You are correct; the searcher would not know for sure why the search failed to locate items or located just a very few items in a collection, unless there is more information provided. Too great a reliance upon blind key word searching alone adds to this problem.
Many automated library systems provide for the loading of subject heading authority files, as well as authority files for standardized forms of personal and corporate authors' names. There are international standards for the transliteration of names. Once the authority files are loaded, the software takes the searcher from a query by any of the alternative spellings it knows about to the "preferred form" of the name. Some of the more common alternative forms of subject headings and authors' names will already be there in the authority files and others can usually be added locally - these are the same as the "see" and "see also" references that were traditionally in use in card catalogs to establish consistency of usage and help for the user. For example: Sukkoth. Search under: Sukkot For example: Mosheh ben Maimon, 1135-1204. Search under: Maimonides, Moses, 1135-1204 Regardless of whether computerized versions of authority files are loaded into your online system, and as long as a standardized sets of controlled vocabulary subject headings and authors' names are being relied upon in your cataloging, you can put a copy of the book of subject headings (which include the cross references) next to the computer. If local variations and additions of subject headings and/or names have been established in addition or alternatively to those used by other libraries, that local compilation can be make available and prominent in the library and the patron made aware of how it can help in searching for materials in your collection. If the authority file is on cards, you can make that available. As you suggested, posting or providing a hand-out with the form of names and subject headings in use in your catalog for frequently searched names and topics makes good sense in a specialized library. Ellen Zyroff =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
