Owen Stephens wrote:
However, I recognise that for many Œbrowsing the shelves¹ is still a
> major search technique. It seems to me that this reflects the
> inadequate nature of our online tools. In theory a computer should be
> able to slice and dice our collections in many more varied and
> interesting ways than a physical arrangement can, and should provide
> plenty of scope for searching, browsing and serendipity but clearly we are not delivering on this.
And
I should add finally that I think using Dewey as a way of physically
> ordering and locating books is a completely different matter to
> classification we have just merged the two while we have been
> limited to a single physical order for the books if we can
> successfully make an NGC that people use as naturally as they now browse the shelves, then we can split these things out.
________________________
Owen, while it is true that "in theory a computer should be able to slice and dice our collections in many more varied and interesting ways than a physical arrangement can", one must consider how actual physical browsing occurs. When one physically browses, one can look at books around it that deal with similar issues and quickly page through them, one after another, looking directly at the contents, indexes, etc. This would be a lot harder to do virtually, especially considering that copyright law, understandably, will not allow all of the pages of books to be scanned legally - therefore, of the actual book itself, all you would be able to "browse" would be the descriptive data about the book.
Nathan Rinne
Media Cataloging Technician
ISD 279 - Educational Service Center (ESC)
11200 93rd Ave. North
Maple Grove, MN. 55369
Work phone: 763-391-7183
Received on Thu May 31 2007 - 14:19:22 EDT