> But a fine-grained classification might not be exactly what we need,
> for the purpose of ranking. The 3-digit Deweys might be just right
> for ranking or grouping of results. Even these are outdated, yet this
> level is more robust than the longer numbers.
> The 3-digit Deweys might even be uncoupled from Dewey as such and
> form the basis for an updated, new, very broad classification, just for
> ranking and grouping. Most legacy data do have Deweys, so this would
> be an obvious starting point. And where there is no Dewey, there's
> probably an LCC, and it might be translated into an appropriate number.
> Tables for that task exist.
>
> B.Eversberg
One of the things I noticed in managing a web portal for five years that for
most of that time had LCSH browsing was that for discovery in the web
environment, LC subject headings are inevitably too broad or too narrow.
Some of this had to do with the small size of the database, but some of
it-maybe most of it-had to do with LCSH simply not fitting well for
collection-level browsing. Often the same items that yielded dead ends (or
onesies, as I called them) in our database did pretty much the same
elsewhere, as was true for the overbroad SH's. All this, and it was
expensive, as well, and our own internally-created, ad hoc thesaurus did
much better in retrieval evaluations and in usability testing.
This is not to bash LCSH, but to observe about it what can be observed about
most of our approach to classification (q.v. Diane and Karen's excellent
piece about RDA): it's designed for 20th-century media. Shoehorning it onto
the web just doesn't work. I'm not sure Dewey would, either, but at least
Dewey, as a shelf inventory system, is designed to group like items for
browsing. All LCSH really does is describe the item in hand. That may be
important, but it doesn't mean that LCSH is thus suited for anything else.
I had often hoped for a day when I could do an automated LCSH-Dewey
crosswalk precisely for the reasons stated above-because I suspected that
Dewey would do a better job (though necessarily labeled far differently than
its numeric scheme). *Suspected,* anyway.
K.G. Schneider
kgs_at_bluehighways.com
Received on Thu Feb 08 2007 - 04:53:20 EST