> I'm struck by the notion of "automatic classification" - canard or not.
> I wonder if there's anything useful that might come from experiments
> with automatically generating provisional LCSH based on keyword tags
> added by users. This could provide a starting point for LCSH
> assignment, and the distributed assignment effort of catalogers might
> then shift to maintenance, revision & assessment. Are these activities
> less "costly" than up-front assignment?
It doesn't have to be either-or. Computer-assisted classification could
provide huge bang for the buck in terms of the ability to tackle the amount
of content out there while providing good quality metadata; let the
computers make the first pass, then clean up their problems and add some
human sensemaking. That would be a good balance. That keeps us in charge
(machines should always work for us, not vice versa... I learned that from
Asimov) but gives the computers the grunt work, which frees us to do more of
the intellectual work.
The iVia project at UC Riverside has done some very interesting work in the
area of computer-generated content and classification. It would be
interesting to get Steve Mitchell in on this discussion.
K.G. Schneider
kgs_at_bluehighways.com
Received on Thu May 24 2007 - 10:58:18 EDT