It's too bad the existing authority data in most catalogues is used so
poorly.
I had seen a screenshot of the web catalogue for the now defunct Horizon
8 where one could click a name in the browse list and see some
information contained in the authority record. That would help users to
distinguish similar names.
In IMDb, I can only stare with envy at a result like:
Barbara Stanwyck (Actress, Double Indemnity (1944))
birth name "Ruby Catherine Stevens"
and best of all in IMDb...
I click Stanwyck's name and I am taken to a web page. Topping the page
are photos and other bits of useful info helping me IDENTIFY (there's
that FRBR user task again) the person I'm looking for. Filmography-- the
garden variety list of titles-- appears next AND you can sort and filter
that list to your heart's content.
Oh yes, and there's a discussion board attached to Stanwyck's IMDb page.
You can only do that kind of social networking with an anchored and
focused web page.
I'd like to see a next gen catalogue have something similar. A global
page, available to all, with whatever external links are appropriate
(official web page, IMDb link, etc.). This is what current AACR2
authorities should morph into-- web pages with enriched content like the
enriched content provided for bibliographic records by companies like
Syndetics. How that globally stored data relates to a local library
catalog and its locally built indexes is an open question, but I think
that's the challenge and opportunity. I think there is a great deal of
efficiency to be gained if most of the high level work on authors,
works, and so on were done centrally and collaboratively, integrated and
downloaded as needed. There would also need to be room for local data--
locally published materially such as from local companies and municipal
governments, as well as local data such as useful additional access
points for local users. So a next gen catalogue would be a hybrid of
mostly shared central data synchronized to all users and some customized
local data.
Thomas Brenndorfer, B.A, M.L.I.S.
Guelph Public Library
100 Norfolk St.
Guelph, ON
N1H 4J6
(519) 824-6220 ext. 276
tbrenndorfer_at_library.guelph.on.ca
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
> [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Jon Gorman
> Sent: May 14, 2007 4:48 PM
> To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Next Gen Catalog and FRBR
>
> On 5/14/07, MULLEN Allen <Allen.MULLEN_at_ci.eugene.or.us> wrote:
> > I am of a mind, however, that authority control as presently
configured
> is
> > designed by and largely for librarians than other users. Birth
dates
> > and initials as a primary means of differentiating names in a browse
> > listing is pretty sad customer service. [OK, do I want the Mullen,
> > Allen born in 1957 or the one with middle initial Z. born in 1923 or
> > perhaps the one with a middle initial P. and born in 1988? - yikes!]
> >
>
> One thing that I've mentioned other places that I've always been
> struck that libraries don't help sort out authors by the one key piece
> of information they already have....what did they write? It's
> entirely possible that someone may be looking for works by an author
> and not think to look up a particular title. But what if they were to
> see a list of some of the titles associated with an author as
> browsing? I would hope it could help them quite a bit in figuring out
> that "Smith, John" that wrote "Dynamics of ferrate compounds" might
> not be what they're looking for, but the "Smith, John" who wrote "25
> ghastly ways to die" and "Murder in the Rogue's Morgue" might be that
> mystery author they've heard about. Subject headings used in their
> work also might help.
>
> I haven't had enough time to implement something like this, but I'd
> really like to try an author search that doesn't throw you immediately
> into a pile of titles. Instead, it'll give you the chance to narrow
> down the author or likely authors, then return the books. Worldcat
> Identities look like a similar approach.
>
> Jon Gorman
Received on Mon May 14 2007 - 15:22:11 EDT