Some thoughts:
1. I'd love to compare tails. But the comparison isn't direct. LT's
editions may or may not correspond to truly different editions
underneath. Mostly, they correspond to the same record from two
different sources (ie., Amazon, the LC). The right question would be
manifestations plus whatever you call the difference between the
billion holdings and the X million OCLC numbers.
LT's work system is somewhat more embracing than xISBN. All
translations of Homer are one work.
2. LibraryThing has 4,339,326 works and 36,094,271 books. Of these
2,939,431 are singletons. So 67% of works are singletons, but only 8%
of books belong to a singleton work.
3. In a living system, you want a certain amount of inefficiency. I
think it's sort of like unemployment. Part of it is real and
bad--people who can't find work. Part of it is good--people are
allowed to quit jobs. So, some "singleton churn" is a good thing--new
books that will attract combiners and books that were wrongly
combined, but the separator didn't know what they should be combined
with.
Best,
Tim
On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 8:59 AM, Karen Coyle <lists_at_kcoyle.net> wrote:
> Tim Spalding wrote:
>>
>> Or a Turk who loves what he does. LibraryThing members are doing
>> *6,000* FRBR acts per day now. That's a minimum of 12,000 works
>> combined. Similar effort goes into author combinations, identification
>> of "distinct" homonymous authors, etc. etc.
>>
>
> Tim, I find this figure fascinating. When OCLC did its FRBRization, it
> concluded that about 5% of books in its database had more than one
> manifestation to bring together. That figure would undoubtedly be different
> with LT because LT probably doesn't have the long tail of titles that OCLC
> will have, but do you know how many of your books are 'singlets' and how
> many are merged with others?
>
> kc
>
> --
> -----------------------------------
> Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
> kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
> ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet
> fx.: 510-848-3913
> mo.: 510-435-8234
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Received on Mon Feb 16 2009 - 11:34:14 EST