Michael and Ross,
I worked on Michael's catalog for awhile last night. I found that of the
218 hits Ross retrieved for Spanish Civil War (without parentheses),
about 63 (almost a third) are completely irrelevant. For example, books
on the Spanish-American War will often be retrieved, because, since it's
only about 30 years after the Civil War, many of the people involved in
the Civil War were also involved in the Spanish-American War.
Also, some books that really are on the Spanish Civil War are treated as
"low relevance," on the last page of hits:
Franco, Franco, Franco
Soldiers of Salamis
Breaking point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the murder of Jose Robles
El archivo que Franco expolio de Cataluna (apologies for the lack of
diacritics on the Spanish)
Spain, Portugal, and the great powers, 1931-1941
Now, when I put quotes around Spanish Civil War on the basic search, I
get a tighter group of 101 items that really are on that war. But I know
to put quotes around the words because Michael said so on his last
message. That is bibliographic instruction. Nothing on the initial
search screen indicates that.
By using Michael's advanced search screen and putting spain, civil war,
and 1936-1939 on separate lines (as subject keywords), I discover that
there actually are 203 titles in the catalog that have the subject
heading Spain--History--Civil War, 1936-1939 (including additional
subdivisions). So the basic search with Spanish Civil War in quotes
misses half of them. Some seem like they would be particularly
important:
Agrarian reform and peasant revolution in Spain: origins of the Civil
War
Homage to Catalonia
The Revolution and the Civil War in Spain
Spain, the unfinished revolution
The Republic and the Civil War in Spain
France and Munich: before and after the surrender
Durruti, the people armed
It will also miss any books in Spanish or French, of which there are
quite a few:
Islam y Guerra Civil Espanola: moros con Franco y con la Republica
La Guerra civil Espanola
Los que perdimos
La guerre civile espagnole et la litterature francaise
From what I could see, it also misses almost all "primary sources," that
is, accounts written at the time by observers, apparently because the
term "Spanish Civil War" wasn't in common use at the time:
The yoke and the arrows: a report on Spain
Civil war in Spain (1938)
Correspondent in Spain (1938)
Men in battle: a story of Americans in Spain
Defense of Madrid (1937)
Now, actually, I have to admit there are a few things that will be
retrieved by the basic search and not by the subject. I believe I found
one or two titles that had "Spanish Civil War" somewhere on contents
notes but not in subject headings. For example, one had subject heading
Literature--History and had Spanish Civil War on a content note, along
with many other things. But since that is not a prominent subject in
that book, it probably wouldn't be one of the most important books for
someone to find at the beginning of their research. But I wouldn't want
to say that keyword searches are useless. They're a very helpful tool
when we're looking for something that may have "fallen through the
cracks." Online catalogs are a big advance over card catalogs.
Michael, you said that Voyager doesn't allow options other than what
your catalog gives. But compare these two Voyager catalogs. Wichita
State University, where I used to work:
http://libcat.wichita.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=hbSearch
or the University of Alabama, Birmingham's, Sterne Library:
http://www.mhsl.uab.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=First
They both provide a "basic search" that includes not just keywords but
alphabetical searches, and a "guided" or "advanced" search equivalent to
your "advanced search." I don't think your catalog is using its
available metadata very efficiently.
Ted Gemberling
UAB Lister Hill Library
(205)934-2461
Not an official statement of the UAB Lister Hill Library
Received on Mon Jul 30 2007 - 10:39:25 EDT