On 11/11/2012 16:28, Karen Coyle wrote:
<snip>
> Dan, yes, I too think that there might be times when alphabetical
> order is useful. The big question (and I don't have an answer) is:
> when is alphabetical order the best order for the user? If we have a
> case where it is the appropriate order, then we should use it. But
> before we do (because it would be very easy to fall into an assumption
> that alphabetical order is "best") we should really investigate all of
> the options we have for getting the user to the "right stuff." ...
>
> On 11/11/12 5:28 AM, Dan Matei wrote:
>> Thanks a lot ! Thought provoking ...
>>
>> I agree with you most of the time. Just on one point I'm not sure...
>>
>> Call me old fashioned, but I still see some value in the
>> lexicographic ordering.
>>
>> When my user types "Paris", I want to show him not just the Paris
>> (city in France) page (as Wikipedia does). I'm interested that (s)he
>> sees (on the first screen) some entries "around" Paris
>> (France), such as:
>>
>> Paris (Kentucky, United States)
>> Paris (Texas, United States)
>> Paris (Greek mythology)
>>
>> or even:
>>
>> John of Paris (French theologian)
>> Commune of Paris (1871)
>> An American in Paris
</snip>
This is a very interesting talk that I must consider some more. There
was a recent discussion on Autocat about alphabetical order, otherwise
known in cataloging as "the dictionary catalog," which in my personal
opinion, should now be discarded. One part I noted is that this argument
is not new, and that Charles Cutter himself had a very clear
understanding of the problems and advantages of a "dictionary catalog".
I wrote about it at
http://blog.jweinheimer.net/2012/06/re-acat-currency-of-subject-headings_30.html
Although Cutter saw the pros and cons quite clearly, I think if he were
around today he would also agree that the dictionary catalog should be
eliminated because nobody searches that way any longer. He chose it back
then *because* that was how he decided most people searched. I need to
point out that this does not mean that the *catalog itself* should be
done away with; it is the dictionary aspect of the catalog that needs to
be reconsidered from its very foundations. This is why the LC Subject
headings no longer function--not because they no longer provide people
with what they want, which is: conceptual access found nowhere else.
This should be researched before being dumped because it is so unique,
although it must be improved in several ways. I believe people would
absolutely love conceptual access to information--but since the function
of our current subject headings is based on an obsolete premise:
alphabetical order, it just doesn't serve the needs of a modern society.
Concerning the Paris example: A searcher knows more or less what they
want when they do a search, e.g. when they search for "Paris", they know
already if they are interested in a geographic place or the person in
the Iliad or some movie. Seeing other information may be interesting but
can be more diverting than useful and actually deters people from
getting to what they really want. After that, most are interested not in
any geographic place named "Paris" no matter where it happens to be in
the world, but in a single geographic place. Today, this can be done
very effectively through maps, e.g. Paris, France
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=paris+france, or Paris, Texas
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=paris+texas.
If such a map view of Paris could somehow include links to the catalog
records on Paris, perhaps through the centuries, with options to zoom in
or out on specific locales within Paris, its environs and so on, it
could, for someone searching for "Paris", be a much more useful
interface to the records in a catalog than any other. All of this can be
done now and you don't need linked data. You just need to hook
everything up through the appropriate APIs. Here is one for the
classical world http://pleiades.stoa.org/home. You can search for Ostia
(one of my favorite places) http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/422995. In
this record are "references". It should include at least some of these
materials somehow:
http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=su%3AOstia+%28Italy%29, but depending
on your needs, if you are a scholar or interested citizen, there are
other interesting resources. For instance, here is a video in Youtube
made by people on vacation that would interest the average person
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQWSYjPZ9Eg
I have no doubt some would find that useful. But for scholars, a friend
of mine has been excavating there, and if she would put up her notes, it
would be fabulous for everyone. Here is something similar for
excavations near Vesuvius http://www.apollineproject.org/. I personally
do not believe that researchers would even think about linking their
materials in this way, in any case, they are too busy. These are the
perfect sorts of things for future librarians to get involved in, and it
is not all that different from what librarians do today.
--
*James Weinheimer* weinheimer.jim.l_at_gmail.com
*First Thus* http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/
*Cooperative Cataloging Rules*
http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
*Cataloging Matters Podcasts*
http://blog.jweinheimer.net/p/cataloging-matters-podcasts.html
Received on Sun Nov 11 2012 - 16:20:27 EST