On 7/26/2011 8:50 PM, Karen Coyle wrote:
>
> I wouldn't say "much more" but at least a step in the right direction.
> We present dates to users as searches (from __ to ___) or as facets,
> and they have every logical right to think that this is the date of
> the WORK, not the date of a particular printing or re-publication.
It is not as obvious to me as it is to you that this is always what
users want or expect. I think sometimes they really DO mean to be
searching for publications that were published on a certain date. (or
sorting by publication date).
But clearly other times they want/expect/need searching by date of the
work, not a particular republication.
I guess we'd need some research to know how often they want one vs the
other, in what contexts and circumstances.
Or maybe not, and we just need to try and provide for both. But,
contrary to some user expectations, the system can't read their mind and
figure out which they meant, providing for both would need to be an
additional interface element of some kind where they chose what they
wanted. I suppose we'd want the research to know what they wanted (in a
given library or user community) most often, to make that the default,
and the other available perhaps in some advanced options panel.
But, yeah, either way it requires actually having the data in a reliable
and useable way, which we don't really now.
Received on Wed Jul 27 2011 - 12:00:40 EDT