The Nature of ‘A Work’: Implications for the Organization of Knowledge

The primary focus of this book is on the definition of the work. Its main role is to inform the continuing development of catalogues, search engines, and information retrieval tools that will be able to lead people through the maze of editions and revisions and translations of the work. A secondary focus is the evidence of the patterns of mutation that can be observed among representations of works in the academic canon. The author concludes with a tentative outline of a theory of the work that opens the way for further research.