Owen Stephens wrote on 08/22/2007 04:59:58 AM:
> I'm not sure I understand your point about searching for "wwi" on
> Google. 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.
>
It all depends on the ILS vendor. I just did an author search for
"Clemens, Samuel" on our Sirsi catalog here and came up empty. Before
coming here, I was cataloger at The John Marshall Law School library in
Chicago. They use Innopac, which does use the authority structure.
Take a look at http://catalog.jmls.edu/search and do an author search on
"Carter, James Earl". The resulting message is not as friendly as "Are you
looking. . .", but that's just an easily corrected quibble.
The only problem with library data is whatever information is not there.
If a bibliographic record lacks such things as, for example, controlled
series statements, it is a deficient record. There is nothing wrong with
the structure of the record, just the content. If an authority record
lacks cross-references, notes, etc., as far too many of them do, it is a
deficient record. There is nothing wrong with the structure of the record,
just the content.
And if Sirsi and whoever supplies LC's catalog cannot use the information
contained in the records or the structure that links them, that is not a
problem with the data. It is a problem with the inability or unwillingness
of the vendors to design adequate software.
It seems to me that every problem Karen Coyle and others point out in the
data is not really a data problem. It is an implementation problem. For
everything that we expect a catalog to do, there is probably some vendor's
product that can do it. But no vendor has bothered to figure out how to do
it all. Solve that problem, and most of rest of the stuff we're talking
about goes away.
^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
David Guion
Music Cataloger
University of North Carolina, Greensboro
Jackson Library
320 College Ave.
Greensboro, NC 27412
(336) 334-5781
dmguion_at_uncg.edu
The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
Received on Wed Aug 22 2007 - 06:46:25 EDT