Any of those examples are fine for the cataloger's view. I assert that
the typical public library user cares not for most of that
information. Author, co-authors, illustrators, editors--yes,
certainly. But there's no reason that information can't be parsed out
of a MARC record and displayed in some coherent fashion on the OPAC.
Sharon M. Foster, 91.7% Librarian
Speaker-to-Computers
http://www.vsa-software.com/mlsportfolio/
On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 10:23 AM, Deborah Fritz
<deborah_at_marcofquality.com> wrote:
> Without the space before the colon in the title, that colon looks just like
> the colon for the label, what does it mean (especially if I can't read
> English and figure it out from the words)? Shouldn't we display that
> information as:
>
> Title: Barak Obama
> Other title information: this improbable quest
> Responsibility: John K. Wilson
>
> You can't really assume "Author", and you can't say "Subtitle" (because it
> might not be a subtitle)
>
> Separate labeled lines for each piece of metadata will make for a very long
> and busy display on the screen, won't it? Especially if things get a bit
> tricky, e.g.:
>
> Title: Poems from Cuba
> Other title information for title: alone against the sea
> Parallel title: Poesia desde Cuba
> Other title information for parallel title: solo contra el mar
> First statement of responsibility: Raul Mesa
> Subsequent statement of responsibility: edited with a preface by Harley D.
> Oberhelman
> Subsequent statement of responsibility: translated from the Spanish by James
> Hoggard
>
> Is this kind of long list the type of display you envision, when we drop
> ISBD 'sentences' (perhaps with shorter labels, since we will each be able to
> decide on our own labels)?
>
> Forget how the metadata was entered, just for a moment; what would be your
> vision for an ideal display for something like this (and please don't say
> that the point is that we can all decide on our own displays):
>
> Common title / statement of responsibility. Dependent title : other title
> information / statement of responsibility = parallel common title / parallel
> statement of responsibility. Parallel dependent title : parallel other title
> information / parallel statement of responsibility.
>
> —from ISBD Consolidated (2007)
>
>
> Regards,
> Deborah
>
> ------
> Deborah Fritz
> The MARC of Quality (quite prepared to change our company name as soon as it
> is necessary!)
> www.marcofquality.com
> Voice/Fax: (321) 676-1904
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
>> [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Sharon Foster
>> Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 7:26 AM
>> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
>> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] A real example: A page at the BPL
>>
>> Jim,
>>
>> There's a difference between the internal data format and how
>> that data is displayed at the user interface. I don't think
>> Tim was addressing the internal format in his critique,
>> although I'm sure he has opinions about that, too. The
>> point--among many--is that the ISBD punctuation is only
>> useful if you're going to print out cards, real cards. It's
>> nothing but noise to the typical public library user.
>> What's so hard about presenting that data as
>>
>> Title: Barack Obama: this improbable quest
>> Author: John K. Wilson
>>
>> It's 2009. We have the technology.
>>
>> Sharon
>>
>> Sharon M. Foster, 91.7% Librarian
>> Speaker-to-Computers
>> http://www.vsa-software.com/mlsportfolio/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 4:14 AM, Weinheimer Jim
>> <j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu> wrote:
>> > Tim,
>> >
>> > Thanks so much for a long and thoughtful critique of a
>> library catalog. You have a lot of good insights, but it
>> shouldn't be a surprise to you or to anybody else, that I
>> have a few points in reply.
>> >
>> > First, a lot of what you point out is based on the
>> decisions of how a single library implemented their own
>> catalog, which may be successful or unsuccessful. Some of the
>> points of BPL (which I hadn't seen before) I like, and other
>> parts I don't like. In any case, these are implementation
>> issues, such as your commentary on the section labelled
>> "Holdings" which I agree is not very successful. These parts
>> however, are extremely easy to change.
>> >
>> > More importantly, it seems to me that a lot of what you,
>> and others, find fault with in our catalogs is actually our
>> standards for bibliographic description and retrieval. We
>> have standards in punctuation, arrangement, and terminology
>> among lots of other things. When there are standards shared
>> with many others, including internationally, there are
>> normally disagreements. You see it here in Europe especially,
>> now with the introduction of the European Union where lots of
>> businesses must follow new EU standards, such as cheese
>> needing pasteurized milk, or the way ham is made. Often,
>> there is such an outcry that a standard is cancelled, such as
>> when they were saying that Italy couldn't have wood fires in
>> urban areas, and that meant that Italian pizzas could no
>> longer be made the traditional way! Italy rebelled, and our
>> pizzas can still be made over wood flame (thankfully!).
>> >
>> > Just because the library world decides to follow the
>> international standards of ISBD and AACR2 doesn't mean that
>> everybody agrees with all of the rules. One rule that I think
>> is very bad is the rule of "bibliographic identities," that
>> is, each bibliographic identity of a modern author gets a
>> separate heading. Therefore, if you want to look up
>> everything by Samuel Clemens, you must look up each of his
>> pseudonyms. This can become highly complex for searchers
>> (first of all, they have to know about it!), and the
>> authority files become more complex too. But I am well aware
>> that other catalogers will strongly disagree with me and say
>> that keeping separate bibliographic identities is critical.
>> In either case it doesn't matter what our own opinions are,
>> or what the general public believes, because the standards
>> require that we keep bibliographic identities separate and
>> there is no compromise. I must do it even though I disagree.
>> Such standards govern each part of the catalog recor!
>> d,!
>> > even the
>> > tiniest. You questioned capitalization of titles, and
>> double-dashes in contents notes. That's fine, but the answer
>> for all of these questions is: we are following the
>> standards. And the standards are available for everyone to
>> see if they want.
>> >
>> > Now the question becomes: do we want standards for the
>> description and access of the physical and virtual products
>> of human creativity (i.e. what the library deals with) or do
>> we say that the time for such standards is past? I repeat:
>> when you accept a standard, it does *not* mean that everyone
>> agrees with it, or that the general public is expected to
>> understand them. There are a lot of things I see on my
>> television set, my DVD player, my plumbing, my car and so on
>> that I don't understand. Do I need to? I don't think so--I
>> just assume that these things follow the requirements of the
>> experts, and that satisfies me. Now, does it really satisfy
>> the requirements of every expert? Is there a major argument
>> going on about it, or is there grumbling, such as in the
>> bibliographic identities example I gave above? As a member of
>> the general public, I don't care. I just want some sort of
>> reliability and assurance. These sorts of discussions take
>> place in another dimension, and I simply!
>> i!
>> > gnore wha
>> > t I don't understand, although if I wanted to badly enough,
>> I could discover and understand it all.
>> >
>> > Still, I'm glad that there are experts following standards
>> out there
>> > even though I may be completely ignorant of everything: so
>> companies
>> > cannot put chalk into our bread, or throw toxic waste into
>> our water,
>> > or use unsafe materials and haphazard methods in our
>> electronic products. As a consumer, I want people to follow
>> standards even when I don't know about them or understand
>> them at all. Only in this way can I be assured of quality in
>> the materials I consume.
>> >
>> > If asked, would people say that they want standards for
>> bibliography? I would venture that they would say yes, but
>> this is the overarching, most important point that I made
>> before and will do so again. When people say that they prefer
>> Google over library catalogs, they are actually saying that
>> they prefer no standards over standards. There is no
>> "standard" in a Google search or record display, there is no
>> yardstick, and everything happens in a black box. We don't
>> know what it searches and what it does not, how it arranges
>> results, who is manipulating it (because people can and do).
>> We don't know anything at all. I don't believe the general
>> public realizes this is really what they are saying, but it
>> is up to us "experts" to let them know.
>> >
>> > So, if someone asks, "Why do I see the title entered in
>> this way in a catalog?" there is an answer that we can point
>> to in our standards (cataloging rules). Each rule was agreed
>> to after a lot of debate and argument, but it doesn't mean
>> that everyone necessarily agreed. Still, if there are going
>> to be standards, this is what must be followed.
>> >
>> > In contrast, if the same person asks similar questions
>> about Google, there is no answer because most of Google's
>> searching is proprietary information, or the answer is
>> simply, there are no standards, so the question itself is
>> nonsensical. I still maintain that the reason people like
>> Google so much is not because they understand what it can and
>> cannot do, its strengths and weaknesses, what it misses and
>> finds, but simply because it is so easy and it hides its
>> weaknesses very cleverly.
>> >
>> > Obviously, I think there is no question that libraries and
>> their finding tools must change and become far simpler to
>> use. Fortunately, there is a lot of room for improvement! But
>> I don't know if it is correct to conclude that machines must
>> do all the work and all the thinking because "people cannot
>> be trained." That still needs to be proved. While people
>> quickly forget what they learned in an information literacy
>> class, I personally think that before giving up completely we
>> could consider working with reference services to provide
>> alternate methods of providing very quick, highly focussed
>> tutorials delivered to patrons when they need it, and perhaps
>> other methods. Providing basic tutorials and other forms of
>> help may come to be seen as one of the inherent functions of
>> the catalog, along with description and access, something
>> that has been needed from the beginning and should no longer
>> be considered an afterthought.
>> > I genuinely feel that getting rid of standards means
>> getting rid of libraries themselves since all reliability and
>> assuredness go out the window. No librarians could do their
>> jobs. All we have to offeer are our standards, and if we want
>> to throw these out and create non-standardized junk, there's
>> already plenty of junk out there and it costs a lot less then
>> we ever could.
>> >
>> > But, if we rather decide we want new, "improved" standards,
>> that is a
>> > huge, exhausting undertaking doomed to failure, since it
>> would bring
>> > lots of disagreement along with it, as any standards do. (Do you
>> > really think RDA is the answer to any of your criticisms?)
>> >
>> > Thanks again for your critique. I'll look at it some more.
>> >
>> > Jim Weinheimer
>> >
>> > ________________________________________________________________
>> >
>> > It seems to me that we go round and round on various
>> issues. A lot of
>> > it resembles a "religious debate"--a term of art in software and
>> > design.
>> >
>> > One way to break religious debates is to talk about something
>> > concrete. So, I'm going to plop something on the collective "table,"
>> > offer a brief critique. Won't you join me?
>> >
>> > I've chosen the "detail" page of a book, the first "Obama"
>> book that
>> > came up in the BPL[1]. I propose to critique it as follows:
>> >
>> > *I'm going to critique the page, not the whole system; I
>> wan t to keep
>> > things focused. As such, I'm not going to critique the top
>> part of the
>> > page, but just the part "below the chrome."
>> > *I'm going to list everything I think is wrong with the page, and
>> > offer brief commentart on it.
>> > *They use the HIP OPAC, one of the most common, but not the worst.
>> > *I punch because I love. I picked BPL because it is my
>> favorite public
>> > library. I love them to pieces, and indeed I think their catalog is
>> > better than many.
>> > *This email is very long--10 typewritten pages. That's because the
>> > catalog has a lot of problems!
>> >
>> > Here's the page: http://www.librarything.com/pics/blog/ngc4lib2.png
>> >
>> > ### LEFT SIDE
>> >
>> > My criticisms:
>> >
>> > 1. The page is session-based. That means we have to discuss it by
>> > screenshot, it can't be spidered, it can't be bookmarked,
>> it can't be
>> > sent to a friend and so forth. In my opinion, this is a catastrophe
>> > for libraries.[2]
>> >
>> > 2. No permalink. Despite #1, there are tricks to link to
>> many (but not
>> > most) HIP pages, and other tricks that can link to all. The
>> page COULD
>> > include a permalink, with icon--a familiar feature of sites like
>> > Google Maps. It does not.
>> >
>> > 3. The "Holdings" section on the left is misleading. The divet and
>> > other structure implies that the things underneath it are
>> subheadings.
>> > I'm frankly uncertain if that's the intent. Maybe the list is of
>> > "holdings" related to the item. If so, "Holdings" is a very weird
>> > word. It's a weird word even in a librarian context--a link to a
>> > review is not a "holding." And it's weirder in a non-librarian
>> > context, where "holdings" doesn't mean anything at all.
>> >
>> > On further investigation I see that "Holdings" referred to the fact
>> > that, along with all the other info, the page I was on had the
>> > holdings info. The design is confusing.
>> >
>> > 4. The "Fiction and Biography" functions strangely. First, it's
>> > meaningless--what am I to expect that it does?
>> >
>> > My first guess would be that it would take me to other examples of
>> > Fiction and Biography. It does not. Instead, it takes me to
>> a list of
>> > headings, "Genre" and "Topics." Both have subheadings, like
>> > "NonFiction" and "Politician." On Safari the headings--although
>> > black--turn into links when you roll over them. On Firefox
>> they don't.
>> > In neither do the links go anywhere.
>> >
>> > The problem is probably technical. Whatever.
>> >
>> > 5. "Library Journal Review" works. Mostly. I searched for
>> the review
>> > elsewhere, and Barnes and Noble has it. Barnes and Noble
>> preserves the
>> > paragraph structure of the original, as well as italics and other
>> > formatting. The BPL has it as one giant text lump.
>> >
>> > 6. "Summary" is somewhat confusing insofar as there is a "Summary"
>> > field on the right, in the "book information area." The two are
>> > different. The summary works, but it's also somewhat
>> "undigested." It
>> > ends with the non-sentence "a website where updates and
>> comments may
>> > be posted as the campaign progresses: http://obamapolitics.com Book
>> > jacket."
>> >
>> > Why do libraries, which, if it stands for anything here, stands for
>> > sophistication and exactitude of metadata, allow thesse
>> unformatted,
>> > half-gramattical text-blobs.
>> >
>> > 7. "Table of Contents" works pretty well. It's a bit odd, though,
>> > insofar as the same content is presented in the "Contents" field of
>> > the book-info-field.
>> >
>> > It took me a while to untagle the relationship between the
>> two fields,
>> > though. It's non-obvious. Eventually I figured out that
>> certain data
>> > (eg., the introduction, page numbers) were stripped out and returns
>> > replaced with "--". (See later for my rant against that idiotic
>> > typographical device.)
>> >
>> > 8. "More by this author" works as you'd think, but there
>> are still problems:
>> >
>> > *Clicking on it takes you to other works by the author. In
>> this case
>> > there are some. In many other cases, there aren't. When
>> there isn't,
>> > it takes you to the record you are on! (Most users will
>> record that as
>> > "I clicked on the link and nothing happened. So I did it again.
>> > Nothing. So I left and went to Amazon where the website
>> works.) *The
>> > Last-First format is a fossil of the "dictionary catalog." In other
>> > book contexts--book covers, spines, bookst ore displays,
>> Amazon, B&N,
>> > LibraryThing, publisher websites, etc.--authors are First-Last.
>> > Only bibliographies still use last-first, precisely because
>> > bibliographies require "dictionary order." No such order is needed
>> > here. It looks fussy.
>> > *It's unclear to me why the author's first name needs to be
>> followed
>> > by "1969-." Not even bibliographies do that. It's probable that
>> > libraries are in the pocket of the gravestone industry.
>> >
>> > 9. Subjects. Some problems:
>> >
>> > *Subjects are in Last-First format (eg., Obama, Barack). This is
>> > unusual--elsewhere I see his name as First-Last. There must
>> be a good
>> > reason. Surely it is because it's an alphabetical list.
>> Whoops, it's
>> > not. There is no reason for it.
>> >
>> > *The links *look* hierarchical, but they aren't. Given
>> "United States
>> > -- Race relations -- Political aspects" you'd think you
>> could click on
>> > any step of the hierarchy. You'd think wrong.
>> >
>> > *The links take you to a dictionary list of subjects, including the
>> > one you clicked on. You have to click it again to get
>> something. That
>> > is, the link doesn't take you where you want to go, it
>> takes you to a
>> > list of thinks, including a link to where you want to go.
>> Did humans
>> > design this?
>> >
>> > *The use of "--" to indicate hierarchy is non-standard. The rest of
>> > the information work uses ">." It's unclear why libraries think the
>> > most basic web conventions must be ignored.
>> >
>> > *Whoever decided on using "--" in a web-product should spent five
>> > minutes with the Chicago Manual or Words into Type. "--" is what
>> > typewriters used for the em-dash. It didn't exist before
>> typewriters,
>> > and it has no reason to exist now, when every computer and most
>> > cellphones are capable of the em-dash.
>> >
>> > *Since we're being persnickety, it's unclear why subjects end in
>> > periods. They aren't sentences. Punctuation, like "--" and "." have
>> > meanings. Misuse isn't a big deal, but it decreases confidence and
>> > tires the eye.
>> >
>> > *2001- should be an en-dash. Okay, I'll stop.
>> >
>> > 10. "Browse catalog by name" works okay, but it's unclear
>> why it gets
>> > only one entry, and that's the author--who already got a
>> link. Given
>> > the term "browse" I'd think that the link would put me in
>> the middle
>> > of a millions-long list of books sorted by author. No. It does the
>> > same thing as the "More by this author" link.
>> >
>> > 11. "MARC Display" is weird. But at least it's small. Now, onto the
>> > main part of the page!
>> >
>> > ### MAIN PART
>> >
>> > 12. "Barack Obama : this improbable quest / John K.
>> Wilson." Is weird
>> > in at least four ways. Together they reinforce the
>> impression that the
>> > library catalog is arcane and fiddly.
>> >
>> > *The string "Title [slash] Author" is a library convention.
>> In other
>> > situations, title and author are distinguished either
>> typographically
>> > (as on a cover) or with the words "by."
>> >
>> > *In real life (except in France), book titles employ
>> capital letters.
>> > As I've said before on this list, when LibraryThing started showing
>> > library titles, users complained that the site was
>> "broken." Something
>> > was causing book titles to lose their capitals. Funny?
>> Alas, the jokes
>> > on libraries.
>> >
>> > *In real life, colons don't have spaces before them.
>> >
>> > *In real life, author-title lists don't end in periods.
>> >
>> > 13. All text from this point goes underlined when rolled over. But
>> > it's not clickable. This makes no sense at all. If LibraryThing did
>> > this, I'd have ten bug-reports inside of a minute. I wonder
>> if people
>> > report this, or if the general atmosphere of brokeness prevents it.
>> >
>> > 14. "Publisher," "Boulder, CO : Paradigm Publishers, c2008." What a
>> > peculiar string. The publisher is "Paradigm Publishers" but their
>> > location is listed first? And why call it "Publisher" when
>> it includes
>> > publisher-town, publisher-state, publisher name, copyright
>> symbol (in
>> > case you thought it might be public domain?), and publication year.
>> >
>> > Order implies importance. On what planet is the publisher's
>> location
>> > the second-most important fact about this book?
>> >
>> > 15. "ISBN: 1594514763." Is this really the second-most
>> important fact
>> > about the book? To whom? I know it's shocking, but most
>> readers don't
>> > know what an
>> > ISBN is. The rest don't care.
>> >
>> > And ISBN *might* be a useful way for a knowledgeable user
>> to jump from
>> > Amazon to a libray catalog. But they'd have to get the
>> right edition.
>> > The rest of the time, the ISBN is trivia for stockboys.
>> >
>> > 16. "Description: vi, 210 p. : ill. ; 24 cm." As others have said,
>> > this is a meaningless jumble. It doesn't merit the title
>> > "description." It's junk.
>> >
>> > The patron *might* want to know how long a book is--so "210 pages"
>> > migtht be useful. I'd even be fine with "216 pages."
>> >
>> > The patron might also want to know that the book had
>> photographs. It
>> > would be better to know how many, or even to get a list of them.
>> >
>> > 24cm is wrong in about ten ways. First, although "the most European
>> > city in America," Boston is still part of the USA. In the
>> USA we use
>> > inches, not centimeters. There's there's the issue of one
>> measurement.
>> > Is can't be width. Is it height? Width? Maybe it's like TV and
>> > computer monitors. That must be it.
>> >
>> > 17. "Target audience: Adult." This is useful here. There
>> are a lot of
>> > kids books about Obama. I'm glad this isn't one of them.
>> >
>> > 18. "Summary." Fine, except for point six, above.
>> >
>> > 19. "Contents." Fine, except for point seven, above.
>> >
>> > 20. "Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references and index."
>> > This is marginally useful. For "bibliographical
>> references," I'd use
>> > the plain-jane word "bibliography."
>> >
>> > It's funny that this is spelled out in prose but "ill."
>> isn't. There's
>> > probably some good reason.
>> >
>> > 21. The "Copy/Holdings information" box has some problems:
>> >
>> > *I'd love to be able to click on locations to find out
>> where they are.
>> > Although a long-time Boston resident, "O'Bryant School of
>> Mathematics
>> > and Science" means nothing to me. I guess I'll have to ask at the
>> > desk.
>> >
>> > *The "Collection: Nonfiction" confuses me. I wasn't aware libraries
>> > were divided that way. In fact, they aren't. But there
>> probably is a
>> > fiction section, that includes *most* of the fiction.
>> >
>> > *Capitalization is almost random. "14 day loan" but "In
>> Library"? Why?
>> > Or take the capitalization of the section header, "Copy/Holdings
>> > information." The other place with a similarly-styled heading uses
>> > title case, "Related Information." Small inconsistencies
>> make a site
>> > look sloppy.
>> >
>> > 22. The form below is literally backward. It's formatted like this:
>> >
>> > Format: ( ) HTML ( ) Plain text ( ) Delimited
>> > Subject: __________________
>> > Email to: __________________ [SEND]
>> >
>> > When I reach the third line, I gather it's an emailing form. Why
>> > doesn't it look like almost all other email forms on the
>> web--the ones
>> > that START WITH THE EMAIL ADDRESS? Also:
>> >
>> > *Whoever designed this form didn't look at how you email
>> things on any
>> > other site! Do I need the subject field? If I do, why can't
>> I write a
>> > note.
>> >
>> > *What is "Delimited" anyway? I have no idea.
>> >
>> > *The form cuts off the title, into "Barack Obama : this improbable
>> > quest / J". The form field allows only 40 characters, but
>> is visually
>> > larger. This is confusing and completely opposite how most
>> web forms
>> > work. Anyway, why are they only allowing 40 characters--bandwidth
>> > costs?
>> >
>> > 23. "Next Reads." I gather Next Reads is much liked.[3] But this
>> > "advertisment" feels intrusive and over-prominent. It certainly
>> > doesn't fit in with the design at all. The line "Sign up for email
>> > book suggestions in your favorite genre!" *may* relate to the icon
>> > here, or it may not.
>> >
>> > 24. "Did you know? Many items held by the BPL are not
>> listed in this
>> > catalog. Find out about all of our catalogs."
>> >
>> > *This notice is not visually separated from the line above, about
>> > NextReads. Are they all part of the same notice. All separate?
>> >
>> > *The notice is certainly unfortunate. If all their stuff
>> isn't in the
>> > catalog, they need something like this. But it certainly raises
>> > doubts.
>> >
>> > ### Final Points
>> >
>> > 25. The design is unappealing and slapdash. Some examples:
>> >
>> > *The information architecture of the left-hand side is all
>> weird. I've
>> > mentioned the divet and the "--"s in the subject. But what
>> about the
>> > stray horizontal line in between "Table of Contents" and
>> "More by this
>> > a uthor"? Is it necessary? Is it attractive? Did somebody's
>> teenager
>> > design this?
>> >
>> > *The "Add to My List" and "Hold this for me" buttons,
>> although on the
>> > far right, are somehow creating extra space between the
>> book title and
>> > its information. To an untrained user it's just another
>> tiny mark of
>> > inferior quality. To the trained web developer it's evidence that
>> > someone doesn't understand floats.
>> >
>> > 25. Font sizes
>> >
>> > *The most important information--the book info and the holdings
>> > info--are in the smallest fonts. That's crazy.
>> >
>> > *Apart from that, font sizes and styles are slapdash. The
>> title of the
>> > book is less prominent than "Related Information."
>> >
>> > 26. Accessibility
>> >
>> > *The page fails all levels of all accessibility tests. Five
>> years ago,
>> > when I made school software, I paid close attention accessibility.
>> > Governments all require it. How did libraries get to opt out?
>> >
>> > *Test aside, nobody has looked at basic accessibility
>> issues--semantic
>> > coding, order of information, tab-order, alt-text, etc.
>> >
>> > 27. The great bullet problem
>> >
>> > Finally, as web developer I have to mention one thing that, when I
>> > found it, made me laugh out loud--and I don't usually do that.
>> >
>> > The bullets on the left--the giant, ugly bullets that don't quite
>> > align right--are not an unordered list
>> (<ul><li>...</li></ul>, etc.).
>> > They are instead a table, with two columns--someone's attempt to
>> > produce a bulleted list, without using the HTML markup for... a
>> > bulleted list!
>> >
>> > To get it, the list was "tableized." The left-hand column
>> is for the
>> > bullets. But instead of printing the unicode for a bullet, using a
>> > graphic or wahtever, the left-hand column is comprised of
>> > single-entry, no-content unordered lists. Apparently someone at
>> > SirsiDynix thought that <li> </li> was a trick to get a bullet.
>> >
>> > [1] The BPL is having some sort of deep problem. Most of my
>> searches
>> > turn up page after page of blank records. This was the
>> first non-blank
>> > one.
>> > [2] Not being "on the web" is, in my opinion, the single most
>> > important factor that drags libraries down in the internet age, and
>> > therefore a great threat to library success, library jobs
>> and indeed
>> > to education and democracy. But hey, what do I know? Maybe
>> the rest of
>> > the web is wrong and libraries are right!
>> > [3] I don't know the product very well, but I am a fan of
>> Novelist and
>> > its people
>> >
>>
>>
>> __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of
>> virus signature database 3935 (20090313) __________
>>
>> The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.
>>
>> http://www.eset.com
>>
>>
>>
>
Received on Mon Mar 16 2009 - 10:30:14 EDT
