All of my working life I've envisioned an interface that would let a person
drill down to the level of the classification that they were interested in,
and combine that with a keyword search. This has been somewhat inspired by
the MEDLINE ability to EXPLODE terms within a hierarchy - I wonder if
anyone uses that feature today?
I suggested an enhancement for the III webpac that would allow one to
combine call number ranges with keyword searches, but got little interest
from other librarians. When I mocked up a callnumber/keyword search, other
librarians commented that patrons would never want to take the time to
analyze their search pre-search like that - they wanted a single
Google-like search box.
We need to get a body of librarians and developers interested in expanding
the usefulness of the classification.
Cindy Harper
On Fri, Jul 26, 2013 at 5:13 PM, James Weinheimer <
weinheimer.jim.l_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> On 26/07/2013 16:52, Karen Coyle wrote:
> <sniip>
> > What about subject access? That isn't even on the table, as far as I
> > can tell. Are we only interested in serving users who show up with a
> > name or a title?
> >
> > I'm appalled that we have spent so much time on cataloging, and so
> > little time on providing access to the knowledge that the library
> > should represent. No wonder people see it as a warehouse - we seem
> > only concerned with inventory.
> </snip>
>
> I completely agree. Good, solid subject access would provide something
> that nobody else provides. As an example of a new type of access, I have
> suggested tools that would allow someone to do full-text text searches,
> but limited only to specific subjects or classification areas. As an
> example, I made a little prototype for "archaeological methodologies "
> that shows what might be able to happen.
> www.jweinheimer.net/oslo/osloExample2.html. If you enter a relevant
> term, e.g. "pottery", in the top text box, then click on the box, you
> will do a full-text search of the LC catalog, limited only to the
> classification numbers CC73-CC81. The result is a very complex search
> that the average person could never do, but it is easy to do.
>
> The lower text box does something similar with Google Books. It searches
> for full-text, but Google books that have the subject heading
> "Archaeology--Methodologies". I demonstrated this at a paper I gave in
> Oslo
>
> http://blog.jweinheimer.net/2012/02/revolution-in-our-minds-seeing-world.html
> .
> Something like this could be improved tremendously, but the final
> product is that people can do highly complex searches, yet the real
> complexity is hidden from the searcher. Also, getting full-text and
> authority controlled headings to work together, such as the example with
> Google Books would create something never really seen before.
>
> But the main problem of working with subjects is to get all of the
> cross-references to work in a keyword environment. I haven't seen that
> work yet. Putting all of the subjects into a wiki could be very
> interesting.
> --
> *James Weinheimer* weinheimer.jim.l_at_gmail.com
> *First Thus* http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/.
> *First Thus Facebook Page* https://www.facebook.com/FirstThus
> *Cooperative Cataloging Rules*
> http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
> *Cataloging Matters Podcasts*
> http://blog.jweinheimer.net/p/cataloging-matters-podcasts.html
>
Received on Sat Jul 27 2013 - 07:51:33 EDT