On Tue, 20 Jun 2006, K.G. Schneider wrote:
> I'd rather have LESS EXPENSIVE metadata, more USER-FRIENDLY metadata, and
> MORE OF IT. Yes, I believe in hand-hewing, though computer-assisted creation
> is a great, great, great thing. (*Assisted.* *Assisted.*) But we spend far
> too much on metadata of questionable use to our users.
>
> In particular, feel free to prove me wrong about our users and "effective
> subject browse." Amusing anecdotes about arcane language aside (deglutition,
> anyone?), our subject system isn't designed to group items at useful
> collection/browsing levels.
I agree wholeheartedly. I took a look at Evergreen open ils last week. I'm
impressed with everything except... You know those related terms on the
left? Unfortunately they're based solely on LCSH. Being a librarian and a
cataloger, I recognized this as soon as I started clicking and looking at
results and the options on the left.
Most users, however, won't understand why only certain terms are showing
up: why don't all the related and narrower and broader terms show? Well,
because LCSH doesn't allow them all in the authority record, which is the
basis for the list of terms. I, who did understand what was going on,
bungled around for awhile and was never sure I really found what the
library had on the topic I was trying to find.
So I definitely agree about the lack of useful subject browsing and
clustering when you use traditional cataloging tools.
Mary
Mary Grenci
University of Oregon
mgrenci_at_uoregon.edu
Received on Tue Jun 20 2006 - 12:41:39 EDT