In fact, I _do_ use online phone number directories almost exclusively
now, which never present me with an alphabetic browse, and I've never
missed it.
I am sure I am not the only one in this situation.
But, clearly, good spell correction/suggestion algorithms are vital in
our catalog interfaces, with or without alphabetic browses. (Even if you
have an alphabetic browse, that is not as good at suggesting corrected
spelling as, for instance, Google can be).
But welcome point that spelling correction is another use of the
alphabetic browse. Someone else recently posted that _cataloging
correction_ is another (when things are split between two headings that
should really be on one). I think this is important to know (we should
make a list of the possible functions of the alphabetic browse), but I
think it's time to challenge the conventional wisdom that alphabetic
browse is the only or best way to accomplish these goals.
When it comes to LCSH, things get trickier, because so much of the
_structure_ of LCSH is based on the idea that alphabetic listing will be
THE interface to it. The problem for LCSH is that's not neccesarily the
case anymore.
Jonathan
Jonathan
Bernhard Eversberg wrote:
> Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
>>
>> It's not clear to me that an alphabetical list of author names ('author
>> browse') is the only, or even the best, way to do this. It seems to me
>> that a 'keyword' search (on _authors_), followed by a presentation of
>> authors who matched (hopefully taking into account "see also" headings
>> in the authority record into 'matches') would serve just as well, if not
>> better.
>>
> It was pointed out that a keyword search turns up only those
> names that match. Not those with spelling variations or spelling
> errors.
> Would you be happy with a phonebook that has no alphabetic
> listing? When looking for someone whose exact name and address
> you don't know, what you do is browsing.
>
> B. Eversberg
>
--
Jonathan Rochkind
Digital Services Software Engineer
The Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
410.516.8886
rochkind (at) jhu.edu
Received on Tue Jul 24 2007 - 08:29:39 EDT