Owen Stephens writes:
>Another useful approach would be for posts of narrative
>descriptions of how it would work - this can also be really
>helpful in determining functionality ('Bob sits down and
>points his browser at http://non-authority.com, he is asked to
>register, and gets his new password sent to his email address.
>He logs on, and immediately can browse or search the authority
>file, etc.)
>
Brief attempt at starting some brainstorming in this. Whenever I get
time, I can start fleshing out some of the implications for
functionality. Hope others will contribute their visions and ideas on
functionality requirements.
Scenario #1
An experienced cataloger, Keisha, is cataloging a monograph on
electrical engineering and notes that the bib record on OCLC does not
have a traced series statement for a prominently displayed series. A
quick check of LC Authorities (or OCLC Connexion) confirms that this
series is not being maintained. She wants to establish the series
locally but also help ensure other libraries have access to this as
well. With the projected service, she has 2 choices:
1. She calls up 'R.U.Ser.i.us" on her browser and (if registered
already) enters the necessary data into web forms that are rich with
rollover help, links to detailed instructions and help screens, and an
export function. She captures the export file just as she might with LC
Authority and brings it into her local ILS, or
2. She establishes the heading in her local ILS and exports it to
'R.U.Ser.i.us'
Scenario #2
Another cataloger, Robair, finds that a new romance novel series is not
in LC Authorities or OCLC. He checks 'R.U.Ser.i.us' and it is there.
He imports it (no registration required) into his local ILS.
Scenario #3
A public services librarian, Carla, is helping a researcher looking for
current information on electrical engineering. She knows that
'R.U.Ser.i.us' has rich resources linked to series so does a quick
search of electrical engineering and finds the series that Keisha
entered but which has been enriched by Library 2.0 folks (minimally
authenticated) who have added:
- A title list with:
1. WorldCat records for all of the titles in the series
2. Links to the publisher site summaries and table of contents for each
title in the series
3. Links to tag clouds from LibraryThing
- Links to other electrical engineering series
Gotta lot more in my head as possibilities for other types of materials
(think of the possibilities for kids series, romance novels, science
fiction series, etc.) but I need to get back to cataloging for the rest
of the day. Suffice it to say that our series information can be a much
richer information window than plain vanilla authority records provide.
One final thought - if this begins to take shape, why not scrape LC
series authority data as well and provide a means for users to enrich
it.
Have a great holiday weekend!
Allen
Received on Fri May 25 2007 - 17:12:34 EDT