brad said:
> Are you kidding?
no. are you?
> Check any of the major online catalogs.
> They all try to integrate records for electronic works.
yeah. but so what?
i don't get the impression that the people who are looking
for e-texts go to a library's catalog to try and find 'em...
> The rows of wooden drawers with paper catalog cards are
> still there but most people use the computer catalog.
um, yes, i quite realize that.
as far as i know, the "rows of wooden drawers"
were effectively replaced a decade or more ago.
they're still kind of quaint, though, don't you think?
in spite of their digitized equivalents, however,
google (and the others) are the new "card catalog".
so i would think it would be _far_ more productive to
implement a strategy that leverages the search engines
(because, honestly, the system you have now does not),
instead of plays into all of the antiquated systems.
heck, i'd even like to see a decent system
on the website. the one there now is good
if you know the title and/or the author-name.
that's a start. but it doesn't go very far,
not in _recommending_ a book to a reader...
> A growing number of brick and mortar libraries
> are now adding etexts to their collections.
> Sometimes they only provide links to websites
> but often they are local copies of the etexts
> which correspond to their catalog entry.
well, that's all very nice. and if they did all of the work to
integrate this e-library into their system, i'd say "thanks".
but i don't see much purpose in doing that work myself,
not when a whole host of other capabilities would be
_far_ more useful, in my eyes, like full-text search...
if getting to the patrons of a specific brick-and-mortar library
could _only_ be done by getting myself in that specific catalog,
it might be a completely different story. but when those patrons
can just as easily use their computer to find my e-texts in google
as to find them in the library's catalog, i don't see much difference.
besides, show me one good system -- from any library out there! --
that helps a person find a book that they will like. show me! please!
i said it before, and i'll say it again. collaborative filtering does this.
spend time _productively_, building a collaborative filtering system.
people don't decide what to read based on the info in a marc record.
> A remote library in northern India may not be able to
> afford the bandwidth to download PG texts. But they can
> provide access to a CDROM collection of the PG texts.
ok, except now you're talking about something different.
putting a c.d. of the e-texts into a brick-and-mortar library
-- or indeed, in every residence in india with a computer --
is a great idea. but that has little to do with marc records.
> Librarians would love to be able to say
> "all copies have been checked out,
> but the etext is available in pdf, html and plain text"
you'd think so. but michael reports he has encountered resistance.
say what you will, i don't think "the absence of marc records" is why.
(and when librarians finally decide they _do_ want a copy of the c.d.,
an absence of those marc records will be of zero consequence to them.)
nonetheless, i'm sure their intelligent patrons will be able to find a copy.
online. using google. to download. and burn copies for their neighbors.
> I'd like to hear one good reason why the catalog shouldn't be
> available in as many different formats as is needed
> for everyone to find and access PG texts?
the best reason of all is because no one seems to want to do the work.
most of you say "it's a good idea" (although i haven't heard one single
compelling reason _why_), but very few have done anything about it.
(kudos to andrew. and what is his experience? "it's hard work!")
now, what is your counterargument to that? yeah, that's what i thought.
-bowerbird
