I know only part of the answer, but in the spirit of part being better than none... see below
Quoting Tom Morris <tfmor...@gmail.com>: > Where do Open Library subject terms come from? Is there any > correspondence with the Library of Congress Subject Headings or any > other, so called, "controlled" terminology set? Yes, and no. SOME of the subjects come from LCSH subjects that were in records ingested into OL. Those subject headings were broken up based on their subfielding, which is how OL got the initial list of subject types: subject = LCSH $a or $x place = LCSH 651 $a or other 6xx $z time = LCSH $y person = LCSH 600 $a $c $d (If you are familiar with the work done by OCLC on FAST, this is similar but doesn't use OCLC's algorithm. http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/fast/) In addition, some of the "inverse" terms were "righted" so Cookery, French (although I made that up) becomes "French Cookery". > > It appears that multiple sources might have been added together > because there are, for example, > > http://openlibrary.org/subjects/dove_(ship) > http://openlibrary.org/subjects/dove_(sloop_:_lapworth) Some data comes in from Amazon so will have BISAC subject headings that overlap with LCSH headings. In addition, anyone can add a subject to any of the subject fields when adding or editing records. > > which both refer to the same concept. > > There are also things mixed in which aren't subjects at all, or at > least aren't used as subjects, like "Accessible book" and "Protected > DAISY." These appear to be format specifiers. Yes, there are also format specifiers that have been added, kind of in the spirit of "no holds barred" tagging. :-) If you've been working with metadata for a while I'm sure you've been involved in discussions of "when is a type really a subject?" Users come into libraries looking for "chick lit" or "DVDs" with no idea whether they are asking for a literary genre, a subject, or a format. There are arguments for mushing everything together because users don't know where to look, and other equally valid (IMO) arguments for maintaining some separation between subjects, genres and formats. I guess if there were an obvious right answer we'd all be doing the same thing and not having these discussions. kc > > Is there a way to trace subject headings back to their source? Are > there any other types of relationships between subjects other than > just "related" (ie co-citation), for example, "broader" or "narrower"? > > What's the difference between a "subject" and a "place" or "person"? > Things often appear in two of the three categories e.g. subject & > place, which makes me wonder if they're distinct lists (and why). > > I guess what I'm really asking for documentation describing how all > this hangs together in the OL context. I looked at the FAQ and > http://openlibrary.org/subjects without finding anything illuminating. > > Tom > _______________________________________________ > Ol-discuss mailing list > Ol-discuss@archive.org > http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-discuss > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to > ol-discuss-unsubscr...@archive.org > -- Karen Coyle kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net ph: 1-510-540-7596 m: 1-510-435-8234 skype: kcoylenet _______________________________________________ Ol-discuss mailing list Ol-discuss@archive.org http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-discuss To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to ol-discuss-unsubscr...@archive.org
