Sperr, Edwin wrote:
>There's still a lot of low-hanging fruit to be found in terms of using
>subject terms to guide retrieval. It would be a pathetic legacy indeed
>if at the very historical moment we were starting to build tools that
>actually *used* LCSH for something (Endeca implementations, experiments
>with Solr, etc.) that we discarded it entirely.
>
>
>
>
I agree and this discussion drove me to the searching statistics for our
catalog 2005-2006. Actually
Subject alpha was searched 82,683 times which divided by 365 is more
than 226 times each day.
The most searched index was Title alpha and it was almost 10 times the
subject alpha, but it
sure would not be fair to say nobody searched the Subjects which are LCSH.
We are planning on implementing a faceted browse system which will allow
us to make more
and better use of the controlled vocabulary of LCSH. I think it would
be a big problem if
LC stopped providing those headings, although they can always be
improved. In newer systems
we should be able to use see and see also references to help people find
what they need.
I don't see how dumping LCSH and trying to just do Keyword would help.
It's better to provide
both modes of access. I sure don't think the numbers from our catalog
would substantiate a claim
that nobody searches by subject heading.
Frances McNamara
University of Chicago Library
Received on Fri May 25 2007 - 11:43:48 EDT