Re: Leveraging Authority Data in Keyword Searches

From: Karen Coyle <lists_at_nyob>
Date: Wed, 6 May 2009 08:46:53 -0700
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Weinheimer Jim wrote:
> And I will mention again that this example won't work. That's why it's such a good example.
>
> If you search Nat Turner's Rebellion in the authority file, you get zero because the only term in the record is "Insurrection." Somebody would have to physically add "Nat Turner's Rebellion" as a 450 cross-reference. But as soon as we did that, somebody else would want "Uprising" and then "Revolt" and then the white supremacists would want something. This is only for one, relatively clear concept. What would happen with the hundreds of thousands of other concepts, some far more difficult and controversial, if the authority file is supposed to work this way? The updates would be absolutely overwhelming.
>   

It doesn't have to be done by hand. Take a look at DBpedia, which mines 
Wikipedias to bring together information in different languages and 
using different terminology, as well as relationships between bits of 
information. Look at WorldCat Identities, which is all done with mining 
of data.And it also doesn't have to reside in a single authority file, 
as long as you can link between files of data.

If we assume that we will continue creating data in the artisanal, 
hand-crafted way that we do today, we are dead. The information world 
moves much too fast for that method to continue to be viable.

kc

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Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
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Received on Wed May 06 2009 - 11:48:37 EDT