Rob,
In my mind, a great counter-balance to Weinberger's thought is that of
Thomas Mann's.
Mann is a reference librarian at the LOC who uses the catalog daily, and
his experience and knowledge shows in a recent article, recognized by
Weinberger himself as "fascinating and important":
http://tinyurl.com/2x7v7r
Nathan Rinne
Media Cataloging Technician
ISD 279 - Educational Service Center (ESC)
11200 93rd Ave. North
Maple Grove, MN. 55369
Work phone: 763-391-7183
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Rob Styles
Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2007 5:21 AM
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] FoBC - details vs access?
At the risk of starting a war...
The difference between the problems the catalog had to address
historically and the problems it is being asked to address today is
discussed eloquently in the book Everything is Miscellaneous by David
Weinberger.
rob
On 12 Jul 2007, at 04:24, Diane I. Hillmann wrote:
> Suzanne:
>
> I think part of the problem is that the distinctions between a 100
> and a 700 made sense when what we were doing was creating catalog
> cards, but those distinctions are probably no longer the ones we want
> or need to make. We want to know which are authors, which are
> illustrators, which are editors, etc. We may want to distinguish the
> first author from the other 5 (or 50) for citation purposes but
> different tags may not be necessary to do that. If we want computers
> to make the distinctions that we and our users want, we have to give
> them the data upon which to act. Encoding relator information is
> probably a good start, but determining a finer level of
> responsibility may be more difficult (and may indeed be more than our
> users want and more than we can afford to provide).
>
> There's a lot to sort out, no doubt about it.
>
> Diane
>
>
>> And the comment on one of these threads mentions keeping the user
>> in mind
>> not the rules.
>>
>> More and more my user is another computer. Making my work needing
>> more
>> granularity for a computer to know what the data means.
>>
>> Is the main entry used for display mainly or is there something
>> else that
>> the main entry provides? Does it help identify a work? If the
>> computer find
>> the name string in the 100 vs in the 700 is there something the
>> program
>> "knows" about that name string? I guess I can tell a computer would
>> appreciate the name string being in a 600 vs a 100 or 700. But
>> with out, say
>> the relator code with the name in the 700, is the computer have some
>> knowledge that that name is "less" responsible? And would that
>> even be
>> correct!? No. 100 and 700 can both be essentially responsible.
>>
>>
>> On 7/11/07, Sharon Foster <fostersm1_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> And unfortunately cataloging is still being taught like this. My
>>> instructor, who I consider one of the better ones at my school, kept
>>> referring to "main entry" and "added entry," and how long it
>>> takes to
>>> search 10,000 records. But, said I, we're not really searching each
>>> record, are we? We're really looking up in an index of all the
>>> records. And what is the significance of a "main entry," when any
>>> field may be defined as an access point in the database? It seems to
>>> me that we are retaining an awful lot of concepts and terminology
>>> that
>>> meant something in the card catalog days, but are somewhat less than
>>> useful now.
>>>
>>> On 7/11/07, Suzanne Pilsk <suzanne.pilsk_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> I'm always flummoxed when it comes to the decision : is the
>>>> information
>>> I'm
>>>> putting in just detail vs is it actually providing access.
>>>>
>>>> It comes out when something "interesting" is wanting to be done
>>>> with the
>>>> data and it turns out that details were skipped because they
>>>> weren't
>>> seen as
>>>> important access points.
>>>>
>>>> Anyone who tries to repurpose metadata sees the inconsistencies
>>>> and can
>>> get
>>>> very frustrated when trying to pull out or pull together data
>>> differently
>>>> than, say, the established index of an ILS.
>>>>
>>>> Case: Whining recently about old old MARC records that had very
>>>> sketch
>>>> titles and often didn't include authors in 100 fields because
>>>> the rules
>>>> didn't make you do it. It was good enough then. Now it isn't
>>>>
>>>> Case: Georgraphic grouping of data but it turns out the fixed
>>>> field for
>>> ctry
>>>> was skipped because the ILS at the time didn't do anything with it
>>> anyway.
>>>> Wasn't an access point - why look up those pesky three letters?
>>>>
>>>> Case: Grouping publishers together with dates to approach for
>>>> copy right
>>>> permissions; whoops, abbreviated publishers get us nowhere. The
>>> Association
>>>> in 260 $b ugh! Well, it isn't an "access point" why bother.
>>>>
>>>> Case: Grouping personal names together - without relator codes
>>>> - is the
>>>> person in the 700 an author of the work or some other "role"? A
>>>> detail
>>> that
>>>> was not used because access was for the name not the role
>>>>
>>>> Anyway, you all get my point. The problem I have is when is a
>>>> detail
>>>> actually turn into an access point and when is "good enough"
>>>> now turn
>>> out to
>>>> be useless down the road?
>>>>
>>>> I think what I took away from the meeting at LC was that I need
>>>> to give
>>> up
>>>> on the touch the record once and walk away. Instead, the
>>>> record might
>>> be
>>>> touched and retouched over and over as more data becomes
>>>> available. But
>>>> that sounds very expensive.
>>>>
>>>> Yet still, I go back to my cubical and I do.... what? Go fast
>>>> and hope
>>> that
>>>> what I've decided was good enough is actually okay and that
>>>> later I
>>> won't be
>>>> cursing myself because I can't provide subset of my data by
>>>> something
>>> that
>>>> seems so obvious to that future me?
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Sharon M. Foster
>>> [affiliations omitted]
>>>
>>> Any opinions expressed here are entirely my own.
Rob Styles
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Received on Thu Jul 12 2007 - 08:56:53 EDT