Jon Gorman had the idea of also adding some LCSH subjects found in the
author's works. I like both his and your idea, and they are both
eminently do-able, at the point of display, by machine calculation. If
we had control of our software, or our vendors chose to do it.
Jonathan
Karen Coyle wrote:
> The big problem I have with the library list of authors, disambiguated
> with their dates of birth, is that there is no way in heck that users
> know the birth date of the author. So authority control adds some data
> that may keep authors apart but doesn't help the user find the author
> they are looking for. So the Michael Fitzgerald on this list knew he was
> #5, but if I were looking for him I'd have to choose between authors
> born in 1946, 1949, 1955 or June 11 1955, 1957, 1958, 1959. How does
> this help me? The books I get don't have the author's birth date on them.
>
> What Amazon does give is a quick way of disambiguating by showing a
> recent product. There's no reason why libraries couldn't add the title
> (or cover art) of the most recent item they have by that author. Oh,
> here's the Michael Fitzgerald who wrote about Asberger's syndrome, vs.
> the Michael Fitzgerald who was in A Chorus Line. If a user is searching
> on an author's name then most likely they have some idea of what type of
> creative product that author produced.
>
> kc
>
> Ross Singer wrote:
>> On 5/30/07, Michael Fitzgerald <mike_at_jazzdiscography.com> wrote:
>>>> a lot of stuff...
>>
>> Out of curiosity, how does the average person navigate this:
>> http://orlabs.oclc.org/Identities/find?fullName=%22michael+fitzgerald%22
>>
>> over this:
>> http://amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/104-2774713-7821547?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=%22michael+fitzgerald%22
>>
>>
>>
>> ?
>>
>> This is no defense of Amazon, but depending on your name authority
>> file for disambiguation is a big leap in assuming people know who the
>> hell you are (and that includes librarians).
>>
>> -Ross.
>>
>
> --
> -----------------------------------
> Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
> kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
> ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet
> fx.: 510-848-3913
> mo.: 510-435-8234
> ------------------------------------
>
--
Jonathan Rochkind
Sr. Programmer/Analyst
The Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
410.516.8886
rochkind (at) jhu.edu
Received on Thu May 31 2007 - 12:31:56 EDT