> > The result is that a user who didn't know the LCSH before starting a
> > search learns it quickly.
> >
> > That is, sophisticated tools can make complex research easy.
Casey's point here brings us back to the original thesis. Sophisticated
tools aren't (too) hard to use, and sophisticated tools help *teach*
people how to use them better and more expertly. As Donald Norman wrote,
"Information is in the world."
Now, that doesn't mean I am convinced that faceted/bagged LCSH is the
answer. We need more evidence, and part of the problem if we even
produce evidence is that we don't have anything to compare it with
inside our industry because we have such a hammerlock on what metadata
about the book in question is available to the user. We've built the
ultimate control-freak system from controlled, human-created and
-applied metadata sitting in MARC silos (remember, only we use MARC)
held within proprietary and outdated software. We're in the same
position as Dewey staring at the alphabetical book catalogs, except that
Dewey was focused on the problem and the user and had no interest in
retaining legacy methods.
K.G. Schneider
kgs_at_bluehighways.com
http://freerangelibrarian.com
Received on Thu May 10 2007 - 06:02:41 EDT