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The Works Workshop
The Workshop’s second queue: caring for what binds editions together — the work, its title in each language, its volumes.
Why a works queue
A library catalogue describes editions: this book, printed that year, by that publisher, in that language. But Kropotkin’s The Conquest of Bread exists in Portuguese, French, English, Spanish, in ten editions and three translations. What binds them is the work: the text itself, regardless of its incarnations.
AnarBib now groups its catalogue by work: a search shows The Conquest of Bread once, with its editions unfolding and the libraries that hold them. That layer is young and needs care: works split by mistake, pre-translated titles nobody has reviewed, volumes of one series scattered.
It is reading and language work, not librarianship. It suits exactly the comrades who want to contribute without belonging to a library: that is why the Workshop, so far devoted to authorities, opens to works.
What we call a work
A work is a text (or a sound or audiovisual creation…) recognised as the same across its editions. An edition is a catalogue record: a concrete publication, in one language, on one date. A work carries a title per language: A Conquista do Pão, La Conquête du pain, The Conquest of Bread… When no edition exists in a language, AnarBib offers a pre-translation marked “fix me”, which someone has to review.
The volumes of one series (Memoirs, volume 1, volume 2…) are not distinct works: they are the volumes of a single series-work, which carries the series title.
What the work is, concretely
Reviewing the “fix me” titles. Over a thousand pre-translated titles are waiting, language by language. Validate, or fix: it is the first step, and the most useful.
Fixing or translating a title. Proposing the title a work should carry in a language.
Merging two works that are the same. Attaching an edition to the work it belongs to. Splitting a work that mixes distinct texts. Gathering volumes into a series.
How it works
It is the same engine as for authorities: a proposal, a deadline (seven days for a title or an attachment, fourteen for a merge, a split or volumes), consent by silence, then application by a library team. A reasoned objection opens the discussion.
Who may object? The library that holds an edition of the work — through its team, or through a network contributor who is a member there. A contributor account without a library proposes but does not object: the library with the books on its shelves is the one with a voice.
For library staff, reviewing titles is direct, with no delay. For contributors, it goes through a proposal.
Joining the workshop
The same contributor account opens both queues, authorities and works. No technical skill: careful reading, one or two languages, and a taste for work well done. To talk it over: #anarbib:matrix.org or contato@anarbib.org.