Bryan Baldus schrieb:
>
> I like open source software and am enthusiastic about the potential
> future of systems like Koha and Evergreen. One thing that I have
> noticed that seems to be common among many of the newer systems is
> the lack of an alphabetical browse interface, ... An example of this
> display would be LC
> Authorities [1] (subject, name, title, name/title) and the LC Online
> Catalog [2] (title, author, subject, call numbers, author/creator by
> title).
>
This access can also be, to an extent, provided by external means
like the LCSH browser:
http://www.biblio.tu-bs.de/db/lcsh/
which links out to WorldCat and others and can be made to link into
any catalog that provides LCSH access.
> Do other catalogers (and end users--such more advanced ones,
> including reference librarians and researchers) find the alphabetical
> browse essential, or am I alone in this?
You are not. The reason is that system designers all too often dismiss
alphabetical browsing from the beginning as being old-fashioned,
confusing, inferior to keyword boolean access or other reasons.
And then, both SQL-based RDBMs and search engine systems don't have
browsing facilities. That, if nothing else, makes designers think
they are unnecessary - and then they would mean a lot of extra work
to create. And librarians all too often buy that. But of course you
really *can't* expect anyone to enter a correct LCSH for a
subject search.
I have never seen this key issue really evaluated. Also, RDA and FRBR
don't care what's being done with the data. They might put up browse
access as an important requirement for the "find" task.
B.Eversberg
Received on Wed Mar 04 2009 - 05:27:40 EST