When Dewey developed his classification system he didn't intend for
anyone to have to seek or focus on a particular number. His idea was
that the arrangement would be relational, as in: books on the same topic
in relation to each other, from most general to most specific. The shelf
(or the printed classification) would be a visual expression of topical
relationships. He had to fit this idea into two dimensions: the book
shelf. Today we could do it as a topic map.
The main problem that I see with that is that showing a user a number
like 646.7 isn't meaningful, even if it places the book in the proper
relationship to 646 and 646.72. (I made those up, since my only copies
of DDC are from 1889 and 1922.) It's easy to demonstrate that often
book titles on the shelf are not enough to let you know what topic you
are looking at. So it needs to be possible to translate the numbers to
meaningful text for the users, who probably do not even know when
they've browsed beyond their original topic into a different subject
area. I have some examples in a slide presentation at:
http://kcoyle.net/presentations/kcClassn.pdf
starting with slide 13. (Note, I can't find it anywhere, but I had the
impression that the DDC use license does not allow libraries to include
the text strings associated with each number. Does anyone have better
info on that? It might be in the actual license.)
Beyond the topical arrangements, there are also the possible functional
arrangements. Bliss [1] calls these "groups" rather than classes, and
give the example of "books that are used together." That could cover
syllabi, bibliographies in the backs of books or citations at the end of
articles, etc. I think that a focus on how materials are USED is
valuable information for potential new users.
kc
[1] Bliss, Henry E. The organization of knowledge in libraries and the
subject-approach to books. 1933. http://openlibrary.org/books/OL6294662M
On 7/27/13 4:50 AM, Cindy Harper wrote:
> 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
>>
--
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet
Received on Sat Jul 27 2013 - 14:44:57 EDT