Well practically, every library does need it's own inventory system -
so if the catalog serves both purposes, than each library needs it's
own - but philosophically - I'm all about sharing a worldwide catalog
to rule them all :) Also, I think that each library/consortia
probably need their own catalog because they should have the power to
customize their systems as much or as little as they want to - making
the decision to limit libraries based on a global decision doesn't
seem right to me ... maybe I'm just too optimistic :)
I think that catalogs should be as granular as possible - like we said
the technology is there, so why not allow for searching at the
article/chapter level? Or even smaller levels?
---
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 9:46 AM, Dobbs, Aaron <AWDobbs_at_ship.edu> wrote:
> 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 - 09:54:18 EST