One of the reasons browse is so important at the moment is that our
entire cataloging practices were in fact designed for printed and/or
card catalogs -- systems that have the built in limitation of an ordered
scan being the only real mode of access. The nature of our headings was
optimized for just this sort of system.
Now, that's not the systems we have anymore. So in the long-run, I think
a rethinking of how headings are constructed is long overdue, to be more
generally useful in the various kinds of systems we want to use them in.
But even without that, I'm not convinced that an alphanumeric ordered
browse list is the _only_ way, or even neccesarily the _best_ way, to
provide access to our controlled headings system. Obviously a keyword
search alone won't cut it, for the reasons you all have outlined --
users don't know what terms to search. But I'm not sure an alphabetic
browse is the best way to let them explore the system and/or provide
suggestions to help them identify useful headings. I think there are
probably better ways, and a slavish adherence to the tradition of the
alphabetic browse as the one true interface serves us no better than
putting our heads in the sand and ignoring the user needs entirely. We
instead need to identify precisely what the user needs are, and think
about the best ways to achieve them with modern technology.
Jonathan
Bernhard Eversberg wrote:
> 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 - 11:18:42 EST