>> ...suppose you have a book on salmon genetics that just happened to focus
>> on fish that were in Oregon. The rule say that salmon can be
>> subdivided geographically, but genetics can't. So the cataloger
>> wanting to make everything specific creates
>>
>> Salmon -- Oregon -- Genetics
>>
>> which is kosher by the rules but actually hinders useful collocation
>> and meaningful browsing...
>
> I don't understand this without some additional examples. It just seems that we should never hobble our subject analysis because in my experience, people want more specific subjects, not less specific.
>
Creating more categories is not the same as improving specificity. In
the example at hand, users trying to browse headings would not find
the work anywhere near to books on salmon genetics where the fish in
the study were in another geographical area. If the subject becomes
genetically transmitted diseases, the "aboutness" gets scattered
across multiple headings, so the subject
Salmon -- Diseases and pests -- Oregon
gets added (because it can be divided geographically). The end result
is that anyone trying to browse the headings to find related related
works is more likely to run into general works about salmon in Oregon
or works regarding nongenetic diseases or parasites. If we add |y
chronological dimensions to the subject headings above because the
work examined a very specific timeframe, the atomization gets even
worse.
I call this problem "measure with micrometer, mark with chalk, cut
with axe." The cataloging rules enumerate too much and they screw up
the very specificity they purport to provide. When you consider that
most things that aren't "traditional" publications will never get
these headings and that high barriers for using LCSH prevent it from
being employed outside a narrow and shrinking range of materials, it's
pretty obvious that this model will only be marginalized if we cling
to it in its present form.
>
And if there is a problem with pre-coordination, the catalog interface
should deal with it. But making our records less specific, i.e.
"worse" in my opinion, should not be done.
>
If our practices are the problem, we should correct them rather than
hope computer nerds will do our own jobs smarter than we, particularly
since we waste so much labor doing things the way we are.
If you treat the 6xx |a as a main subject with |v, |x, |y, |z as
facets of |a, you get better results -- and this shows in the design
of the newer catalogs. The best way to fix the precoordination problem
is to quit precoordinating and think of 6xx |a subjects and everything
else as modifiers of those subjects.
kyle
--
----------------------------------------------------------
Kyle Banerjee
Digital Services Program Manager
Orbis Cascade Alliance
banerjek_at_uoregon.edu / 503.999.9787
Received on Tue May 19 2009 - 11:58:11 EDT