Re: can a computer program uniquely identify an author?

This sounds like a cool application but there are a couple of pretty key
assumptions to make this work:

>Analyzing the op. 3 quartets along with a set undisputably by Haydn and
another undisputably by Hoffstetter,

Assumes you have undisputables!

Also assumes you know whom you're comparing and have full scans of all.

It's a little like the police matching fingerprints.  If the police
suspect A, but and has fingerprints from the crime scene, this will
still not help them if A's prints are not on file. They can run a
nationwide search (I think) (which might match B) and put A in the
clear, or it might simply confirm the most likely suspect has no prints
on file.

JJ

**Views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent those of
the Queens Library.**

Jane Jacobs
Asst. Coord., Catalog Division
Queens Borough Public Library
89-11 Merrick Blvd.
Jamaica, NY 11432
tel.: (718) 990-0804
e-mail: Jane.W.Jacobs_at_queenslibrary.org
FAX. (718) 990-8566




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From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of David M Guion DMGUION
Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2007 10:22 AM
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
Subject: Re: can a computer program uniquely identify an author?

When I was in graduate school, a hot topic in  musicology was the
authorship of a set of quartets known as Haydn's opus 3. There were good
reasons to suppose that Haydn did not actually compose those works. To
make a long story short, many scholars argued that the real composer was
someone named Romanus Hoffstetter. A friend of  mine used this
controversy
to develop techniques of computer-aided analysis of music. Analyzing the
op. 3 quartets along with a set undisputably by Haydn and another
undisputably by Hoffstetter, he found a high statistical probability
that
Hoffstetter was the composer. He successfully defended his dissertation
in
1977.

There is no question that a computer can uniquely identify an author.
There is also no question that whatever computers could do thirty years
ago, today's computers can do faster and with less cumbersome
programming
tools. The only question I have is whether they can do it quickly enough
and on a large enough scale to give librarians a really practical tool.
I
suppose it is only a matter of time if it is  not possible already. But
then that brings up another question: at whatever time it becomes
technologically feasible to use a computer to identify an author, will
the
same sort of people who gave us our crummy OPACs be doing the
programming,
or will we get a really useful product?

^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
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.