Again-- There are probably many copyright issues here, but I have
created some OCLC Connexion macros that will harvest the summary and/or
content data from amazon.com. The macros retrieve the data from a
service located at chopac.org and inserts the text into either the 520
or 505. You can download the macrobook (AZtools.mbk) at:
http://www.mediafire.com/?ibejmokqyzm
Charles Ledvina
infosoup.org
chopac.org
Shirley Lincicum wrote:
> These links have always bugged me, too. Why doesn't LC just put this
> information into the MARC records where it would be more useful,
> searchable, etc. I suspect it has to do with lack of software tools to
> help them move the data into a MARC record efficiently. Does anyone
> know for sure? Not to rant, but it just drives me crazy when people
> assert that catalogers don't want to re-use data/metadata. Many of us
> do, we just lack the tools needed to make this happen, and most
> work-a-day catalogers have neither the time nor the skills to develop
> software. Some catalogers who used to have tools for developing macros
> and such to support their work have seen these tools disappear as we
> are forced into GUI interfaces ...
>
> Shirley
>
> Shirley Lincicum
> Collection Management Librarian
> Western Oregon University
> Monmouth, OR 97361
> lincics_at_wou.edu
>
> On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 8:12 AM, Frances Dean McNamara
> <fdmcnama_at_uchicago.edu> wrote:
>
>> There is one thing that might bear examination by this group. In it's reply to the report LC mentions the TOC, summary and other enhanced information that they put up on the web and link to via 856 fields in their MARC records. This must be costing them some effort to do. Yet we have found those fields to be problematic and nowhere near as useful as the Syndetics Enhanced content that we subscribe to. In fact, we now routinely delete those fields because they were causing problems.
>>
>> For instance:
>>
>> http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0803/2007043803-d.html
>>
>> How useful are these links, really? Don't get me wrong, I think LC does lots of great stuff for libraries but I wonder if the time and effort putting up these web pages is worth it. They also do some biographical info and some Table of Contents. But they seem so crude compared to Amazon, Google, other enhanced content, and they seem to duplicate information you can find in those other places. Or here's a table of contents:
>>
>> http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0730/2006047266-t.html
>>
>> Is this process whereby LC makes these web pages a manual duplication of other processes that pull this information and make it available?
>>
Received on Thu Jun 12 2008 - 11:13:28 EDT