Like many libraries, we now have two catalog interfaces: a "classic" one, operating on principles that have governed online catalogs for decades (alphabetical browse indexes for authors, titles, subjects, etc., augmented by last-in/first-out keyword indexes), and a more "Google-like keyword-based search interface that provides relevancy-based result sets and is more forgiving of input errors. (It retrieves holdings and location data from the "classic" catalog in real time.) Both interfaces support refining the result set along various dimensions. Authority control serves different functions in the two interfaces. In both it controls the forms of access points. But in the "classic" catalog it serves identification and navigation functions as well as a search refinement function, while in the Google-like interface (which consists of our bibliographic data but not our authority data) it is able to support only the refinement function.
Can "Google-like" (keyword-based) catalog interfaces support the identification and navigation functions of authority control? So that someone knows, for instance, that Rossiiskaia akademiia nauk is the Russian Academy of Sciences, or that the works on the American Revolution will be found under United States--History--Revolution, 1775-1789? Are these functions invariably tied to browsing, or is there some way to "privilege" authority data in "Google-like" interfaces, so that the presence of keywords in an authority record is factored into the relevancy ranking? Perhaps separate searching of authority and bibliographic files for the same keywords, with discrete result sets presented to the user (each set relevancy-ranked)?
Ed Jones
Assistant Director, Assessment and Metadata Services
National University Library
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San Diego, California 92123-1447
+1 858 541 7920 (voice)
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http://national.academia.edu/EdJones
Received on Thu Jul 22 2010 - 11:57:09 EDT