After reading all of our professor’s suggested articles on building an FRBR model, I decided to choose a picture book that I had at home in my collection. I began with The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg and browsed the online catalogue of the Vancouver Public Library (VPL). Next, I looked on amazon.ca. I soon realized that the number of expressions of The Polar Express was so large, I knew I would not be able to fit all of its manifestations on my flowchart.
I went back to my shelves at home and found another favourite picture book entitled My Mother is Weird by Rachna Gilmore. Again, I checked the VPL online catalogue and on amazon.ca. This time, I had the opposite experience and found only one manifestation of thework, a paperback.
Back to the drawing board. I decided to choose my all-time favourite picture book, The Paperboy by popular American author Dav Pilkey. After looking on the VPL online catalogue and on amazon.ca, I went onto Microsoft Word and chose a flowchart design that I liked and began by inserting a picture of the book’s cover at the top of the chart. After fiddling, adjusting and finally getting the picture inserted, I was feeling a bit frustrated with how slow it was taking me. I would soon discover that that would actually be the easiest part of the whole assignment!
After completing the flowchart to the best of my ability, I have concluded that I have far more questions than answers when it comes to this assignment. But since I have only 500 words or less to write this synopsis, and my computer count already says 279, I will answer the assignment questions as succinctly as possible.
1. What went through my mind as I was building it? The question should be what DIDN’T go through my mind! My biggest challenge (after reviewing how to insert/edit data on a Microsoft Word flowchart) was trying to decide what constituted an expression and what constituted a manifestation. It was very helpful to look at all the posted assignments on our student blogs. I compared and contrasted the eight flowcharts posted so far and this helped me gradually understand the difference between the two.
I thought that The Paperboy would have more expressions than it did. I searched the VPL, the FVRL, amazon.ca, ebay.com and googled for no less than two hours. If you look at my flowchart, you can see that I have only one expression but four manifestations of it. I stumbled onto a fifth manifestation on YouTube, which was an audiobook that was also animated. However, because I couldn’t find it for sale or for loan on any site, I didn’t include it. I’m still not sure if it counts if only found it on YouTube!
2. Challenges for teacher-librarians using it? Teaching students how to understand a flowchart and the amount of time it would take to create a flowchart for each resource are the two biggest challenges in my opinion.
In conclusion, I found this assignment to be very challenging, as I am not a particularly savvy computer person. I learned quite a bit and with each assignment, I feel just that much more knowledgeable about the intrticate world of cataloguing.