Cynthia, it's been a while but I wanted to give you feedback...
Ranking on importance based on library ownership and/or circulation is
something that I've seen discussed but not implemented -- mainly due to
the difficulty of gathering the data from library systems. But it seems
like an obvious way to rank results, IMO.
Too bad that one has to pay for BISAC headings. They tend to mirror the
headings in bookstores (and ebook stores) that people might be familiar
with. They capture fiction topics, especially, in a way to resonates
with some users (topics like "Teen Paranormal Romance").
kc
On 10/22/14 1:25 PM, Harper, Cynthia wrote:
So I'm deleting all the Bisac subject headings (650_7|2bisacsh) from our ebook
records - they were deemed not to be useful, especially as it would entail a
for-fee indexing change to make them clickable. But I'm thinking if we someday
have a discovery system, they'll be useful as a means for broader-to-narrower
term browsing that won't require translation to English, as would call number
ranges.
As I watch the system slowly chunk through them, I think about how library
collections and catalogs facilitate jumping to the most specific subjects, but
browsing is something of an afterthought.
What if we could set a ranking score for the "importance" of an item in browsing, based on
circulation data - authors ranked by the relative circulation of all their works, same for series, latest
edition of a multi-edition work given higher ranking, etc.? Then have a means to set the threshold
importance value you want to look at, and browse through these general Bisac terms, or the classification?
Or have a facet for "importance" threshold. I see Bisac sometimes has a broadness/narrowness facet
("overview") - wonder how consistently that's applied, enough to be useful?
Guess those rankings would be very expensive in compute time.
Well, back to the deletions.
Cindy Harper
Electronic Services and Serials Librarian
Virginia Theological Seminary
3737 Seminary Road
Alexandria VA 22304
703-461-1794
char...@vts.edu
--
Karen Coyle
kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
m: +1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet/+1-510-984-3600
