Can you give me any advice, or refer me to someone who could, on how I
can map LCSH to FAST in my local database?
Like I said, my impression before was that OCLC had tools they would not
share to do this, but there was no good way for me to do it. If there's
a way for me to do it, it's not one I have been able to find googling
around.
But I guess you already said Ed, okay, I'll try to hunt him down and ask.
Jonathan
On 3/31/2011 12:07 PM, Lundgren,Jimmie Harrell wrote:
> There has been a FAST Subcommittee of the Subject Analysis Committee for several years that served to explore FAST and advise Ed O'Neill and the other FAST developers. Now that the development phase of FAST is complete, its final meeting will be in New Orleans. Members wanted to continue examining facets and go beyond FAST, so we petitioned ALCTS in January and were approved to become an interest group.
>
> From many conversations with Ed, he and his colleagues at OCLC are eager to share FAST. The database is available free, both for searching and for downloading for nonprofit activities. It is planned to become available as linked data. One can map LCSH to FAST data, but not the reverse. The homepage for FAST includes a link to the actual database and is at http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/fast/default.htm
>
> There is also a book, "FAST: Faceted Application of Subject Terminology," by Lois Mai Chan and Edward T. O'Neill that became available last summer from Libraries Unlimited.
>
> OCLC has found FAST useful in supporting Worldcat Identities.
>
> I recommend that you contact Ed or one of the other FAST team members directly and discuss what you might like to do with FAST. Their email addresses are available from the webpages.
>
> Thanks and best regards,
> Jimmie
>
> Jimmie Lundgren
> Associate Chair& Contributed Cataloging Unit Head
> Cataloging& Metadata Dept.
> Smathers Library
> PO Box 117004
> University of Florida
> Gainesville, FL 32611-7004
> 352-273-2725
> 352-392-7365 (fax)
> jimlund_at_ufl.edu
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jonathan Rochkind [mailto:rochkind_at_jhu.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2011 11:40 AM
> To: Next generation catalogs for libraries
> Cc: Lundgren,Jimmie Harrell
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] The next generation of discovery tools (new LJ article)
>
> There's a FAST sub-committee of an ALA group?
>
> Is there any way for anyone who isn't OCLC to use FAST _right now_ ---
> like, is there freely available software to translate LCSH to FAST? My
> impression was that the only such software that exists is owned and not
> shared by OCLC. So the only real way to use FAST in real world
> environments (as supposed to, say, deciding to do original cataloging
> with it, which we wont' do because it's not the 'standard') is to use
> OCLC services.
>
> I am getting a bit frustrated about this, because I feel like I'm in
> some ways _duplicating_ FAST in my attempt to make LCSH work well in a
> "facetted" interface, duplicating work already done way better than I am
> by FAST. But there aren't any free tools to convert LCSH to FAST
> available, and not very good documentation on FAST in general.
>
> Or even any free tools to consult FAST 'authority' files, to see what
> the FAST headings _are_. All I can find is vague hand-waving describing
> the general intentions of FAST, but no actual specifics I could _use_ in
> an actual project I'm working on without spending months getting up to
> speed or rewriting software OCLC's already done better.
>
> Anything I'm missing?
>
>
> On 3/31/2011 9:46 AM, Lundgren,Jimmie Harrell wrote:
>> Here I'd like to mention that we need not rely entirely on reasonable speculations. There is some data available showing what users have chosen to use as facet limits. One observation I had made from Josh Greben's statistics he made available online previously on Mango in Florida is that users like to limit by the genre/form facet. It was almost decided not to include that facet and some systems leave it out, but I'm really glad it was kept here.
>>
>> The use of this facet, (which in Mango we derive from both subject form subfields (6xx subfield v) and genre/form (655) fields), will be better fed by the increasing use of 655 as LC develops the LC Genre/Form Thesaurus further. I think this is one example of more data like Karen demands, and it will be fruitful to look for other possibilities.
>>
>> I can't miss the opportunity to mention that there is a newly formed ALCTS Faceted Subject Access Interest Group that born from the FAST Subcommittee.
>>
>> Thanks and have a great day,
>> Jimmie
>>
>> Jimmie Lundgren
>> Associate Chair& Contributed Cataloging Unit Head
>> Cataloging& Metadata Dept.
>> Smathers Library
>> PO Box 117004
>> University of Florida
>> Gainesville, FL 32611-7004
>> 352-273-2725
>> 352-392-7365 (fax)
>> jimlund_at_ufl.edu
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Stephen Paling
>> Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2011 9:41 PM
>> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
>> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] The next generation of discovery tools (new LJ article)
>>
>>> One of the issues is that we are working with the facets we have
>>> rather than the facets that would be most useful. (Oh shades of
>>> Rumsfeld!) There may be somewhere an analysis of what facets we would
>>> LIKE to have...
>> I agree with the general gist of what Karen said, but I also feel it's important to register an important disagreement. We should be thinking in terms of the metadata that USERS need, not what WE would like to have. One of the reasons that cataloging has landed in such a pickle is that we have very little basic research about what metadata will serve users best in different contexts. Sometimes I get the sense that a lot of people find it much easier to tinker around with existing systems rather than asking whether the systems are workable in the first place.
>>
>> Steve
>>
>> =====================================
>> Stephen Paling
>> Assistant Professor
>> School of Library and Information Studies
>> 4251 Helen C. White Hall
>> 600 N. Park St.
>> Madison, WI 53706-1403
>> Phone: (608) 263-2944
>> Fax: (608) 263-4849
>> paling_at_wisc.edu
>>
Received on Thu Mar 31 2011 - 12:11:11 EDT