A researcher entered a search in our online catalogue yesterday by
typing in the word "vliet". He got back a "relevance ranking", failed
to find the item he was looking for, and emailed me today because he was
surprised we did not have it.
We do actually have it, but the computer told him (or would have done
had he persevered) that it was the *least* relevant item having the word
"vliet". In reality of course it was the *most* relevant item, but the
computer could not know that on the evidence of just one word.
A searcher might well feel aggrieved at the arrogance of the
programmers in purporting to tell him the items most relevant and least
relevant to his search. How would they know? I agree with Martha Yee's
suggestion in one of her recent publications that catalogues should
eschew claiming such a skill-until they can live up to that claim.
William Schupbach
Wellcome Library, 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE
E-mail: w dot schupbach at wellcome dot ac dot uk
Catalogue: http://catalogue.wellcome.ac.uk/search~S5/X&SORT=AX
The Wellcome Trust is a charity registered in England, no. 210183. Its
sole Trustee is The Wellcome Trust Limited, a company registered in
England, no. 2711000, whose registered office is 215 Euston Road, London
NW1 2BE, UK. For information about Wellcome Collection, our exhibitions
venue go to www.wellcomecollection.org.uk
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Received on Fri Jan 04 2008 - 15:01:31 EST