Ranti,
I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on this!
My feeling is that it doesn't have to be done in library catalogs. It
might actually be better if it wasn't. I think the projects like
LibraryThing and the Open Library, which aren't being run by librarians
in libraries, could be seen as examples. Unfortunately, they both
started with library data, but I think they'll get further and further
from that as "better" sources of data appear. Open Library has leaned
heavily on Amazon for data, so it has missed some of the library
oddities. At the same time, library data has filled in some gaps, like
helping to bring together works (a feature being developed but not
visible yet on the site) because the of the presence of uniform titles.
But LT has let users bridge that gap, and you only need to do it once
for it to permeate through bibliographic space. While I sometimes find
myself cringing at how data is treated in non-library systems, I try to
remind myself that the rate of learning about data is greatly
accelerated, and we won't need 150 years to develop a new way to
identify and describe resources.
I do consult on the Open Library project as the 'library data expert'
but I've tried very hard to help when I'm needed but not to interfere.
I'm as curious as anyone to see where it can go, and I'm glad I've
played a minor, but only a minor, role. I know I would have pushed it to
be more library-like because that's what I know. I should keep a diary
of some of the things that have come up -- like that when some people
talk about 'series' they mean 'the Harry Potter books,' and that readers
really want to see the full list of a 'serial read' and in order. Duh!
But libraries don't provide this kind of thing in their data, and
although it could be intuited from the catalog perhaps, it's not going
to show up as a series.
kc
Ranti Junus wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 14, 2009 at 1:18 PM, Karen Coyle <lists_at_kcoyle.net> wrote:
>
>> [...]
>> I wish we could see what systems would look like if users designed them.
>> Yes, we'd have hundreds or thousands of designs, but it would be fascinating
>> to really see the user views of bibliographic data.
>>
>
> Funny, I've been thinking about this for quite sometime. Part of me
> want to see the kind of point of view the users would show so we can
> learn from them. And part of me cringes at the possible wrath from
> our public services librarians if I dare to suggest to let the users
> loose. ;-)
>
>
> ranti.
>
>
--
-----------------------------------
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 Sat Mar 14 2009 - 15:19:56 EDT