Nathan, I have two points on your analogy:
1) Why do you assume these two methods are mutually exclusive (re:
improved discovery tool vs. traditional methods).
2) What percentage of library activity actually follows the serious
research model? What percentage of library activity is casual use?
If, in fact, the latter are the dominant group, why should they be
forced to use systems designed for librarians and researchers? For
that matter, why couldn't a more intuitive, user-friendly interface
serve both camps? (I guess that goes back to #1)
Do we even know what our users are doing?
-Ross.
On 4/30/07, Rinne, Nathan (ESC) <RinneN_at_district279.org> wrote:
> > Reliability in known-item se arching and FRBR collocation, OTOH,
> cannot
> > be had without a good code of rules along time-proven ideas. It is
> > only discovery searching that can profit from extra verbiage. But what
>
> Bernhard Eversberg wrote:
> > is the relative importance of discovery searching vs. the other
> functions?
> > Discussions here seem to indicate that discovery searching is the only
>
> > thing worth talking about, but it may be it is because everybody takes
>
> > the other functions for granted. (Google can't do them - so who needs
> > them?)
>
> Karen Coyle responded:
> > I think another question is: what is the actual usage of library
> catalogs > for discovery? Are we seeing a reasonable cost/benefit
> trade-off in
> > cataloging for discovery? (With "discovery" in this instance being
> topical > searching, not known item searching.)
>
> Karen, first of all, thank you for all your work in this area and your
> thoughtfulness about these issues.
>
> That said, can I challenge the last point you made here with an analogy?
> I'd be interested to see how you respond.
>
> There may be better tools and technology doctors will use in the future
> - but until then people *should* use the existing and proven tools
> doctors have discovered and developed if they want good medical care.
> Likewise, if anybody wants to do good, responsible, serious research,
> that others can look to for guidance, they *should* use not only good
> reference and bibliographic materials, but *good* libraries who know who
> they are and value what they do, with their consistently applied - and
> hence effective - classification and cataloging tools, as well. Insofar
> as researchers do not use the tools available to them, they simply do
> not do the kind of thorough research that they could do, and hence,
> perform a disservice to others. On a more limited level, the same goes
> for the high school student who does an oral report constructed on
> research that is by no means thorough.
>
> Of course, just as doctors in their field should consistently do new
> research do find out methods that work even better, they should also
> uphold the value of, and invest in, the best tools that are currently
> available for doing the necessary work.
>
> The same rigor and excellence should hold for those in library science,
> correct? If this rigor and excellence is currently questioned, I think
> more education, convincingly (and I hope passionately) delivered is the
> answer.
>
> For example, for a top-notch reference librarian's honest evaluation of
> the strengths (and I think he's honest about the weaknesses) of the
> traditional library model (when done well), we could all look at former
> private investigator Thomas Mann's books "Library Research Models" and
> "The Oxford Guide to Library Research". Mann, who's at the Library of
> Congress, makes a person go "wow - they can do that?" throughout his
> work. Evidently, top-notch reference librarianship is like detective
> work - but it would be a lot more difficult without both the existing
> intellectual structure (which certainly needs to evolve) that librarians
> have constructed. His insights make one realize how helpful and
> important, albeit imperfect, the classical systems are to people aiming
> to do serious library research.
>
> And people everywhere need this kind of committed inquiry!
>
> Nathan Rinne
> Media Cataloging Technician
> ISD 279 - Educational Service Center (ESC)
> 11200 93rd Ave. North
> Maple Grove, MN. 55369
> Work phone: 763-391-7183
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
> [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Karen Coyle
> Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 8:37 AM
> To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] What library patrons really want.
>
> Bernhard Eversberg wrote:
> >> fixed data elements, these were applied in a rather haphazard fashion
> >> among participating libraries, rendering them virtually useless for
> data
> >> processing.
> >>
> > Because there was no concept of the value of the
> > Had these been covered by the rules (AACR), we'd probably be better
> off
> > with them now. RDA might learn from that and specify things that ought
> > to be coded from the start, like what used to be GMD.
> Yes, it is very interesting that there is a considerable portion of the
> library catalog record that is NOT covered by the cataloging rules
> today. And although I have sat through countless hours of discussion at
> the MARC standards meetings, I have to say that I am not at all aware of
> any overarching philosophy that guides the development of that standard.
> This seems odd coming from a profession that takes standards very
> seriously.
> >
> >> When I look at the RDA process, I see us going down this same road:
> the
> >> cataloging rules will be determined without any concern about the end
> >> system use, ...
> > without much concern for coding and format actually, but the latest
> > draft for chapter 3/4 has tables to show where current MARC21 places
> > things the proposed rules prescribe.
> I was thinking of "system" beyond the creation of the MARC record -- I
> was thinking of indexing and display and all of the user services that
> the catalog provides. The MARC record, after all, was designed to print
> cards, not to carry data for an online catalog. In classic IT design,
> you first decide what your end product is, then you design the data that
> will feed into the system. When our end product was a catalog card, MARC
> was the data structure that was developed. Now that our end product is
> an online catalog, we should be asking ourselves what the optimum record
> format would be.
> >
> >> and then systems developers are expected to come along and
> >> make something out of this data that didn't get any systems design
> >> concepts built into it. In the IT world, this is the classic
> nightmare
> >> of the IT department getting specs written by the marketing
> department
> >> that basically describe their current hard-copy practices.
> >>
> >
> > But doesn't Google work from a much less coherent base of given
> > material, the designers of which still mostly don't care at all about
> > structuring their stuff, let alone metadata, despite DC having been
> > around for 10 years? (And G. disregards it anyway, as you know.)
> Yes, Google does work with a totally heterogeneous data base, and so we
> get services based on that. This means that on Google you can't search
> for author or title, for instance. Google disregards DC not because they
> don't want to use it but because it has been applied (when it has been
> applied) so inconsistently as to render it nearly useless. Just like the
> fixed fields in MARC records, by the way. Metadata was also being used
> dishonestly on the web as a way to influence search ranking, so it
> couldn't be trusted. I still think that there are advantages to quality
> metadata that is consistently applied. The big question is whether we in
> libraries can afford to create metadata the way we have in the past.
>
> >
> > The big issue is probably not the rules at all but the fact that any
> > cataloging rules will always produce only a small amount of data per
> > document whereas search engines work from full document content.
> > So, to improve end user results, more meat will have to be put on
> > the RDA skeleton anyway. ToC, abstracts, reviews, ...
> Right. So here's a question: if you are cataloging an item, does your
> cataloging change if you know that the ToC and index terms will be added
> to the record? What about a scan of the title page? A preview of the
> first chapter? Shouldn't all of this be considered part of the
> "cataloging" process?
> >
> > Reliability in known-item searching and FRBR collocation, OTOH, cannot
> > be had without a good code of rules along time-proven ideas. It is
> only
> > discovery searching that can profit from extra verbiage. But what is
> > the relative importance of discovery searching vs. the other
> functions?
> > Discussions here seem to indicate that discovery searching is the only
> > thing worth talking about, but it may be it is because everybody takes
> > the other functions for granted. (Google can't do them - so who needs
> > them?)
> I think another question is: what is the actual usage of library
> catalogs for discovery? Are we seeing a reasonable cost/benefit
> trade-off in cataloging for discovery? (With "discovery" in this
> instance being topical searching, not known item searching.)
>
> kc
> >
> > B.Eversberg
> >
> >
>
> --
> -----------------------------------
> Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
> kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
> ph.: 510-540-7596
> fx.: 510-848-3913
> mo.: 510-435-8234
> ------------------------------------
>
Received on Mon Apr 30 2007 - 08:57:40 EDT