I think FAST is an interesting idea, but the thing about FAST is that
it doesn't add anything, it only takes things away from LCSH. FAST
is less expressive than LCSH, not more. That is to say, any MARC
record with LCSH assigned can always be completely automatically
algorithmically transformed to a record with FAST instead. (Although
the reverse isn't true).
Therefore, there's actually nothing you can do with FAST that you
couldn't already do with LCSH (if your system supported it---your
system could automatically convert LCSH to FAST, either on the fly or
in batch, if it wanted to).
So the main point of FAST seems to be:
A) providing a new way to think about what's already there in LCSH
B) Allowing headings to be assigned with LESS work/expertise, if you
decide FAST is sufficient and full LCSH assignment isn't
neccesary---because what you end up with is somewhat simpler/less
expressive.
FAST is still interesting, and along some good lines. But the
question is: What are the things you'd want to do with LCSH that you
can't currently do very well, and what would you need to add/change
to FAST to allow you to do things you _couldn't_ in fact do with
LCSH? [Both tricky questions, that I find it hard to pin down clear
and clearly correct answers to.] Because FAST as it is, there's
nothing you can do with it you can't do with LCSH.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
---Jonathan
> > From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
>> [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Jonathan Rochkind
>> Sent: 20 June, 2006 17:49
>> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
>> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Subject
>>
>> At 4:58 PM -0400 6/20/06, Laura Akerman wrote:
>> >3. Library of Congress subject headings are the only truly
>> >comprehensive English language subject controlled
>> vocabulary, but they
>> >don't work well enough.
>> >
>> >What do we need? (leave how to get it for later) and what's
>> out there
>> >that could be a model? How could the ideal subject vocabulary work?
>> >>
>> Check out the 'word cloud'. Time will tell if it's actually
>> useful to users. To me, it seems like a mess. But the basic
>> idea is a good one---the problem is that LCSH (and our other
>> vocabularies) don't provide vocabularies suitable to this
>> kind of exploration. In the case of AquaBrowser, it's not
>> just based on LCSH, it's based on a sort of random harvesting
>> of any available words and an attempt at machine-processing
>> into a useful relationship graph, which is what leads to a
>> mess. But part of the reason it's not just based on LCSH is
>> because LCSH alone wouldn't actually work for this either.
>> What would it take to have a subject vocabulary which was
>> amenable to this kind of 'word cloud' for allowing users to
>> explore, navigate, and profile?
>
>What if you didn't need to completely throw away LCSH, but
>could achieve these results? Laura asked what is out there,
>so I'll [2] throw FAST [1] into the discussion. FAST will be
>able to take a LCSH constructed heading and break it into
>facets. You could dynamically create the FAST headings, or
>store them in the record, which would allow you to build
>things like that. It's not panacea since FAST headings are
>based on LCSH terminology, but it does offer a bridge to
>easier application and use while allowing for facet browsing
>or 'term clouds'.
>
>
>Andy.
>
>[1] <http://www.oclc.org/research/projects/fast/>
>[2] Full disclosure: I don't work on the FAST project, but do
> interface with the FAST team members during my activities
> at OCLC.
Received on Tue Jun 20 2006 - 21:06:38 EDT