Agreed, the technology is available.
The deeper questions remain:
How local does the catalog need to be?
Does *every* library need its own catalog?
--(beyond an inventory control mechanism)
How granular does the catalog need to be?
Monograph/Serial Title? Chapters? Articles? Formulae? Paragraph? Word?
How many discovery layer instances do there need to be?
--1 per large consortia? 1 per small consortia? State-wide? Nation-wide?
--1 discovery layer instance to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them?
How much local customization of a record describing a common item is needed?
--(this one is thorny due to current practice. imo, a mass published item record should also be common in content and three subject headings might not be sufficient, would tagging work in a large enough system or would the noise ratio be too high?)
-Aaron
:-)'
"Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten."
-B. F. Skinner
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Nicole Engard
Sent: Friday, February 13, 2009 9:26 AM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] A fundamental question we seem to be dancing around
> What is "the catalog"?
What it is and what it should be are two different things - my answers
to what it should be below.
> Should/can the catalog be a broad discovery layer?
YES
> Should/can the catalog be an authoritative inventory tool?
YES
> Should/can the catalog be a one-stop tool for both discovery and inventory as described above?
Why the heck not? We have the technology now to build this type of
discovery tool - so why can't the catalog be an inventory tool and a
comprehensive finding tool?
---
Nicole C. Engard
Open Source Evangelist, LibLime
(888) Koha ILS (564-2457) ext. 714
nce_at_liblime.com
AIM/Y!/Skype: nengard
http://liblime.com
http://blogs.liblime.com/open-sesame/
On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 9:20 AM, Dobbs, Aaron <AWDobbs_at_ship.edu> wrote:
> What is "the catalog"?
> Which, to me, breaks out in at least the following three directions:
>
> Should/can the catalog be a broad discovery layer?
> -Inclusive of all of an individual libraries informational holdings?
> -Inclusive of [all or many or a distinct subset of] libraries information?
> -Inclusive of article/chapter/phrase level data?
> -Inclusive of availability data?
>
> Should/can the catalog be an authoritative inventory tool?
> -Inclusive of authoritative known-item searches down to every MARC tag level?
> -Inclusive of all of an individual libraries informational holdings?
> -Inclusive of [all or many or a distinct subset of] libraries information?
> -Inclusive of article/chapter/phrase level data?
> -Inclusive of availability data?
>
> Should/can the catalog be a one-stop tool for both discovery and inventory as described above?
>
> -Aaron
> :-)'
>
> PS also not rhetorical questions :)
>
> Success is getting what you want.
> Happiness is wanting what you get.
> -Dale Carnegie
>
Received on Fri Feb 13 2009 - 09:47:26 EST