Bernie,
Oh... I understand now. Boy, I completely missed what you were saying
there! (going back into hole now)
Yes, THE "Universal *Digital* Library" - this makes your message totally
understandable. I took a look at the Universal Digital Library last
week (after a friend emailed this:
http://www.publicradio.org/columns/futuretense/2007/12/03.shtml#013949 )
It definitely needs some help - I was surprised at how much help it
obviously needed.
Indeed, this is a great example of just building a collection (scanning
just to scan and accumulate) without thinking upfront about usability.
Makes one kind of appreciate what's already been done... although this
is not a call for anyone to rest...
Regards,
Nathan Rinne
Media Cataloging Technician
ISD 279 - Educational Service Center (ESC)
11200 93rd Ave. North
Maple Grove, MN. 55369
Work phone: 763-391-7183
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of B.G. Sloan
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2007 9:48 AM
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Responses to LC Working Group re
Just to make sure we're talking about the same thing, I am referring
to the Universal Digital Library. The project is funded partially by the
NSF. Partcipants include Carnegie Mellon, Bibliotheca Alexandria in
Egypt, Zhejiang University in China and the Indian Institute of Science.
Several other Indian and Chinese universities participate as well.
I took a quick look at the system. Searching seems to be a liitle
weak. It does not search the digitized text. The basic search is limited
to words in the title. Subject searching is very rudimentary...the
subject search in "advanced search" lists only 32-33 broad general
subject categories to classify 1.5 million items. And the "browse the
collection" isn't any better, what with only about a dozen subject
categories to browse.
So, it looks like not as much effort was put into usability as was put
into scanning and building the collection.
Bernie Sloan
"Rinne, Nathan (ESC)" <RinneN_at_DISTRICT279.ORG> wrote:
"That resource has such primitive searching capabilities...almost as
if
building the collection was top priority, without much thought given to
how to access what's in the collection."
Hmmmm... Bernie, could you point me to any resources that might really
unpack this idea that you are expressing here? I am trying to better
understand what you may be getting at, thinking that it *sounds like*
you are perhaps expressing a perceived dichotomy like the following:
"building the collection to be "captured" / stored / ossified with use
as an afterthought...]" and "organizing the collection to optimize
findability / browsability / concept/idea-exploring for users".
Or said a different way, knowledge as content vs knowledge as process.
Regards,
Nathan Rinne
Media Cataloging Technician
ISD 279 - Educational Service Center (ESC)
11200 93rd Ave. North
Maple Grove, MN. 55369
Work phone: 763-391-7183
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of B.G. Sloan
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2007 8:53 AM
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Responses to LC Working Group re
Jim Weinheimer said:
"Imagine this system with all of Google Books, Microsoft Live Books,
and the Universal Library, plus other materials as well."
It's difficult to imagine this working with the Universal Library.
That resource has such primitive searching capabilities...almost as if
building the collection was top priority, without much thought given to
how to access what's in the collection.
Bernie Sloan
Weinheimer Jim wrote:
Bernhard Eversberg wrote:
> .... when not counting GoogleBooksearch as well as WorldCat and all
> libraries in English-speaking countries.
> The trouble is that to do a successful LCSH search you need to have
> a valid term first and type it in correctly.
> Lacking one, you might want to browse in an index tosee what's
> available:
> http://www.biblio.tu-bs.de/db/lcsh/
>
> Once you find a promising term here, the display catapults you into
> Google or WorldCat right away. And yes, LibraryThing too, although
with
> a somewhat lower chance for success. As of yet...
I think this is such an important project of Bernhard's that I use it
instead of the official LC version. As an example of how it could work,
I would suggest you look at the Online Books page under a specific
heading, e.g. Wrongful imprisonment
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/browse?type=lcsubc&key=
Wrongful%20imprisonment
The user sees the cross-reference to False imprisonment, then you click
on it and you see the Broader and Narrower terms, plus links to specific
items, some of which I don't understand how they were retrieved, but all
quite pertinent to the search.
With more and better cross-references (based on how people really
search, taking tips from logfiles, social tagging, other thesauri or
subject headings, along with other resources), plus some creative
thinking, I believe that users would prefer this to "relevance ranking"
although it too, could be retained. Imagine this system with all of
Google Books, Microsoft Live Books, and the Universal Library, plus
other materials as well.
Finally, if this were connected to a "concept server" (where the concept
gets a number instead of a text string), many other thesauri and subject
heading systems could be included and the use increases enormously for
everyone.
James Weinheimer
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Received on Mon Dec 17 2007 - 11:34:21 EST