Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[Mark Watkins]

Thank you! I will take a look.

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[Bill Dueber]

The University of Michigan maintains what we call “High Level Browse” — a
mapping of LC/Dewey call numbers to a limited hierarchy, based loosely
around academic departments (at least at the time it started). It’s still
maintained, and may prove generally useful as well.

The HLB hierarchy  gives you an idea of
what it is, and you can download and XML dump of the categories and their
associated call number ranges

​(1.8mb) ​
if that’s your thing.

​

On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 10:38 AM, William Denton  wrote:

> On 13 April 2016, Mark Watkins wrote:
>
> I'm a library sciences newbie, but it seems like LCSH doesn't really
>> provide a formal hierarchy of genre/topic, just a giant controlled
>> vocabulary. Bisac seems to provide the "expected" hierarchy.
>>
>> Is anyone aware of any approaches (or better yet code!) that translates
>> lcsh to something like BISAC categories (either BISAC specifically or some
>> other hierarchy/ontology)? General web searching didn't find anything
>> obvious.
>>
>
> There's HILCC, the Hierarchical Interface of LC Classification:
>
> https://www1.columbia.edu/sec/cu/libraries/bts/hilcc/subject_map.html
>
> Bill
> --
> William Denton ↔  Toronto, Canada ↔  https://www.miskatonic.org/




-- 
Bill Dueber
Library Systems Programmer
University of Michigan Library

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[Stephen Hearn]

> search
>>> term, returns, for example, from 1962 "The Cuban Invasion : the chronicle
>>> of a disaster / by Karl E. Meyer and Tad Szulc ".
>>>
>>> http://ll01.nla.gov.au/show.jsp?rid=00643156
>>>
>>>   This isn't returned on a search for "bay of pigs" (on the prototype,
>>> or on
>>> Trove). Maybe "bay of pigs" wasn't even "a thing" when this book was
>>> catalogued, or, if it was, it was thought to be an ephemeral description.
>>>
>>> On Trove (and I guess most library catalogues), by paying carefully
>>> attention and tallying the subjects assigned to a "bay of pigs" results,
>>> you may eventually realise a good search may be:
>>>
>>>   "Cuba Invasion 1961" OR "bay of pigs"
>>>
>>> because there are LOTS of resources I'd want to know about if I were
>>> searching for "bay of pigs" that don't have an assigned subject string
>>> "Cuba -- History -- Invasion, 1961" for various reasons, such as a
>>> tendency
>>> not to assign more subjects that you want cards in the catalogue!  (eg
>>> http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/13249747 )
>>>
>>> I guess a better approach is to do this automatically for the searcher:
>>> to
>>> note "bay of pigs" results have a high but not total correlation with
>>> results assigned LCSH's "Cuba -- History -- Invasion, 1961", and I guess
>>> that's one of the attractions of searching on Google: that we take this
>>> type of "magic" for granted.
>>>
>>> Kent Fitch
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 11:19 AM, Harper, Cynthia <char...@vts.edu>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>  From a librarian’s perspective, we know searching is messy – a
>>>> researcher
>>>> can’t hope to find the perfect subject heading that will reveal all
>>>> their
>>>> related content in one term.  Searching is exploring through overlapping
>>>> terms, and compiling a bibliography from the pearls found in the
>>>> process.
>>>> This interface makes clearer what the related terms may be, given a
>>>> borad
>>>> term like practical theology.  And it’s so nice that it combines the
>>>> classification structure with the subject headings.
>>>>
>>>> Cindy Harper
>>>> @vts.edu<http://vts.edu>
>>>>
>>>> -Original Message-
>>>> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU>>> CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU>] On Behalf Of Kent Fitch
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2016 8:17 PM
>>>> To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU<mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU>
>>>> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?
>>>> About ten years ago, I was wondering how to make the structure in LCSH,
>>>>
>>> or
>>>
>>>> at least how it was encoded in MARC subject tags more useful, so when
>>>> implementing a prototype for a new library catalogue at the National
>>>> Library of Australia, I tried using the subject tag contents to
>>>>
>>> represent a
>>>
>>>> hierarchy, then counted the number of hits against parts of that
>>>>
>>> hierarchy
>>>
>>>> for a given search and then represented the subject tags in a hierarchy
>>>> with hit counts.   One of the motivations was to help expose to the
>>>> searcher how works relevant to their search may have been
>>>> LCSH-subject-catalogued.
>>>>
>>>> I'm a programmer, not a UI person, so the formatting of theresults were
>>>> fairly primitive, but that prototype from ten years ago ("Library Labs")
>>>>
>>> is
>>>
>>>> still running.
>>>>
>>>> For example, search results for /ancient egypt/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> http://ll01.nla.gov.au/search.jsp?searchTerm=ancient+egypt=0.5=0.05=12.0=9.0=9.0=9.0=4.0=3.0=3.0=3.0=18.0=15.0
>>>
>>>> /computer art/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> http://ll01.nla.gov.au/search.jsp?searchTerm=computer+art=0.5=0.05=12.0=9.0=9.0=9.0=4.0=3.0=3.0=3.0=18.0=15.0
>>>
>>>> /history of utah/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> http://ll01.nla.gov.au/search.jsp?searchT

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[Karen Coyle]

 content in one term.  Searching is exploring through overlapping
terms, and compiling a bibliography from the pearls found in the process.
This interface makes clearer what the related terms may be, given a borad
term like practical theology.  And it’s so nice that it combines the
classification structure with the subject headings.

Cindy Harper
@vts.edu<http://vts.edu>

-Original Message-
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Kent Fitch
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2016 8:17 PM
To:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU<mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU>
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?
About ten years ago, I was wondering how to make the structure in LCSH,

or

at least how it was encoded in MARC subject tags more useful, so when
implementing a prototype for a new library catalogue at the National
Library of Australia, I tried using the subject tag contents to

represent a

hierarchy, then counted the number of hits against parts of that

hierarchy

for a given search and then represented the subject tags in a hierarchy
with hit counts.   One of the motivations was to help expose to the
searcher how works relevant to their search may have been
LCSH-subject-catalogued.

I'm a programmer, not a UI person, so the formatting of theresults were
fairly primitive, but that prototype from ten years ago ("Library Labs")

is

still running.

For example, search results for /ancient egypt/




http://ll01.nla.gov.au/search.jsp?searchTerm=ancient+egypt=0.5=0.05=12.0=9.0=9.0=9.0=4.0=3.0=3.0=3.0=18.0=15.0

/computer art/




http://ll01.nla.gov.au/search.jsp?searchTerm=computer+art=0.5=0.05=12.0=9.0=9.0=9.0=4.0=3.0=3.0=3.0=18.0=15.0

/history of utah/




http://ll01.nla.gov.au/search.jsp?searchTerm=history+of+utah=0.5=0.05=12.0=9.0=9.0=9.0=4.0=3.0=3.0=3.0=18.0=15.0

This prototype also explored a subject hierarchy which had been of
interest to the NLA's Assistant Director-General, Dr Warwick Cathro, over
many years, the RLG "Conspectus" hierarchy, which I guess was not unlike
BISAC in its aims.  It is shown further down the right-hand column.

Both the subject hierarchy and Conspectus were interesting, but neither
made it into the eventual production search system, Trove, implemented at
the NLA, in which subject faceting or hierarchy is absent from results
display:

http://trove.nla.gov.au/book/result?q=ancient+egypt
http://trove.nla.gov.au/book/result?q=computer+art
http://trove.nla.gov.au/book/result?q=history+of+utah

The "Library Labs" prototype is running on a small VM, so searching may

be

slow, and it hasnt been updated with any content since 2006..  But maybe
the way it attempted to provide subject grouping and encourage narrowing

of

search by LCSH or exploring using LCSH rather than the provided search
terms may trigger some more experiments.

Kent Fitch

On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 3:11 AM, Mark Watkins <m...@thehawaiiproject.com
<mailto:m...@thehawaiiproject.com>>
wrote:


 :)

sounds like there is a lot of useful metadata but somewhat scattered
amongst various fields, depending on when the item was cataloged or

tagged.

Which seems to correspond to anecdotal surfing of the Harvard data.

I guess my new task is to build something that aggregates and
reconciles portions of LCSH, LCFGT, and GSAFD :).

Thanks for the additional perspective!





--
Karen Coyle
kco...@kcoyle.net  http://kcoyle.net
m: +1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet/+1-510-984-3600

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[Karen Coyle]

On 4/14/16 7:40 AM, Joseph Montibello wrote:

Real use of LCSH
would search the reference vocabulary as well as the preferred term
headings which get into bib records.  Working with LCSH bib headings alone
misses the point of a sophisticated controlled vocabulary, where much of
the terminological and semantic richness for searching is contained in
"see" and "see also" references, complex references and scope and other
kinds of notes.  The controlled vocabulary itself needs to be integrated
into search results so that searches call up not only bib records with a
matching heading but vocabulary records which can expand the user's search
vocabulary and point to related controlled terms outside those generated by
the retrieved bib records' themselves.

Are there discovery systems out there that attempt this? It would be great to use all the 
work that has gone into these vocabs to improve end-user experience, not by telling them 
to click a "see also" link but by doing that work for them in some way.


We tried that in an early version of the U of Calif's MELVYL system (I'm 
talking early 80's here). The difficulty is in trying to coordinate a 
keyword search, that can bring up a wide variety of headings in very 
different "hierarchies", and some direct linking that would make sense 
to the user. The best we could do was to combine the keywords from the 
authoritative and non-authoritative headings for retrieval, thus 
increasing both the desired retrieval but also the false drops. If you 
could isolate the subject "graphs" and present them it would be cleaner, 
but in some cases the number of different graphs retrieved would make 
for a very difficult presentation for the user.


The disconnect between keyword searching and headings is something that 
needs more analysis.


kc


Joe Montibello, MLIS
Library Systems Manager
Dartmouth College
603.646.9394
joseph.montibe...@dartmouth.edu


--
Karen Coyle
kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
m: +1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet/+1-510-984-3600

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[Karen Coyle]

 content in one term.  Searching is exploring through overlapping
terms, and compiling a bibliography from the pearls found in the process.
This interface makes clearer what the related terms may be, given a borad
term like practical theology.  And it’s so nice that it combines the
classification structure with the subject headings.

Cindy Harper
@vts.edu<http://vts.edu>

-Original Message-
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Kent Fitch
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2016 8:17 PM
To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU<mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU>
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?
About ten years ago, I was wondering how to make the structure in LCSH,

or

at least how it was encoded in MARC subject tags more useful, so when
implementing a prototype for a new library catalogue at the National
Library of Australia, I tried using the subject tag contents to

represent a

hierarchy, then counted the number of hits against parts of that

hierarchy

for a given search and then represented the subject tags in a hierarchy
with hit counts.   One of the motivations was to help expose to the
searcher how works relevant to their search may have been
LCSH-subject-catalogued.

I'm a programmer, not a UI person, so the formatting of theresults were
fairly primitive, but that prototype from ten years ago ("Library Labs")

is

still running.

For example, search results for /ancient egypt/




http://ll01.nla.gov.au/search.jsp?searchTerm=ancient+egypt=0.5=0.05=12.0=9.0=9.0=9.0=4.0=3.0=3.0=3.0=18.0=15.0

/computer art/




http://ll01.nla.gov.au/search.jsp?searchTerm=computer+art=0.5=0.05=12.0=9.0=9.0=9.0=4.0=3.0=3.0=3.0=18.0=15.0

/history of utah/




http://ll01.nla.gov.au/search.jsp?searchTerm=history+of+utah=0.5=0.05=12.0=9.0=9.0=9.0=4.0=3.0=3.0=3.0=18.0=15.0

This prototype also explored a subject hierarchy which had been of
interest to the NLA's Assistant Director-General, Dr Warwick Cathro, over
many years, the RLG "Conspectus" hierarchy, which I guess was not unlike
BISAC in its aims.  It is shown further down the right-hand column.

Both the subject hierarchy and Conspectus were interesting, but neither
made it into the eventual production search system, Trove, implemented at
the NLA, in which subject faceting or hierarchy is absent from results
display:

http://trove.nla.gov.au/book/result?q=ancient+egypt
http://trove.nla.gov.au/book/result?q=computer+art
http://trove.nla.gov.au/book/result?q=history+of+utah

The "Library Labs" prototype is running on a small VM, so searching may

be

slow, and it hasnt been updated with any content since 2006..  But maybe
the way it attempted to provide subject grouping and encourage narrowing

of

search by LCSH or exploring using LCSH rather than the provided search
terms may trigger some more experiments.

Kent Fitch

On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 3:11 AM, Mark Watkins <m...@thehawaiiproject.com
<mailto:m...@thehawaiiproject.com>>
wrote:


 :)

sounds like there is a lot of useful metadata but somewhat scattered
amongst various fields, depending on when the item was cataloged or

tagged.

Which seems to correspond to anecdotal surfing of the Harvard data.

I guess my new task is to build something that aggregates and
reconciles portions of LCSH, LCFGT, and GSAFD :).

Thanks for the additional perspective!








--
Karen Coyle
kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
m: +1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet/+1-510-984-3600

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[Joseph Montibello]

>Real use of LCSH
>would search the reference vocabulary as well as the preferred term
>headings which get into bib records.  Working with LCSH bib headings alone
>misses the point of a sophisticated controlled vocabulary, where much of
>the terminological and semantic richness for searching is contained in
>"see" and "see also" references, complex references and scope and other
>kinds of notes.  The controlled vocabulary itself needs to be integrated
>into search results so that searches call up not only bib records with a
>matching heading but vocabulary records which can expand the user's search
>vocabulary and point to related controlled terms outside those generated by
>the retrieved bib records' themselves.

Are there discovery systems out there that attempt this? It would be great to 
use all the work that has gone into these vocabs to improve end-user 
experience, not by telling them to click a "see also" link but by doing that 
work for them in some way.

Joe Montibello, MLIS
Library Systems Manager
Dartmouth College
603.646.9394
joseph.montibe...@dartmouth.edu

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[Stephen Hearn]

One factor that current search systems tend to overlook is that LCSH, all
of it, is intended intended to be a first class search target.  The LCSH
headings that get into bib records are only the tip of the iceberg.  The
LCSH authority for "Cuba--History--Invasion, 1961" includes a 450 "see
from" reference for "Bay of Pigs Invasion, Cuba, 1961." Real use of LCSH
would search the reference vocabulary as well as the preferred term
headings which get into bib records.  Working with LCSH bib headings alone
misses the point of a sophisticated controlled vocabulary, where much of
the terminological and semantic richness for searching is contained in
"see" and "see also" references, complex references and scope and other
kinds of notes.  The controlled vocabulary itself needs to be integrated
into search results so that searches call up not only bib records with a
matching heading but vocabulary records which can expand the user's search
vocabulary and point to related controlled terms outside those generated by
the retrieved bib records' themselves. LCSH's weakness is that it is
designed for left-anchored browse searching, which has fallen out of favor;
but the idea that the full semantic structure of a controlled vocabulary
needs to be foregrounded in search results is still valid.

Stephen



On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 9:32 PM, Kent Fitch <kent.fi...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes, it's exploring what advantage there may be of using overlapping search
> terms to help bridge the differences between LCSH and "common usage", or
> "what the searcher is thinking of" that motivated this subject display.
>
> For example, the person-in-the-street would reasonably think that when
> searching a library catalogue where people have gone to the bother of
> subject-classifying, then the results on searching "bay of pigs" would
> return everything relevant, even if that string didn't appear in the title,
> even if the full text wasn't being searched.
>
> *http://ll01.nla.gov.au/search.jsp?searchTerm=bay+of+pigs
> <http://ll01.nla.gov.au/search.jsp?searchTerm=bay+of+pigs>*
>
> But LCSH organises that content under "Cuba -- History -- Invasion, 1961".
> There's a high correlation/overlap between "bay of pigs" results and this
> subject, which is why this subject string is highlighted in the prototype
> results.  But a search on that subject, removing "bay of pigs" as a search
> term, returns, for example, from 1962 "The Cuban Invasion : the chronicle
> of a disaster / by Karl E. Meyer and Tad Szulc ".
>
> http://ll01.nla.gov.au/show.jsp?rid=00643156
>
>  This isn't returned on a search for "bay of pigs" (on the prototype, or on
> Trove). Maybe "bay of pigs" wasn't even "a thing" when this book was
> catalogued, or, if it was, it was thought to be an ephemeral description.
>
> On Trove (and I guess most library catalogues), by paying carefully
> attention and tallying the subjects assigned to a "bay of pigs" results,
> you may eventually realise a good search may be:
>
>  "Cuba Invasion 1961" OR "bay of pigs"
>
> because there are LOTS of resources I'd want to know about if I were
> searching for "bay of pigs" that don't have an assigned subject string
> "Cuba -- History -- Invasion, 1961" for various reasons, such as a tendency
> not to assign more subjects that you want cards in the catalogue!  (eg
> http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/13249747 )
>
> I guess a better approach is to do this automatically for the searcher: to
> note "bay of pigs" results have a high but not total correlation with
> results assigned LCSH's "Cuba -- History -- Invasion, 1961", and I guess
> that's one of the attractions of searching on Google: that we take this
> type of "magic" for granted.
>
> Kent Fitch
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 11:19 AM, Harper, Cynthia <char...@vts.edu> wrote:
>
> >
> > From a librarian’s perspective, we know searching is messy – a researcher
> > can’t hope to find the perfect subject heading that will reveal all their
> > related content in one term.  Searching is exploring through overlapping
> > terms, and compiling a bibliography from the pearls found in the process.
> > This interface makes clearer what the related terms may be, given a borad
> > term like practical theology.  And it’s so nice that it combines the
> > classification structure with the subject headings.
> >
> > Cindy Harper
> > @vts.edu<http://vts.edu>
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU > CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU&

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[Kent Fitch]

Yes, it's exploring what advantage there may be of using overlapping search
terms to help bridge the differences between LCSH and "common usage", or
"what the searcher is thinking of" that motivated this subject display.

For example, the person-in-the-street would reasonably think that when
searching a library catalogue where people have gone to the bother of
subject-classifying, then the results on searching "bay of pigs" would
return everything relevant, even if that string didn't appear in the title,
even if the full text wasn't being searched.

*http://ll01.nla.gov.au/search.jsp?searchTerm=bay+of+pigs
<http://ll01.nla.gov.au/search.jsp?searchTerm=bay+of+pigs>*

But LCSH organises that content under "Cuba -- History -- Invasion, 1961".
There's a high correlation/overlap between "bay of pigs" results and this
subject, which is why this subject string is highlighted in the prototype
results.  But a search on that subject, removing "bay of pigs" as a search
term, returns, for example, from 1962 "The Cuban Invasion : the chronicle
of a disaster / by Karl E. Meyer and Tad Szulc ".

http://ll01.nla.gov.au/show.jsp?rid=00643156

 This isn't returned on a search for "bay of pigs" (on the prototype, or on
Trove). Maybe "bay of pigs" wasn't even "a thing" when this book was
catalogued, or, if it was, it was thought to be an ephemeral description.

On Trove (and I guess most library catalogues), by paying carefully
attention and tallying the subjects assigned to a "bay of pigs" results,
you may eventually realise a good search may be:

 "Cuba Invasion 1961" OR "bay of pigs"

because there are LOTS of resources I'd want to know about if I were
searching for "bay of pigs" that don't have an assigned subject string
"Cuba -- History -- Invasion, 1961" for various reasons, such as a tendency
not to assign more subjects that you want cards in the catalogue!  (eg
http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/13249747 )

I guess a better approach is to do this automatically for the searcher: to
note "bay of pigs" results have a high but not total correlation with
results assigned LCSH's "Cuba -- History -- Invasion, 1961", and I guess
that's one of the attractions of searching on Google: that we take this
type of "magic" for granted.

Kent Fitch


On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 11:19 AM, Harper, Cynthia <char...@vts.edu> wrote:

>
> From a librarian’s perspective, we know searching is messy – a researcher
> can’t hope to find the perfect subject heading that will reveal all their
> related content in one term.  Searching is exploring through overlapping
> terms, and compiling a bibliography from the pearls found in the process.
> This interface makes clearer what the related terms may be, given a borad
> term like practical theology.  And it’s so nice that it combines the
> classification structure with the subject headings.
>
> Cindy Harper
> @vts.edu<http://vts.edu>
>
> -Original Message-----
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU>] On Behalf Of Kent Fitch
> Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2016 8:17 PM
> To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU<mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU>
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?
> About ten years ago, I was wondering how to make the structure in LCSH, or
> at least how it was encoded in MARC subject tags more useful, so when
> implementing a prototype for a new library catalogue at the National
> Library of Australia, I tried using the subject tag contents to represent a
> hierarchy, then counted the number of hits against parts of that hierarchy
> for a given search and then represented the subject tags in a hierarchy
> with hit counts.   One of the motivations was to help expose to the
> searcher how works relevant to their search may have been
> LCSH-subject-catalogued.
>
> I'm a programmer, not a UI person, so the formatting of theresults were
> fairly primitive, but that prototype from ten years ago ("Library Labs") is
> still running.
>
> For example, search results for /ancient egypt/
>
>
> http://ll01.nla.gov.au/search.jsp?searchTerm=ancient+egypt=0.5=0.05=12.0=9.0=9.0=9.0=4.0=3.0=3.0=3.0=18.0=15.0
>
> /computer art/
>
>
> http://ll01.nla.gov.au/search.jsp?searchTerm=computer+art=0.5=0.05=12.0=9.0=9.0=9.0=4.0=3.0=3.0=3.0=18.0=15.0
>
> /history of utah/
>
>
> http://ll01.nla.gov.au/search.jsp?searchTerm=history+of+utah=0.5=0.05=12.0=9.0=9.0=9.0=4.0=3.0=3.0=3.0=18.0=15.0
>
> This prototype also explored a subject hierarchy which had been of
> interest to the NLA's Assistant Director-General, Dr Warwick Cathro, over
> many years, the RLG "Conspectus" hierarchy, which I guess wa

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[Harper, Cynthia]

From a librarian’s perspective, we know searching is messy – a researcher can’t 
hope to find the perfect subject heading that will reveal all their related 
content in one term.  Searching is exploring through overlapping terms, and 
compiling a bibliography from the pearls found in the process. This interface 
makes clearer what the related terms may be, given a borad term like practical 
theology.  And it’s so nice that it combines the classification structure with 
the subject headings.

Cindy Harper
@vts.edu<http://vts.edu>

-Original Message-
From: Code for Libraries 
[mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU<mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU>] On Behalf Of 
Kent Fitch
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2016 8:17 PM
To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU<mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU>
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?
About ten years ago, I was wondering how to make the structure in LCSH, or at 
least how it was encoded in MARC subject tags more useful, so when implementing 
a prototype for a new library catalogue at the National Library of Australia, I 
tried using the subject tag contents to represent a hierarchy, then counted the 
number of hits against parts of that hierarchy for a given search and then 
represented the subject tags in a hierarchy
with hit counts.   One of the motivations was to help expose to the
searcher how works relevant to their search may have been 
LCSH-subject-catalogued.

I'm a programmer, not a UI person, so the formatting of theresults were fairly 
primitive, but that prototype from ten years ago ("Library Labs") is still 
running.

For example, search results for /ancient egypt/

http://ll01.nla.gov.au/search.jsp?searchTerm=ancient+egypt=0.5=0.05=12.0=9.0=9.0=9.0=4.0=3.0=3.0=3.0=18.0=15.0

/computer art/

http://ll01.nla.gov.au/search.jsp?searchTerm=computer+art=0.5=0.05=12.0=9.0=9.0=9.0=4.0=3.0=3.0=3.0=18.0=15.0

/history of utah/

http://ll01.nla.gov.au/search.jsp?searchTerm=history+of+utah=0.5=0.05=12.0=9.0=9.0=9.0=4.0=3.0=3.0=3.0=18.0=15.0

This prototype also explored a subject hierarchy which had been of interest to 
the NLA's Assistant Director-General, Dr Warwick Cathro, over many years, the 
RLG "Conspectus" hierarchy, which I guess was not unlike BISAC in its aims.  It 
is shown further down the right-hand column.

Both the subject hierarchy and Conspectus were interesting, but neither made it 
into the eventual production search system, Trove, implemented at the NLA, in 
which subject faceting or hierarchy is absent from results
display:

http://trove.nla.gov.au/book/result?q=ancient+egypt
http://trove.nla.gov.au/book/result?q=computer+art
http://trove.nla.gov.au/book/result?q=history+of+utah

The "Library Labs" prototype is running on a small VM, so searching may be 
slow, and it hasnt been updated with any content since 2006..  But maybe the 
way it attempted to provide subject grouping and encourage narrowing of search 
by LCSH or exploring using LCSH rather than the provided search terms may 
trigger some more experiments.

Kent Fitch

On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 3:11 AM, Mark Watkins 
<m...@thehawaiiproject.com<mailto:m...@thehawaiiproject.com>>
wrote:

>  :)
>
> sounds like there is a lot of useful metadata but somewhat scattered
> amongst various fields, depending on when the item was cataloged or tagged.
> Which seems to correspond to anecdotal surfing of the Harvard data.
>
> I guess my new task is to build something that aggregates and
> reconciles portions of LCSH, LCFGT, and GSAFD :).
>
> Thanks for the additional perspective!
>

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[Mark Watkins]

Wow this is really interesting! want to play it with for a bit and will share 
any thoughts!

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[Kent Fitch]

About ten years ago, I was wondering how to make the structure in LCSH, or
at least how it was encoded in MARC subject tags more useful, so when
implementing a prototype for a new library catalogue at the National
Library of Australia, I tried using the subject tag contents to represent a
hierarchy, then counted the number of hits against parts of that hierarchy
for a given search and then represented the subject tags in a hierarchy
with hit counts.   One of the motivations was to help expose to the
searcher how works relevant to their search may have been
LCSH-subject-catalogued.

I'm a programmer, not a UI person, so the formatting of theresults were
fairly primitive, but that prototype from ten years ago ("Library Labs") is
still running.

For example, search results for /ancient egypt/

http://ll01.nla.gov.au/search.jsp?searchTerm=ancient+egypt=0.5=0.05=12.0=9.0=9.0=9.0=4.0=3.0=3.0=3.0=18.0=15.0

/computer art/

http://ll01.nla.gov.au/search.jsp?searchTerm=computer+art=0.5=0.05=12.0=9.0=9.0=9.0=4.0=3.0=3.0=3.0=18.0=15.0

/history of utah/

http://ll01.nla.gov.au/search.jsp?searchTerm=history+of+utah=0.5=0.05=12.0=9.0=9.0=9.0=4.0=3.0=3.0=3.0=18.0=15.0

This prototype also explored a subject hierarchy which had been of interest
to the NLA's Assistant Director-General, Dr Warwick Cathro, over many
years, the RLG "Conspectus" hierarchy, which I guess was not unlike BISAC
in its aims.  It is shown further down the right-hand column.

Both the subject hierarchy and Conspectus were interesting, but neither
made it into the eventual production search system, Trove, implemented at
the NLA, in which subject faceting or hierarchy is absent from results
display:

http://trove.nla.gov.au/book/result?q=ancient+egypt
http://trove.nla.gov.au/book/result?q=computer+art
http://trove.nla.gov.au/book/result?q=history+of+utah

The "Library Labs" prototype is running on a small VM, so searching may be
slow, and it hasnt been updated with any content since 2006..  But maybe
the way it attempted to provide subject grouping and encourage narrowing of
search by LCSH or exploring using LCSH rather than the provided search
terms may trigger some more experiments.

Kent Fitch

On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 3:11 AM, Mark Watkins 
wrote:

>  :)
>
> sounds like there is a lot of useful metadata but somewhat scattered
> amongst various fields, depending on when the item was cataloged or tagged.
> Which seems to correspond to anecdotal surfing of the Harvard data.
>
> I guess my new task is to build something that aggregates and reconciles
> portions of LCSH, LCFGT, and GSAFD :).
>
> Thanks for the additional perspective!
>

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[Harper, Cynthia]

Clicking on the link "409" from "Philosophy & Religion > Religion" I get:
Object not found!

The requested URL was not found on this server. If you entered the URL manually 
please check your spelling and try again.

If you think this is a server error, please contact the webmaster.
Error 404
wwwapp.cc.columbia.edu
Wed Apr 13 13:54:34 2016
Apache

I'll contact the webmaster.

Cindy Harper

-Original Message-
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of William 
Denton
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2016 10:39 AM
To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

On 13 April 2016, Mark Watkins wrote:

> I'm a library sciences newbie, but it seems like LCSH doesn't really 
> provide a formal hierarchy of genre/topic, just a giant controlled 
> vocabulary. Bisac seems to provide the "expected" hierarchy.
>
> Is anyone aware of any approaches (or better yet code!) that 
> translates lcsh to something like BISAC categories (either BISAC 
> specifically or some other hierarchy/ontology)? General web searching didn't 
> find anything obvious.

There's HILCC, the Hierarchical Interface of LC Classification:

https://www1.columbia.edu/sec/cu/libraries/bts/hilcc/subject_map.html

Bill
--
William Denton ↔  Toronto, Canada ↔  https://www.miskatonic.org/

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[Mark Watkins]

 :)

sounds like there is a lot of useful metadata but somewhat scattered amongst 
various fields, depending on when the item was cataloged or tagged. Which seems 
to correspond to anecdotal surfing of the Harvard data.

I guess my new task is to build something that aggregates and reconciles 
portions of LCSH, LCFGT, and GSAFD :).

Thanks for the additional perspective!

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[Mark Watkins]

thank you!

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[Debra Shapiro]

> On Apr 13, 2016, at 11:35 AM, Stephen Hearn  wrote:
> 
> as does the
> relative newness of LCGFT terms.


LoC genre form terms have been around since the 1980s; they use to be called 
gmgpc, and I think were primarily used (correctly!) only by us archival 
photograph catalogers. It’s the sort of re-branding as LCGFT that’s new.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/14099492

gmgpc could be coded in |2 of a MARC 6XX field - 
https://www.loc.gov/standards/sourcelist/genre-form.html

This is NOT to say that there’s not a huge mishmosh of terms in existing MARC 
records, that confuse what the item IS with what it’s about, and I’m also NOT 
arguing for usefulness of MARC coding.

deb
 
dsshap...@wisc.edu
Debra Shapiro
SLIS, the iSchool at UW-Madison
Helen C. White Hall, Rm. 4282
600 N. Park St.
Madison WI 53706
608 262 9195
mobile 608 712 6368
FAX 608 263 4849

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[Stephen Hearn]

I agree with Stephen McDonald on where LCSH and LCGFT are headed, but we're
not there yet. Currently LC's Subject Headings Manual (H1775) still
instructs us to add genre/form terms as LCSH headings when cataloging
collections of works in a given genre.  The LCSH terms used to indicate the
genre/form of a resource are more limited in application than LCGFT since
they're assigned only to collections and in limited instances to single
works, and more varied in form than LCGFT since they can include adjectives
for nationality and time period. It's also correct to add LCGFT terms, but
we're not yet instructed to omit LCSH terms in the cases where they've been
used in the past

The traditional limits on applying LCSH terms to indicate genre/form make
them a problematic source for this sort of information, as does the
relative newness of LCGFT terms.  GSAFD terms (Guidelines for Subject
Access to Fiction, Drama, Poetry, etc.) might be another source of
controlled vocabulary discoverable on older records.

Stephen

On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 9:58 AM, Mark Watkins 
wrote:

> thank you that is very helpful!
>



-- 
Stephen Hearn, Metadata Strategist
Data Management & Access, University Libraries
University of Minnesota
160 Wilson Library
309 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Ph: 612-625-2328
Fx: 612-625-3428
ORCID:  -0002-3590-1242

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[McDonald, Stephen]

LCSH is only subject headings, not genres.  LCSH has been used in the past for 
fiction and non-fiction genres, but that is now technically incorrect.  Genres 
are now covered by LCGFT.  This is why I said you would have difficulty 
covering both non-fiction subjects and fiction genres with any translation from 
LCSH.  You will still find fiction genres coded as subject headings in prior 
decades, but going into the future you should expect those to disappear as they 
are cleaned up.

To get both subject headings and fiction genres, you will probably have to look 
at both LCSH and LCGFT.

Steve McDonald
steve.mcdon...@tufts.edu

> -Original Message-
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of
> Mark Watkins
> Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2016 10:42 AM
> To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?
> 
> Very interesting thank you! It looks to be only Non-Fiction, does that sound
> correct?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> mark

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[Mark Watkins]

thank you that is very helpful!

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[Mark Watkins]

Very interesting thank you! It looks to be only Non-Fiction, does that sound 
correct?

Thanks!

mark

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[William Denton]

On 13 April 2016, Mark Watkins wrote:

I'm a library sciences newbie, but it seems like LCSH doesn't really provide a 
formal hierarchy of genre/topic, just a giant controlled vocabulary. Bisac 
seems to provide the "expected" hierarchy.


Is anyone aware of any approaches (or better yet code!) that translates lcsh 
to something like BISAC categories (either BISAC specifically or some other 
hierarchy/ontology)? General web searching didn't find anything obvious.


There's HILCC, the Hierarchical Interface of LC Classification:

https://www1.columbia.edu/sec/cu/libraries/bts/hilcc/subject_map.html

Bill
--
William Denton ↔  Toronto, Canada ↔  https://www.miskatonic.org/

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[Mark Watkins]

Thank you Carol. I will look into to call number to LC class mapping. That 
might be relevant. 

I am looking to provide more of a hierarchical browse of Genre and/or subject, 
in the "faceted navigation" vein.

Interesting browse experience you have created, I like how you can move 
"sideways" through the data by pivoting to other categories.

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[Mark Watkins]

Thank you Stephen, that is helpful context, especially the differentiation 
between Genre and Subject headings. (although I think the distinction might be 
confusing for casual readers). But in context of the data available, that 
makes sense and is helpful. 

My use case is around book recommendations and book browsing, so the 
"bookstore" analogy of Bisac is probably on point (I have a personalized 
book recommendation engine, The Hawaii Project (www.thehawaiiproject.com)) - 
the recommendations are based on metadata available from amazon, one's reading 
history, and what book reviewers are writing about). So both fiction and 
non-fiction are in scope. But the genre/topics I provide browsing for are 
limited, and I'd like to be able to go deeper (i.e. one can ask for 
recommendations about "mysteries" at present but not specifically "historical 
mysteries", nor browse that way. (Search is a different matter, and easier to 
handle). 

The harvard data is open and incredibly rich, so am looking for the best way to 
leverage itvs licensing fairly expensive commercial metadata.

Thanks!

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[Carol Kassel]

Hi Mark,

We are also interested in providing hierarchical browsing for some of our
collections, though our reasons and goals may be different from yours. We
have very large book collections and want to offer users a way to navigate
beyond searching/filtering or "browse all." Our idea is to use the call
numbers for the books, which map to LC class and subclass, which is a
hierarchy. We haven't done this yet, so I can't show you an example, but I
wonder if it's something you can use for your project.

So far, we do allow users to "find similar" titles by clicking on LCSH
subjects for a given book:

http://dlib.nyu.edu/aco/browse/?page=1

Not sure if this type of navigation might be useful to you.

Best,

Carol

On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 8:05 AM, Mark Watkins 
wrote:

> I'm interested to use the LCSH data contained in the Harvard Open Metadata
> project to provide some hierarchical browsing (e.g. Fiction -> Mysteries ->
> Historical Mysteries on top of a book database.
>
> I'm a library sciences newbie, but it seems like LCSH doesn't really
> provide a formal hierarchy of genre/topic, just a giant controlled
> vocabulary. Bisac seems to provide the "expected" hierarchy.
>
> Is anyone aware of any approaches (or better yet code!) that translates
> lcsh to something like BISAC categories (either BISAC specifically or some
> other hierarchy/ontology)? General web searching didn't find anything
> obvious.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Mark
>



-- 
Carol Kassel
Senior Manager, Digital Library Infrastructure
NYU Digital Library Technology Services
c...@nyu.edu
(212) 992-9246
dlib.nyu.edu

Re: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[McDonald, Stephen]

Fiction->Mysteries->Historical Mysteries is an example of genres, not subject 
headings.  There is a subtle difference--the difference between "what is this 
type" and "what is this about".  LCSH does have a very structured hierarchy, 
but it was not intended for the kind of shelf browsing you seem to be 
interested in.  Different taxonomies have different purposes, and it is quite 
difficult to repurpose a taxonomy or translate between taxonomies intended for 
different purposes.  It will never work as well as a dedicated taxonomy.  
That's one reason that genres never worked well in LCSH.  LCGFT was created to 
remove genres from LCSH. I think it might be useful to go further and split 
LCGFT into separate taxonomies for forms and for genres.

BISAC was created for yet another purpose.  It is a combination of broad 
subjects (where LCSH focuses on very specific subjects) and fiction genres 
(where LCGFT includes both fiction and non-fiction genres plus forms).  It 
works well in a specific setting--a bookstore type environment for casual 
browsing of both fiction and non-fiction materials.  I'm not sure it is 
possible to translate LCSH into BISAC, at least not very well.  You could 
probably do all right for the non-fiction categories, but LCSH really doesn't 
have fiction genres.

Our library did create a taxonomy for our libguides and our database list.  The 
taxonomy is basically a cut-down version of LCSH, focusing on the subjects of 
greatest interest to the university, falling generally along the lines of 
departments and degrees.  It works well for our purposes.  But it does not 
include fiction genres, because specific genres are not an important category 
of study for the university.  (Certain programs do study fictional material, 
such as film studies, but the subject terms we use are adequate for these 
interests.)  Our taxonomy is designed for a specific audience--the faculty and 
students of our university--and works well within that environment.  If you are 
looking for a combined non-fiction subject plus fiction genre hierarchy, I 
think it will be rather difficult to translate or cut down LCSH the way we have.

I would suggest that, before you begin working, you make some decisions about 
the scope and nature of the project.  What is the intended audience for this 
taxonomy?  What is the purpose of the taxonomy?  Will it include fiction 
genres?  Non-fiction genres?  Forms?  Subjects?  How broad will the categories 
be?  How deeply layered will the hierarchy be?  After answering these (and 
other) questions, you can do a better analysis of whether it will be possible 
to translate LCSH into what you seek.

Steve McDonald
steve.mcdon...@tufts.edu


> -Original Message-
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of
> Mark Watkins
> Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2016 8:05 AM
> To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Subject: [CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?
> 
> I'm interested to use the LCSH data contained in the Harvard Open Metadata
> project to provide some hierarchical browsing (e.g. Fiction -> Mysteries ->
> Historical Mysteries on top of a book database.
> 
> I'm a library sciences newbie, but it seems like LCSH doesn't really provide a
> formal hierarchy of genre/topic, just a giant controlled vocabulary. Bisac
> seems to provide the "expected" hierarchy.
> 
> Is anyone aware of any approaches (or better yet code!) that translates lcsh
> to something like BISAC categories (either BISAC specifically or some other
> hierarchy/ontology)? General web searching didn't find anything obvious.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Mark

[CODE4LIB] LCSH, Bisac, facets, hierarchy?

[Mark Watkins]

I'm interested to use the LCSH data contained in the Harvard Open Metadata 
project to provide some hierarchical browsing (e.g. Fiction -> Mysteries -> 
Historical Mysteries on top of a book database.

I'm a library sciences newbie, but it seems like LCSH doesn't really provide a 
formal hierarchy of genre/topic, just a giant controlled vocabulary. Bisac 
seems to provide the "expected" hierarchy.

Is anyone aware of any approaches (or better yet code!) that translates lcsh to 
something like BISAC categories (either BISAC specifically or some other 
hierarchy/ontology)? General web searching didn't find anything obvious.

Thanks!

Mark