to collocate resources belonging to a single franchise. The Wikipedia mapping showed how and where users established relationships between works and media types, and thus what entities the Superwork should be directly connected to. Contribution. This study builds upon past bibliographic family and transmedia research, and suggests that more effort should be put towards examining existing collocation activities of users.

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Many different institutions create bibliographic data for manga, a style of Japanese comic. These institutions typically describe the same resources, but in different ways. The exchange of data would result in a more complete bibliographic data landscape for manga, however the majority exists in isolation from one another. In seeking to connect this data, this poster discusses a study that created a Linked Data model for manga, based on the Europeana Data Model and using Dublin Core and BIBFRAME vocabularies for bibliographic description. Data was collected and aggregated from Monash University's JSC Manga Library, the Media Arts Database from the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs, and Wikipedia. This poster outlines the issues encountered in the creation of the model, the lessons learned from these issues, and possible future extensions of the study.