----- "Martha Yee" <myee_at_UCLA.EDU> wrote:
> I know this is asking for trouble, but I can't resist sharing my
> latest
> Google adventure with you all. My husband and I were feeding stale
> bread to
> some coots on Echo Park Lake (in a neighborhood park near our house),
> when I
> was suddenly conscience-stricken at the realization that I didn't
> actually
> know if stale bread was good for coots. When I got home, I typed in
> to
> Google's famous search box "what do coots eat?" The reply that came
> back
> was a web site entitled "What do eagles eat?" In the list of eagle
> edibles
> was coots.
>
> In LCSH, the heading Coots--Food would give you perfect recall and
> precision
> for monographs wholly about what coots eat, if there were any.
However, if you search for "what do coots eat?", this wouldn't come up either with LCSH. You would need to know the pseudo-thesaurus that is LCSH to know this. Many librarians might know this, but most of the people that I see at the reference desk wouldn't. I guess the point is, that neither approach is perfect.
Edward
> If
> this
> society placed a high value on universal employment (which it clearly
> doesn't), the heading Coots-Food would also bring up journal articles
> and
> papers that were wholly about what coots eat. We could even imagine
> a
> future in which correct RDF coding might allow a computer to translate
> the
> heading for a user who couldn't understand LCSH-ese into "food that
> coots
> eat."
>
> Just saying...
>
> Martha
>
> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
>
> Martha M. Yee
> Cataloging Supervisor
> UCLA Film & Television Archive
> 1015 N. Cahuenga Blvd.
> Los Angeles, CA 90038-2616
> 323-462-4921 x27
> 323-469-9055 (fax)
> myee_at_ucla.edu (Email at work)
>
> Campus mail:
> 302 E. Melnitz
> 132306
>
> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
>
>
> "You have a dollar. I have a dollar. We swap. Now you have my dollar
> and I
> have your dollar. We are not better off. You have an idea. I have an
> idea.
> We swap. Now you have two ideas and I have two ideas. Both are richer.
> When
> you gave, you have. What I got, you did not lose. Thats
> cooperation"Jimmy
> Durante quoted in Schnozzola, by Gene Fowler, 1951, p. 207-208.
Received on Tue Jan 29 2008 - 11:41:18 EST