> I think Karen's point about the authority files was not that they were
> designed to help cataloguers and the creation of authoritative headings,
> rather than to achieve what you describe - appropriate cross-referncing.
> So, she is not arguing that we should do away with cross-referencing,
> but rather that the tools we currently have (authority files) are not
> the best way to achieve this.
What other way would there be? I have a form of name, e.g. Tolstoi, L. and I link it in some way to the form that is authorized. Format is irrelevant today, so I don't care if it's MARC21 or anything else. Now, the way that record is used is admittedly, terrible. We could put the same information in a wiki, and/or in my own opinion, we should build a system that will take the English form and help people find the Italian authorized form (Tolstoj) and the authorized German form (I'll take a guess at Tolstoi) and link all these files together (easily enough done today with RDF/XML and cooperation).
> I'm not sure I understand your point about searching for "wwi" on
> Google.
What I meant is that searching historical terms doesn't work with full-text. I think WWI is a great example because, until you think about it, it seems fine--but by definition you are missing some very important materials: primary sources. My students love this example. Nobody called it WWI during WWI, and anybody who thought in 1916, "Well, this is only WWI and there will be another, even bigger war in 20 or so years called WWII," would have killed themselves on the spot! It wasn't called WWI until WWII happened.
There are many, many, many of these highly subtle examples buried in full-text searching that don't apply with traditional cataloging. We should be experts at ferreting them out. As Bernhard stated: it is not that one tool is good and the other bad, they are complementary. Both have serious (and subtle) weaknesses as well as strengths.
> However, one of the interesting things to note is despite the
> lack of authority files, how well Google helps the searcher who uses
> alternative terms. Searches for Tolstoi and Tolstoy turn up relevant
> information, linking to pages with both spellings. Although obviously
> the results sets have their flaws, trying to do a similarly useful
> search against the Library of Congress catalogue is not straightforward.
> Now, if when I searched for tolstoi (under any index) the LoC prompted
> me "Are you looking for works by or about Tolstoy, Leo, graf,
> 1828-1910" then I'd be impressed.
I agree. There is no reason why that could not be done today, right now. The system needs to be built and we should insist on it. It is only when these sorts of systems exist that people will begin to see that what we have created has a use.
Still, I'm very impressed with the authority record for Leo Tolstoy. Have you seen it? I can't send a link to the LC Authority File, sorry. Could the nasty display and utilization be improved? Undoubtedly.
> Finally when Karen says "if we were to re-design our data with systems
> in mind" I don't think she means we should pick a specific system, and
> then work out what the data needs to look at to exploit the functions in
> that system. My own interpretation would be that we need to design data
> in order that it can be effectively utilised in a computerised
> environment. What we have is data designed to work well in a
> non-computerised environment. I also think we need to think about
> designing data to optimise finding it, rather than filing it (i.e. think
> about the searcher, not the cataloguer).
While I sympathize with this, I have problems with it too. I have worked with people who say that we should do everything for the user and that our own needs are much less important. I contend that serving our own needs, as the people responsible for maintaining a collection (whatever that will mean in the future) does ultimately serve the user. An example is the recent LC decision to do away with series authority records. Although I agree that rel
atively few users search series, it doesn't follow that series authority is unimportant to them. Anyone who has done any reference work, or any acquisitions work knows that series authority is absolutely necessary to do their jobs. Do users want reference people and acquisitions people to do a good job? I am sure they do. Therefore, users care about series authority.
This way of thinking can be expanded to other parts as well. My example has been the paging. In my experience, I have found so many ways of counting the pages of a book, it is mind-blowing. Some add all the pagings together; others ignore some of the pagings; some count the blank pages; some count the end papers, etc. You wouldn't believe it. I agree that the user doesn't really care if an item has 143 pages or 129 pages. But the person who is managing the collection (in this case, the cataloger) cares, because when a book comes in with the same title, authors, etc. as a record in the catalog but the record says 116 pages, and the book the cataloger is looking at has 132 pages, what is the cataloger to do? Does the user want the cataloger to conclude, "This is a duplicate" and throw it away? Do users want catalogers to waste their time by getting up, walking to the shelves, looking at the item and discovering that it's a duplicate? I don't think so.
As a result, we can conclude that everyone should count the pages in the same way (I don't care what that way happens to be); otherwise the information about paging has no meaning and is useless to everyone. Therefore, we can conclude that users care about paging.
With electronic resources, this becomes even more complicated.
Off my high horse! Thanks for an interesting discussion.
James Weinheimer j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu
Director of Library and Information Services
The American University of Rome
Rome, Italy
Received on Wed Aug 22 2007 - 04:12:37 EDT