> (Rinne) Right, but *[together]* "can we not agree on *some boundaries* that are
> not necessarily perfect (like *my* system! - I guess to live together
> with others, I can compromise some of my favorites...:) ), but are
> *still meaningful, make good practical sense, and hence, responsibly
> educate?"*
Oh, I agree. There are gains to be made from a shared system which can
outweigh the drawbacks. There are better and worse systems, both at
their inception and as they develop. There are even strong arguments
for a classical tree structure. I just think that the current systems
are rather limited and inappropriately physical. I get off the bus on
the notion that any library classification can "responsibly educate."
But different strokes for different folks.
>(Bernard) I mean, why not take this on now and make an attempt to define
>at least the top level of a new classification.
Indeed, why not? I think the answer is to do it cooperatively and
slowly, building it down layer by layer, pausing to try it out on a
real collection to see where the problems are, and taking into
consideration how different proposals fare against cluster algorithms
like "people who own this also own that." (If statistical clusters
tend to break between your subjects a lot, you probably need to tweak
them.) When you've got a layer in decent shape, you lock it. After
all, this would be an attempt to come up with a shelf-ordering system,
and books on shelves have numbers taped or glued or white-out-ed on.
If anyone's interested in shepherding such a project, let me know.
LibraryThing will be only too happy to support it.
Received on Tue Jun 05 2007 - 08:25:31 EDT