Andrew Sly wrote:
I don't believe we are ready. There is right now no agreement about what form this data would take, or what standard to try to comply with.
If various volunteers all get to enter their own idea of what catagories and subject headings appeal to them, we will end up with a mish-mash of conflicting and overlapping data.
I am no expert here, but I have read enough to know that doing subject cataloging _well_ is more involved most people realise.
Yes indeed. Library systems use what's known as an authority file for subject headings (and also for authors). This lists only headings that are "authorised" -- e.g. for LCSH, conform to the LCSH standards. Now, PG is *never* going to have such a file (it would be huge) and I don't think it should -- LCSH is famously arcane and often seems rather arbitrary. (Although there are teams of librarians working day and night in a dark tower somewhere making sure that only the "correct" terms are used. ;-) Ideally though, there should be some guidelines about what terms should be used in the subject field, otherwise it will be less than useful. For example, if we are going to apply the term "Fiction" to some works of fiction, then it should be applied to all. Otherwise, it's usefulness as a search term is diminished. The key problem is one of scale. Do you limit the field to a short list of valid terms ("fiction", "history", ...) and risk them being too broad to be useful, or do you allow a longer list with greater precision, and risk the list being too long to be manageable? Sorry, I don't have an answer to that. Needs debate. Steve -- Stephen Thomas, Senior Systems Analyst, Adelaide University Library ADELAIDE UNIVERSITY SA 5005 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 8 8303 5190 Fax: +61 8 8303 4369 Email: stephen.thomas@adelaide.edu.au URL: http://staff.library.adelaide.edu.au/~sthomas/