Ross Singer wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 3:30 AM, Bernhard Eversberg <ev_at_biblio.tu-bs.de> wrote:
>> its way into many RFPs. The concept is also absent in VuFind and other
>> open source products. (I sometimes doubt the developers even understand
>> the usefulness.)
>
> This, of course, is the beauty of open source "products". If you
> doubt the developers understand the usefulness, you are more than
> welcome to submit a patch that accomplishes your needs.
>
It's not as if I didn't point this out to developers on various
occasions. But the tools they choose, like RDBMs and SQL and Solr,
are ill suited for the purpose, so a mere "patch" will hardly do.
It takes a substantial layer of additional program code.
And it is always so easy to conclude that if they don't, then browsing
can't be that important, and users get confused by browse lists anyway
and should be spared the annoyance and besides it looks so old fashioned
and whatnot.
It's also not as if I didn't program browse accesses already. My entire
software revolves around that concept, and it is in use in hundreds of
special libraries and diverse projects here. Those who've gotten used
to it don't want to miss it. The LCSH and RDA browsers are spinoffs,
but I'd be pleased to be shown models that do a much better job without
browsing.
More examples, even in Chinese, are here:
http://www.allegro-c.de/ac-dbs.htm
OTOH, I'm not doing this for a living, so I can well live without my
suggestions gaining ground, and I feel no urge to engage in ever more
projects. If the wisdom of the crowds walks other avenues, so be it.
What Google did (arguably) right was to bring the vending machine
paradigm into information searching: toss a coin or two into their
slot and see what you get. We wanna go for that, lock stock and barrel?
I think we do, cause everybody here seems to agree that catalogs are
MUCH too complicated and drive people away. Then get serious about that,
and let's see if RDA is the right vehicle to get there because that
machinery will slurp up all resources it can get to solve problems of
the 19th century. If we find that it can't be the right vehicle, then
let's advise them RDA people to ditch it and our administrators to stay
away. That'd be a solid result of this discussion.
B.Eversberg
Received on Wed Mar 11 2009 - 10:55:31 EDT