A couple thoughts come to mind with regards to your problem. One is
that ClassWeb can't be used as a source of data. You can purchase
records from LC, but frankly I don't think that's a good way to go
(and it's expensive).
A better approach might be to perform a record extraction from a very
large library -- preferably a consortium where you can get a lot of
data. You will need to clean the data to ignore local call numbers,
low quality records, general numbers given to analyzed series, etc,
but you could then perform statistical analysis of call number stems
against subjects, keywords, or whatever you like.
I wouldn't get too attached to trying to make a sensible hierarchy.
Both the subject headings and classification schedules are more
enumerative than hierarchical so you will be limited in the depth you
can achieve. It seems like you could use co occurrence to determine
the order in part of your display, and facets like a lot of people are
doing in their catalogs for the rest.
kyle
> I need something that will map an LC class number into one of many
> "subject groups" exactly like or similar to the OCLC Conspectus.
>
> Hopefully, I could do this on the fly, programatically, with a web
> service of some sort.
>
> Is this something that Is In Breach of some legal agreement or licensing
> regarding the OCLC Conspectus? If I look at conspectus reports from a
> library, look at LC Class ranges in ClassWeb, and build something that
> maps one to the other, is this ?
>
> I just want to do what the OCLC Collection Analysis service does, but
> one item at a time, to then let users navigate an OPAC by that
> dimension. (Hopefully, we'd then have a hierarchical way to navigate
> thru items catalogued with LCCs).
>
Received on Fri Feb 01 2008 - 16:58:11 EST