Tod,
No, I think the catalog is great - and it doesn't surprise me that the new format helped some people - I think such progress is indispensable.
Re: alphabetical browse lists. When I discovered these lists several years ago in the library catalog (with their "sees" and "see alsos", broader, narrowr heading links) I was terribly impressed. It struck me then as something that was a little bit hard to use for some topics (as you'd have to click through several pages) but incredibly useful for others. I still feel that way today, even as I now realize its many imperfections (despite the illusion of power, control, organization that it gives :)), even if using it may take some concentrated time and effort to do such heading-link-surfing.
Now I find it to be an incredibly useful research tool among other tools for "serendipitous discovery" (I think it could be very powerful in WorldCAT), like a bibliographies as well.
I don't know if Jonathan Rochkind would still say this, but back in May he mused:
"...I think more research is needed into what makes a controlled vocabularly suitable for this kind of display, how to provide this kind of display without loss of information, and how to get LCSH there in a reasonable way. I can respect, for instance, Thomas Mann's complaints about how the pre-coordination of LCSH provides important information that is lost in this kind of decomposing. However, at the same time, we _need_ to provide these kind of browseable interfaces. How can we do this without tossing out useful cataloger supplied information? It's an open question, and one that needs to be investigated, not rejected."
Suggestion: why not put a "alphabetical subject browse" option in the advanced search options (thereby preserving it for nerdy folks like me)? You could even try to do interesting things with it, like Bernhard has done here:
http://www.biblio.tu-bs.de/db/lcsh/
I hope that you will consider my request. I really wish we could "both-and" this one (pre-coordination and alphabetical lists and other options [including things like FAST])
I know money is tight, but why can't we do this? Have more effective sharing of bibliographic data? Have lots more of the kind of cooperation that was suggested here: http://tinyurl.com/372owy
This really is a great idea. Library managers / leaders out there - especially of large academic institutions - why not cast the vision to those who have the purse strings, get the money, and take the plunge?
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 Tod Olson
Sent: Friday, December 21, 2007 8:53 AM
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Aqua Browser in beta at U. Chicago
As Owen Stephens alluded to later in this discussion, we did a
preliminary study with PhD-level graduate students in the Humanities,
who Andrew Abbott identified as among the core research users of the
library. 9 of 12 of these students, using a very rough demo containing
our entire catalog, found materials relevant to their doctoral
research that they had not previously found in our traditional
catalog. So the combination of facets for narrowing and word cloud as
a source of new terms seems to have some value for advanced research
under at least some circumstances. Enough for us to be comfortable
spending time and resource on this project.
-Tod
Tod Olson <tod_at_uchicago.edu>
Systems Librarian
University of Chicago Library
On Dec 20, 2007, at Dec 20, 4:08 PM, Rinne, Nathan (ESC) wrote:
> Tyson,
>
> I agree with a lot of your sentiments here (though I would have
> thought that the U. of Chicago - fine liberal arts school that it is
> - would not have too many of those foul naïve cretans among their
> populace). My question is whether there are any plans to make it
> possible for people who want to do serious research (like your own
> Andrew Abbot) and who desire more exact control in their searching
> to use the AquaBrowser format (e.g. advanced search options, the
> ability to browse alphabetically if desired etc - things the Endeca
> interface allows for [for now]) - or is the plan to confine those
> kinds of options to the actual catalog underneath and not the
> AquaBrowser interface (which yes, does look pretty cool!), whose eye
> candy and fancy functionality will be reserved for the less
> scholarly types among you?
>
> 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 Tyson Tate
> Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2007 3:44 PM
> To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] AquaBrowser in beta at U. Chicago
>
> On Dec 20, 2007, at 11:51 AM, Nancy Cochran wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>> However, in my opinion Aquabrowser is only a PRETTY PICTURE. It does
>> little except divert a user from what that user started to look for
>> to
>> something different. (Type a word. Reduce the hits by selecting
>> from the
>> "word cloud" twice and see if you have hits that are more helpful
>> than the
>> original list of hits. My experience is, not usually.)
>
> The purpose of the cloud on the left is not to help you narrow your
> results. That's what the sections at the top and on the right are
> for. Although I can't speculate as to the intended purposes of the
> cloud, it allows you to see and click on related topics quickly. So
> when I search for "oncology," I have a clickable list of related
> searches like "radiotherapy" and "cancer". When I misspell a word,
> such as in "onncology," it shows me some suggested proper spellings,
> including "oncology". What's so bad about that?
>
>> Aquabrowser's "word clound" changes a user's search in ways that
>> may seem
>> "pop" or "hip." But it usually does not tunnel down on an initial
>> search
>> and help a user find a more focused set of hits.
>
> It doesn't *change* your search. It gives you *new* searches to try.
>
> Again, it's not meant to narrow your results. Assigning unrelated
> purposes to something and then calling it worthless seems like a
> straw man argument (of course, I can't remember all of my logical
> fallacies, so I may have the wrong term there).
>
> In other words, is Google useless because it doesn't allow me to
> search my kitchen cabinets? Is Amazon useless because it doesn't let
> me search Wikipedia?
>
>> I submit that Aquabrowser makes a naive searcher FEEL HAPPY and
>> does little
>> else except by serendipity. At its best, perhaps Aquabrowser
>> introduces a
>> naive user to new material and new ideas. But that is not why we
>> teach
>> people to search.
>
> I submit that you believe the way you search is the way everyone else
> in the world searches. You say "at its best, perhaps Aquabrowser
> introduces a naive user to new material and new ideas." How on earth
> is that a bad thing?
>
> And as long as library folk call their patrons "naive," those users
> will flock to places like Amazon where they're allowed to search and
> browse results in a way that works for them, not in a way that some
> elitist with a college degree has decreed that they -- foul naive
> cretans! -- should search.
>
>> The best part of the Aquabrowser display continues to be "Refine by
>> Call
>> number Range" a structure which many of you have built over many
>> years of
>> hard work.
>>
>> In my opinion, Aquabrowser in a visual bleep in a stable, growing
>> system
>> that librariians and others are working to build.
>
> What system are you talking about? As far as I can tell, the real
> innovations come from people who actually build and release their
> idea in the form of something that actually works -- a la Aquabrowser
> -- instead of talking about big pie-in-the-sky ideas and theories and
> methodologies that never amount to anything you can actually use.
>
> This is a problem in the software development world, too. There's
> people who write big grandiose white papers with abstract language
> and vague notions. And there's people who actually build things.
>
> Regards,
> Tyson
>
>
> --
> Tyson Tate
> Web Developer
> Robert E. Kennedy Library
> Cal Poly University
Received on Fri Dec 21 2007 - 10:24:39 EST