Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?)
Exactly! Well put. Thank you for adding your chime to the chorus. Frankly, since those advocating the incorporation of bibliographically controlled searching have never denied the usefulness of keyword searching nor indicated that it should be eliminated as a tool, I've often wondered why there are some advocates of keyword searching who want to exclude any other kind of search mechanism. It's not like it's a battle of the archaic Luddites vs. super techno gurus, because the argument for adapting bibliographic standards to an interface that seems simple to a user is a very sophisticated technical application of a traditional concept. Is it the idea that if the user doesn't understand it, they don't need it?' Or if insert your favorite behind-the-scenes group here doesn't want to learn something different then they won't and we shouldn't expect them to try? Or is it that since it's just library stuff it shouldn't be this hard? I'm not sure I understand the source of the disconnect. Robin Mize Head of Technical Services Brenau Trustee Library Gainesville, GA 30501 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Casey Mullin wrote: I feel a need to chime in here as well... I'm going to get theoretical and quote some passages from Elaine Svenonius (/Intellectual Foundation of Information Organization/).. First, she paraphrases Hans Peter Luhn, the so-called inventor of keyword searching: [Luhn] made it clear that keyword searching could never supplant the kind of scholarly, retrospective searching that calls into play the panoply of features mandated by the traditional bibliographic objectives...bibliographic systems are many and take varied forms; no single one need aspire to meet all the needs of all users. Secondly, she very succinctly and eloquently summarizes the argument for models like FRBR in the first place: To [traditional objectives] can be added a further evolutionary step--that is, the adoption by catalogs of a navigation objective in response to the need for bibliographic *relationships* (emphasis mine) to guide the seeking of information. The bibliographic objectives thus can be seen as historically determined...A final argument in defense of *full-featured *(emphasis mine) bibliographic systems is that they are required if knowledge is to advance. Progress depends on cumulative scholarship, which in turn depends on scholars' ability to access all that has been created by human intellect. Ensuring such access is the goal of ongoing efforts to achieve universal bibliographic control. That last concept (universal bibliographic control) may seem a stilted and idealistic concept, but is it not our highest ideal as catalogers/metadata creators? Keyword searching, no matter how sexy, could never accomplish this. That said, keyword searching and highly-structured descriptions and relationships can co-exist. Such complexity can be in the background, hidden from the casual user, but available for those who need it. Some food for thought for this rainy (at least in Indiana) Friday morning... Casey Alan Mullin -- MLS Candidate -- School of Library and Information Science -- Metadata Assistant - Variations3 Digital Music Library -- Indiana University Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2008 09:45:16 +0200 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?) To: RDA-L@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA -Original Message- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rhonda Marker Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2008 4:29 PM To: RDA-L@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?) I've been lurking since the list began, but will dart out into the open just this once. You ask what difference it will make to try to bring both precision and recall to searches (my vocabulary, not yours). For some tasks, such as finding enough to write an undergraduate essay, perhaps itadds very little beyond what a simple keyword search would accomplish. For other tasks, a more comprehensive result is vitally important-- for graduate level research, for many STM (science-technology-medicine) topics, and I'm sure others could give many more categories of things and even specific instances. I guess my point is that the General Searcher is not our only user. Having a model like FRBR helps us organize our efforts so that whatever our resources allow us to do, we can do in a purposeful, concerted way. --- I haven't read that FRBR or RDA will make it easier for people to find things, except in the sense that the FRBR displays may provide more useful collocation of similar records (by work/expression/manifestation/item). And when we bring precision and recall into the equation, I don't know if this has anything to do with RDA or even with human cataloging. Traditionally, precision
Re: [RDA-L] [Possible Spam] Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?)
/It brings me no joy to point out these issues, but I think somebody needs to do it. It's the future of our field. It's only reasonable to ask that in the information landscape of today, is FRBR/RDA any kind of a solution? Undertaking these changes will demand enormous efforts from library staff and budgets, and we need to know that it will be worth the effort. I question it and feel that the same efforts would be better used in different areas. I may be wrong, but I think it is vital to discuss it. / I don't know if FRBR/RDA is the solution. I tend to agree with Mac that there is a lot of potential in MARC--even given the fact that it needs to be updated to remove redundancies and other problems. The reason it has potential is that it has been designed to accommodate those who need complex and detailed description and those who just need something simple and quick. It's never been fully utilized by any given system that I've ever worked with, but it could do a lot of the things we talk about wanting now if we had the right data environment. I'm not saying MARC and only MARC; and I agree with many that RDA has a lot of problems that need to be addressed before it would become a true standard in the sense of being used by most. I'm saying that we shouldn't abandon good tools or any set of users for the sake of following a sexy trend because that approach doesn't serve anyone well in the long run. Regarding funding. Since when have we had the funding to do whatever we want to do whenever and however we want to do it? I think that the expense of resources going into staff and programming is partly why it's so hard to find a system that takes full advantage of something like MARC; because even in the best of economic times, the commercial interest is only going to invest as much as is in the interest of its profit margin. That's why there are so many open-source applications--because there have been librarians who know enough about systems and programming to design something useful in spite of our given resources, and they have been willing to share their efforts in the interest of the community. To paraphrase the song ... Librarians are doing it for themselves. (and the users, of course) Robin Mize Head of Technical Services Brenau Trustee Library Gainesville, GA 30501 [EMAIL PROTECTED] / /Weinheimer Jim wrote: snip I thought that Robin Mize had written an excellent response to Jim Weinheimer, but once again Weinheimer insists that the FRBR user tasks are not relevant. I'm wondering now if maybe the problem is that Weinheimer is not characterizing the user tasks accurately. He says: I don't believe that the user tasks are to 'find, identify, select, and obtain' 'works, expressions, manifestations and items.' I really don't think that is what people do today, I don't think they particularly want to, and perhaps they never did. /snip I don't want people to get the wrong impression that I think that the FRBR user tasks are not relevant. I think that people do want to find items by their authors and subjects (less by titles). The users I have worked with believe they can do this now in Google because Google has been very successfully designed to give results that make people happy, but of course they are happy with an author search only because they don't know what they are missing. Research has shown, and my own experience concurs, that most people believe they are good searchers. In the information literacy classes I teach, I mention that most people believe they are good searchers, but then I ask them, Do I think I'm a good searcher? and to the inevitable silence, I continue, I don't know if I'm a good searcher because I don't have any kind of yardstick to measure myself by. When I search Google, Yahoo, Google Books, Google Scholar, and so on, I don't know what I am searching, so I don't know what I am missing. Also, I don't know if a specific search is good or bad based only on the number of keyword hits. In a library catalog, I can search wwii as a keyword, or Samuel Clemens and I can know exactly what I am missing, and this way I can determine if I am a good searcher, or not. In the Google-type searching, there is nothing like this. In a library catalog, I can say that I am a good s! earcher, but in Google, I don't know. I can go on and on and on about the problems of Google. But I realize that it doesn't matter what I say. While I may make a difference to the few people in the classroom who aren't asleep, my words make very little difference in the scheme of things. People like keyword searching. I do too. People think they are good searchers. And Google searches can be very useful. I don't have to go on about this. This is the world as it is and it's not going to go away. People have discovered a universe of information resources out there and the library materials are only a tiny, and diminishing part of that universe. We can put our efforts toward making our small part of the
Re: [RDA-L] [Possible Spam] Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?)
Weinheimer: This is the world as it is and it's not going to go away. People have discovered a universe of information resources out there and the library materials are only a tiny, and diminishing part of that universe. We can put our efforts toward making our small part of the universe subject to the FRBR user tasks, which will be a lot of work, and what difference will it make to our users? I don't think they will even notice a difference. And remember that our users include the people who determine the library budgets. Is this then the best use of our resources.? Jim is right. Our users have discovered the world outside the brick and mortar of the library. The cat's out of the bag; the information universe is seemingly limitless. And while, by sheer quantity, the library's materials may be a very small part (just as any physical collection is but a microcosm of the bibliographic universe), that does not mean they are any less relevant to our users. If we want our local collections (in whatever format they may be) to continue to be relevant (and sufficiently discoverable), then we need to continue to find ways to break down the silos that lock up these resources. To do this while not losing the high quality of our metadata, we need to come up with a way to integrate our libraries' metadata with the wider information universe effectively. This, I believe, is one of the fundamental goals of FRBR/RDA. To speak in terms of books-as-information-packages (as is the legacy of AACR2) is no longer enough. Revising AACR2 incrementally is, and has been, a band aid. To say nothing of the quality of the *data* stored in MARC format (which is often quite high) or the sophistication of the format, our retrieval tools have failed us for too long. Whatever the cost of developing and implementing a new standard which approaches integration of library metadata with the wider universe, the *opportunity cost* of standing still and waiting, and adhering to the reactionary claque, is much too high. We may be trapping ourselves in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Lest I end on too grim a note, I concur with Jim's tip-of-the-hat to librarians who are doing it for themselves, developing their own retrieval tools. We have the energy and collective intelligence in this profession to charge forth with elan. We mustn't underestimate ourselves...Casey Alan MullinMLS CandidateSchool of Library and Information ScienceMetadata Assistant - Variations3 Digital Music LibraryIndiana University Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:40:30 -0400 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [RDA-L] [Possible Spam] Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?) To: RDA-L@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA /It brings me no joy to point out these issues, but I think somebody needs to do it. It's the future of our field. It's only reasonable to ask that in the information landscape of today, is FRBR/RDA any kind of a solution? Undertaking these changes will demand enormous efforts from library staff and budgets, and we need to know that it will be worth the effort. I question it and feel that the same efforts would be better used in different areas. I may be wrong, but I think it is vital to discuss it. / I don't know if FRBR/RDA is the solution. I tend to agree with Mac that there is a lot of potential in MARC--even given the fact that it needs to be updated to remove redundancies and other problems. The reason it has potential is that it has been designed to accommodate those who need complex and detailed description and those who just need something simple and quick. It's never been fully utilized by any given system that I've ever worked with, but it could do a lot of the things we talk about wanting now if we had the right data environment. I'm not saying MARC and only MARC; and I agree with many that RDA has a lot of problems that need to be addressed before it would become a true standard in the sense of being used by most. I'm saying that we shouldn't abandon good tools or any set of users for the sake of following a sexy trend because that approach doesn't serve anyone well in the long run. Regarding funding. Since when have we had the funding to do whatever we want to do whenever and however we want to do it? I think that the expense of resources going into staff and programming is partly why it's so hard to find a system that takes full advantage of something like MARC; because even in the best of economic times, the commercial interest is only going to invest as much as is in the interest of its profit margin. That's why there are so many open-source applications--because there have been librarians who know enough about systems and programming to design something useful in spite of our given resources, and they have been willing to share their efforts in the interest of the community. To paraphrase the song ... Librarians are doing
Re: [RDA-L] [Possible Spam] Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?)
Whatever the cost of developing and implementing a new standard which approaches integration of library metadata with the wider universe, the *opportunity cost* of standing still and waiting, and adhering to the reactionary claque, is much too high. We may be trapping ourselves in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Whatever the cost? Really? It's tempting to say that ALA and the Co-publishers are already on track for determining if there is an upper limit for the cost of RDA, but if you truly believe that a new set of cataloging rules based on an untested theory and written in a nearly incomprehensible muddle is worth any price no matter how high, I invite you to my budgetting party at such time as RDA is adopted. And I see that now, in addition to being a filthy vendor (self-identified, to be sure), I may well be a member of a reactionary claque, too! Gad, that certainly puts me in my place! But how delightful; just as the coarse part of the political campaign was starting to ebb, at least in my no-longer battleground state of residence, a little vitriol is supplied to keep me warm as I contemplate whether my copy of And to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street is a work, an expression, a manifestation, or a random set of subatomic particles. What a wonderful day; it's morning o! n the RDA list! Mike Tribby Senior Cataloger Quality Books Inc. The Best of America's Independent Presses mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Casey Mullin Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 12:23 PM To: RDA-L@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] [Possible Spam] Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?) Weinheimer: This is the world as it is and it's not going to go away. People have discovered a universe of information resources out there and the library materials are only a tiny, and diminishing part of that universe. We can put our efforts toward making our small part of the universe subject to the FRBR user tasks, which will be a lot of work, and what difference will it make to our users? I don't think they will even notice a difference. And remember that our users include the people who determine the library budgets. Is this then the best use of our resources.? Jim is right. Our users have discovered the world outside the brick and mortar of the library. The cat's out of the bag; the information universe is seemingly limitless. And while, by sheer quantity, the library's materials may be a very small part (just as any physical collection is but a microcosm of the bibliographic universe), that does not mean they are any less relevant to our users. If we want our local collections (in whatever format they may be) to continue to be relevant (and sufficiently discoverable), then we need to continue to find ways to break down the silos that lock up these resources. To do this while not losing the high quality of our metadata, we need to come up with a way to integrate our libraries' metadata with the wider information universe effectively. This, I believe, is one of the fundamental goals of FRBR/RDA. To speak in terms of books-as-information-packages (as is the legacy of AACR2) is no longer enough. Revising AACR2 incrementally is, a! nd has been, a band aid. To say nothing of the quality of the *data* stored in MARC format (which is often quite high) or the sophistication of the format, our retrieval tools have failed us for too long. Whatever the cost of developing and implementing a new standard which approaches integration of library metadata with the wider universe, the *opportunity cost* of standing still and waiting, and adhering to the reactionary claque, is much too high. We may be trapping ourselves in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Lest I end on too grim a note, I concur with Jim's tip-of-the-hat to librarians who are doing it for themselves, developing their own retrieval tools. We have the energy and collective intelligence in this profession to charge forth with elan. We mustn't underestimate ourselves... Casey Alan Mullin MLS Candidate School of Library and Information Science Metadata Assistant - Variations3 Digital Music Library Indiana University Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:40:30 -0400 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [RDA-L] [Possible Spam] Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?) To: RDA-L@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA /It brings me no joy to point out these issues, but I think somebody needs to do it. It's the future of our field. It's only reasonable to ask that in the information landscape of today, is FRBR/RDA any kind of a solution? Undertaking these changes will demand enormous efforts from library staff and budgets, and we need to know that it will be worth the effort. I question it and feel that the same efforts would
Re: [RDA-L] [Possible Spam] Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?)
Thanks for your pointed response, Mike. I'd like to point out that in that
passage (which you have nicely quoted), I stated a new standard.., not
NECESSARILY RDA as has been published in drafts thus far. Put another way,
while we must be skeptical of any content standard as a messianic new world
order, we cannot afford to stand idly by while our profession's relevance is
whittled away little by little.
As for untested: testing is in the works! (Here's where I show my bias...) I
will direct you to a recent news bit: http://www.frbr.org/2008/09/16/indiana-u
Stay tuned...
Oh, and thank you for characterizing my posting as vitriol; I'll take that as
a compliment! :)Casey Alan MullinMLS CandidateSchool of Library and Information
ScienceMetadata Assistant - Variations3 Digital Music LibraryIndiana University
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:30:36 -0500 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re:
[RDA-L] [Possible Spam] Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to
AACR2/MARC21?) To: RDA-L@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA Whatever the cost of
developing and implementing a new standard which approaches integration of
library metadata with the wider universe, the *opportunity cost* of standing
still and waiting, and adhering to the reactionary claque, is much too high.
We may be trapping ourselves in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Whatever the
cost? Really? It's tempting to say that ALA and the Co-publishers are
already on track for determining if there is an upper limit for the cost of
RDA, but if you truly believe that a new set of cataloging rules based on an
untested theory and written in a nearly incomprehensible muddle is worth any
price no matter how high, I invite you to my budgetting party at such time as
RDA is adopted. And I see that now, in addition to being a filthy vendor
(self-identified, to be sure), I may well be a member of a reactionary
claque, too! Gad, that certainly puts me in my place! But how delightful;
just as the coarse part of the political campaign was starting to ebb, at
least in my no-longer battleground state of residence, a little vitriol is
supplied to keep me warm as I contemplate whether my copy of And to think
that I saw it on Mulberry Street is a work, an expression, a manifestation,
or a random set of subatomic particles. What a wonderful day; it's morning
o! n the RDA list! Mike Tribby Senior Cataloger Quality Books Inc.
The Best of America's Independent Presses mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Resource Description and Access
/ Resource Description and Access [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
Casey Mullin Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 12:23 PM To:
RDA-L@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] [Possible Spam] Re: [RDA-L]
FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?) Weinheimer: This
is the world as it is and it's not going to go away. People have
discovered a universe of information resources out there and the library
materials are only a tiny, and diminishing part of that universe. We can
put our efforts toward making our small part of the universe subject to
the FRBR user tasks, which will be a lot of work, and what difference will
it make to our users? I don't think they will even notice a difference.
And remember that our users include the people who determine the library
budgets. Is this then the best use of our resources.? Jim is right. Our
users have discovered the world outside the brick and mortar of the library.
The cat's out of the bag; the information universe is seemingly limitless.
And while, by sheer quantity, the library's materials may be a very small
part (just as any physical collection is but a microcosm of the bibliographic
universe), that does not mean they are any less relevant to our users. If we
want our local collections (in whatever format they may be) to continue to be
relevant (and sufficiently discoverable), then we need to continue to find
ways to break down the silos that lock up these resources. To do this while
not losing the high quality of our metadata, we need to come up with a way to
integrate our libraries' metadata with the wider information universe
effectively. This, I believe, is one of the fundamental goals of FRBR/RDA. To
speak in terms of books-as-information-packages (as is the legacy of AACR2)
is no longer enough. Revising AACR2 incrementally is, a! nd has been, a band
aid. To say nothing of the quality of the *data* stored in MARC format (which
is often quite high) or the sophistication of the format, our retrieval tools
have failed us for too long. Whatever the cost of developing and
implementing a new standard which approaches integration of library metadata
with the wider universe, the *opportunity cost* of standing still and
waiting, and adhering to the reactionary claque, is much too high. We may be
trapping ourselves in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Lest I
[RDA-L] =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re: Re: [RDA-L] [Possible Spam]=A0=A0Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?)?=
If I could point out something rather uncomfortable, it could be argued that Google is far more powerful in the area of information retrieval than all of the libraries in the world put together. Here we are, arguing about MARC or in some cases, OAI-PMH, and Google has already dumped OAI-PMH in favor of XML sitemaps (which I have no experience with), See: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/04/retiring-support-for-oai-pmh-in.html I think it is a safe bet to believe that most of the world will go with Google. Where does that leave MARC? Again, I think there is a major place for librarians and especially catalogers in this scenario, but we must reconsider what we are really doing and where our strengths lie. I don't believe that our strengths lie in formats or authoritative rules, but in other areas of intellectual selection, description, and organization. If we reconsider ourselves in this way, I think our skills are unique. Jim Weinheimer Thanks for your pointed response, Mike. I'd like to point out that in that passage (which you have nicely quoted), I stated a new standard.., not NECESSARILY RDA as has been published in drafts thus far. Put another way, while we must be skeptical of any content standard as a messianic new world order, we cannot afford to stand idly by while our profession's relevance is whittled away little by little. As for untested: testing is in the works! (Here's where I show my bias...) I will direct you to a recent news bit: http://www.frbr.org/2008/09/16/indiana-u Stay tuned... Oh, and thank you for characterizing my posting as vitriol; I'll take that as a compliment! :) Casey Alan Mullin MLS Candidate School of Library and Information Science Metadata Assistant - Variations3 Digital Music Library Indiana University Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:30:36 -0500 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [RDA-L] [Possible Spam] Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?) To: RDA-L@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA Whatever the cost of developing and implementing a new standard which approaches integration of library metadata with the wider universe, the *opportunity cost* of standing still and waiting, and adhering to the reactionary claque, is much too high. We may be trapping ourselves in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Whatever the cost? Really? It's tempting to say that ALA and the Co-publishers are already on track for determining if there is an upper limit for the cost of RDA, but if you truly believe that a new set of cataloging rules based on an untested theory and written in a nearly incomprehensible muddle is worth any price no matter how high, I invite you to my budgetting party at such time as RDA is adopted. And I see that now, in addition to being a filthy vendor (self-identified, to be sure), I may well be a member of a reactionary claque, too! Gad, that certainly puts me in my place! But how delightful; just as the coarse part of the political campaign was starting to ebb, at least in my no-longer battleground state of residence, a little vitriol is supplied to keep me warm as I contemplate whether my copy of And to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street is a work, an expression, a manifestation, or a random set of subatomic particles. What a wonderful day; it's morning o! n the RDA list! Mike Tribby Senior Cataloger Quality Books Inc. The Best of America's Independent Presses mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Casey Mullin Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 12:23 PM To: RDA-L@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] [Possible Spam] Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?) Weinheimer: This is the world as it is and it's not going to go away. People have discovered a universe of information resources out there and the library materials are only a tiny, and diminishing part of that universe. We can put our efforts toward making our small part of the universe subject to the FRBR user tasks, which will be a lot of work, and what difference will it make to our users? I don't think they will even notice a difference.. And remember that our users include the people who determine the library budgets. Is this then the best use of our resources.? Jim is right. Our users have discovered the world outside the brick and mortar of the library. The cat's out of the bag; the information universe is seemingly limitless. And while, by sheer quantity, the library's materials may be a very small part (just as any physical collection is but a microcosm of the bibliographic universe), that does not mean they are any less relevant to our users. If we want our local collections (in whatever format they may be) to continue to be relevant (and sufficiently
Re: [RDA-L] [Possible Spam] Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?)
Regarding funding. Since when have we had the funding to do whatever we want to do whenever and however we want to do it? My guess is that the answer to this rhetorical question is Never. However, we have also never started out with the idea that the basic rules for what we do will start out priced beyond most libraries' (let alone individual librarians') abilities to pay. What good are the rules if most of us can't afford copies of them? Mike Tribby Senior Cataloger Quality Books Inc. The Best of America's Independent Presses mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [RDA-L] [Possible Spam] Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?)
And thank you for writing back, Casey. I can tell from your interpretation of my vitriol remark that you know how to read my invective. In response to a variation on my comment about a Dr. Seuss title being a work, manifestation, or expression, a defender of FRBR and RDA noted that in 80% of the bibliographic universe, the work/expresson/manifestation are the same. So for libraries that collect mainly this kind of material (i.e. books), RDA will yield little benefit. Far too often in this discussion those of us who oppose RDA are characterized as being against all change. This is hardly the case. Alll digital materials, video and audio materials, and really just about everything _except_ books are ill-served by AACR2 IMNSHO. But RDA will change _all_ cataloging And thanks for the link, but an underlying attribute of my opinion on the whole discussion is that _no_ new standard, whether RDA or whatever, is worth what it appears RDA will cost. For many libraries, especially public libraries, especially small-to-medium public libraries, RDA will not only be completely out of the question as far as cost of the resource and implementation (retooling and retraining), it also won't benefit the approximately 80% of their stuff for which FRBR is a non-factor. Reasonable cost, backwards compatibility for materials for which AACR2r already works quite well, and a soupcon of proof that FRBR is workable might go a long way in turning me into an RDA fan. But it's far too late on the cost front. We don't see much of it discussed on the RDA list or Autocat, but ALA Publishing and the co-conspirators--I mean the Co-publishers--have been locked into this as a high ticket item from the beginning. Which is probably why we don't see much discussion of it. Mike Tribby Senior Cataloger Quality Books Inc. The Best of America's Independent Presses mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Casey Mullin Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 2:10 PM To: RDA-L@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] [Possible Spam] Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?) Thanks for your pointed response, Mike. I'd like to point out that in that passage (which you have nicely quoted), I stated a new standard.., not NECESSARILY RDA as has been published in drafts thus far. Put another way, while we must be skeptical of any content standard as a messianic new world order, we cannot afford to stand idly by while our profession's relevance is whittled away little by little. As for untested: testing is in the works! (Here's where I show my bias...) I will direct you to a recent news bit: http://www.frbr.org/2008/09/16/indiana-u Stay tuned... Oh, and thank you for characterizing my posting as vitriol; I'll take that as a compliment! :) Casey Alan Mullin MLS Candidate School of Library and Information Science Metadata Assistant - Variations3 Digital Music Library Indiana University Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:30:36 -0500 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [RDA-L] [Possible Spam] Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?) To: RDA-L@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA Whatever the cost of developing and implementing a new standard which approaches integration of library metadata with the wider universe, the *opportunity cost* of standing still and waiting, and adhering to the reactionary claque, is much too high. We may be trapping ourselves in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Whatever the cost? Really? It's tempting to say that ALA and the Co-publishers are already on track for determining if there is an upper limit for the cost of RDA, but if you truly believe that a new set of cataloging rules based on an untested theory and written in a nearly incomprehensible muddle is worth any price no matter how high, I invite you to my budgetting party at such time as RDA is adopted. And I see that now, in addition to being a filthy vendor (self-identified, to be sure), I may well be a member of a reactionary claque, too! Gad, that certainly puts me in my place! But how delightful; just as the coarse part of the political campaign was starting to ebb, at least in my no-longer battleground state of residence, a little vitriol is supplied to keep me warm as I contemplate whether my copy of And to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street is a work, an expression, a manifestation, or a random set of subatomic particles. What a wonderful day; it's morning ! o! n the RDA list! Mike Tribby Senior Cataloger Quality Books Inc. The Best of America's Independent Presses mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Casey Mullin Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 12:23
[RDA-L] FW: [RDA-L] Re: Re: [RDA-L] [Possible Spam] Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?)
If I could point out something rather uncomfortable, it could be argued that Google is far more powerful in the area of information retrieval than all of the libraries in the world put together. Google is also far more powerful as a provider of duplicate hits and clutter unless one has a pretty good idea of what one is searching for. Are 10,000 hits always better than a handful of meaningful hits? Jim, you and I have discussed this very issue offlist. For finding information about the latest movie stars or athletes, Google is great. So is YouTube. When I'm trying to move forward with my vital research into important and trendsetting Jamaican bass guitar players of the 1970s, it's next to useless. 10,000 hits that tell me where to buy the same MOR titles not only don't speak to my research question, they make it hard to sift out the germane information that might be lurking on page 23 of the Google search results. Mike Tribby Senior Cataloger Quality Books Inc. The Best of America's Independent Presses mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?)
FRBR is a model for recording, perhaps for displaying, bibliographic data, not a model for retrieval. There is a terrible lack in our discussion about FRBR and RDA. At the moment it seems to be only a hope, that this model is a helpful model for future retrieval needs. Am 23 Oct 2008 um 10:28 hat Rhonda Marker geschrieben: I've been lurking since the list began, but will dart out into the open just this once. You ask what difference it will make to try to bring both precision and recall to searches (my vocabulary, not yours). For some tasks, such as finding enough to write an undergraduate essay, perhaps itadds very little beyond what a simple keyword search would accomplish. For other tasks, a more comprehensive result is vitally important-- for graduate level research, for many STM (science-technology-medicine) topics, and I'm sure others could give many more categories of things and even specific instances. I guess my point is that the General Searcher is not our only user. Having a model like FRBR helps us organize our efforts so that whatever our resources allow us to do, we can do in a purposeful, concerted way. Rhonda Marker Weinheimer Jim wrote: snip I thought that Robin Mize had written an excellent response to Jim Weinheimer, but once again Weinheimer insists that the FRBR user tasks are not relevant. I'm wondering now if maybe the problem is that Weinheimer is not characterizing the user tasks accurately. He says: I don't believe that the user tasks are to 'find, identify, select, and obtain' 'works, expressions, manifestations and items.' I really don't think that is what people do today, I don't think they particularly want to, and perhaps they never did. /snip I don't want people to get the wrong impression that I think that the FRBR user tasks are not relevant. I think that people do want to find items by their authors and subjects (less by titles). The users I have worked with believe they can do this now in Google because Google has been very successfully designed to give results that make people happy, but of course they are happy with an author search only because they don't know what they are missing. Research has shown, and my own experience concurs, that most people believe they are good searchers. In the information literacy classes I teach, I mention that most people believe they are good searchers, but then I ask them, Do I think I'm a good searcher? and to the inevitable silence, I continue, I don't know if I'm a good searcher because I don't have any kind of yardstick to measure myself by. When I search Google, Yahoo, Google Books, Google Scholar, and so on, I don't know what I am searching, so I don't know what I am missing. Also, I don't know if a specific search is good or bad based only on the number of keyword hits. In a library catalog, I can search wwii as a keyword, or Samuel Clemens and I can know exactly what I am missing, and this way I can determine if I am a good searcher, or not. In the Google-type searching, there is nothing like this. In a library catalog, I can say that I am a good s! earcher, but in Google, I don't know. I can go on and on and on about the problems of Google. But I realize that it doesn't matter what I say. While I may make a difference to the few people in the classroom who aren't asleep, my words make very little difference in the scheme of things. People like keyword searching. I do too. People think they are good searchers. And Google searches can be very useful. I don't have to go on about this. This is the world as it is and it's not going to go away. People have discovered a universe of information resources out there and the library materials are only a tiny, and diminishing part of that universe. We can put our efforts toward making our small part of the universe subject to the FRBR user tasks, which will be a lot of work, and what difference will it make to our users? I don't think they will even notice a difference. And remember that our users include the people who determine the library budgets. Is this then the best use of our resources.? It brings me no joy to point out these issues, but I think somebody needs to do it. It's the future of our field. It's only reasonable to ask that in the information landscape of today, is FRBR/RDA any kind of a solution? Undertaking these changes will demand enormous efforts from library staff and budgets, and we need to know that it will be worth the effort. I question it and feel that the same efforts would be better used in different areas. I may be wrong, but I think it is vital to discuss it. If we want to be able to find resources by their authors, titles, and subjects, our systems all allow for it right now. There are huge problems we are facing today in the entire workflow from
Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?)
-Original Message- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rhonda Marker Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2008 4:29 PM To: RDA-L@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?) I've been lurking since the list began, but will dart out into the open just this once. You ask what difference it will make to try to bring both precision and recall to searches (my vocabulary, not yours). For some tasks, such as finding enough to write an undergraduate essay, perhaps itadds very little beyond what a simple keyword search would accomplish. For other tasks, a more comprehensive result is vitally important-- for graduate level research, for many STM (science-technology-medicine) topics, and I'm sure others could give many more categories of things and even specific instances. I guess my point is that the General Searcher is not our only user. Having a model like FRBR helps us organize our efforts so that whatever our resources allow us to do, we can do in a purposeful, concerted way. --- I haven't read that FRBR or RDA will make it easier for people to find things, except in the sense that the FRBR displays may provide more useful collocation of similar records (by work/expression/manifestation/item). And when we bring precision and recall into the equation, I don't know if this has anything to do with RDA or even with human cataloging. Traditionally, precision and recall have had to do with evaluating the results of automated keyword searching, where they have been seen as canceling one another out, i.e. the greater the precision, the lower the recall, or the greater the recall, the lower the precision. A good discussion of this is at: http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/06/22/PandR. Essentially, a keyword search in a full-text database for baths of Titus could bring up information on the Baths of Titus here in Rome (which is what I would want) but it could--who knows?--bring up items about growing fish in India or pornographic sites. Google has gotten around this with their Page Rank system. The traditional method for evaluating human indexing uses different measures: specificity and exhaustivity. If you search human-created indexing terms you would never get the completely out-of-bound results mentioned above (unless the human could not read the text at all), but there can be other problems. The example I use (from my own practice when I was still learning) is a book I had to catalog about the legal rights and responsibilities of pregnant women and new mothers in the Soviet Union. I found copy from a well-known law library that will remain nameless, and found the single subject: Women--Soviet Union. While it is not as out of bounds as what you might get in a full-text keyword search, it is still wrong from a human indexing point of view. So, we can make it a bit more specific, but even if we put in Pregnant women--Soviet Union, that would not have been specific enough because we have to add the legal aspects. But if we left it there, it still would not be sufficiently exhaustive because we need something for new mothers. I have seen several people mix up the evaluation of human and computer indexing, and the page I gave above appears to do just that. Or perhaps the official definitions have changed and I'm just behind the times, I don't know. But I still don't believe that instituting FRBR or RDA will have any effect on either precision/recall or specificity/exhaustivity. James Weinheimer
Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?)
James wrote: And when we bring precision and recall into the equation, I don't know if this has anything to do with RDA or even with human cataloging. Traditionally, precision and recall have had to do with evaluating the results of automated keyword searching, Just a side reference: look at the reports from the Cranfield Experiments that Cyril Cleverdon conducted back in the 1960s. There are several reports: Cleverdon, Cyril W. (1962). Report on the Testing and Analysis of an Investigation into the Comparative Efficiency of Indexing Systems. Cranfield, Eng. : College of Aeronautics, ASLIB Cranfield Research Project. Cleverdon, C. W., Jack Mills, and Michael Keen. (1966). Factors Determining the Performance of Indexing Systems. Vol. 1: Design, Parts 1 and 2. Vol. 2: Test Results. Cranfield, Eng. : College of Aeronautics, ASLIB Cranfield Research Project. These two citations taken from Svenonius, E. (2000). The Intellectual Foundation of Information Organization. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press. ** Shawne D. Miksa, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Library and Information Sciences College of Information, Library Science, and Technology University of North Texas email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://courses.unt.edu/smiksa/index.htm office 940-565-3560 fax 940-565-3101 **
Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?)
I've been lurking since the list began, but will dart out into the open just this once. You ask what difference it will make to try to bring both precision and recall to searches (my vocabulary, not yours). For some tasks, such as finding enough to write an undergraduate essay, perhaps itadds very little beyond what a simple keyword search would accomplish. For other tasks, a more comprehensive result is vitally important-- for graduate level research, for many STM (science-technology-medicine) topics, and I'm sure others could give many more categories of things and even specific instances. I guess my point is that the General Searcher is not our only user. Having a model like FRBR helps us organize our efforts so that whatever our resources allow us to do, we can do in a purposeful, concerted way. Rhonda Marker Weinheimer Jim wrote: snip I thought that Robin Mize had written an excellent response to Jim Weinheimer, but once again Weinheimer insists that the FRBR user tasks are not relevant. I'm wondering now if maybe the problem is that Weinheimer is not characterizing the user tasks accurately. He says: I don't believe that the user tasks are to 'find, identify, select, and obtain' 'works, expressions, manifestations and items.' I really don't think that is what people do today, I don't think they particularly want to, and perhaps they never did. /snip I don't want people to get the wrong impression that I think that the FRBR user tasks are not relevant. I think that people do want to find items by their authors and subjects (less by titles). The users I have worked with believe they can do this now in Google because Google has been very successfully designed to give results that make people happy, but of course they are happy with an author search only because they don't know what they are missing. Research has shown, and my own experience concurs, that most people believe they are good searchers. In the information literacy classes I teach, I mention that most people believe they are good searchers, but then I ask them, Do I think I'm a good searcher? and to the inevitable silence, I continue, I don't know if I'm a good searcher because I don't have any kind of yardstick to measure myself by. When I search Google, Yahoo, Google Books, Google Scholar, and so on, I don't know what I am searching, so I don't know what I am missing. Also, I don't know if a specific search is good or bad based only on the number of keyword hits. In a library catalog, I can search wwii as a keyword, or Samuel Clemens and I can know exactly what I am missing, and this way I can determine if I am a good searcher, or not. In the Google-type searching, there is nothing like this. In a library catalog, I can say that I am a good s! earcher, but in Google, I don't know. I can go on and on and on about the problems of Google. But I realize that it doesn't matter what I say. While I may make a difference to the few people in the classroom who aren't asleep, my words make very little difference in the scheme of things. People like keyword searching. I do too. People think they are good searchers. And Google searches can be very useful. I don't have to go on about this. This is the world as it is and it's not going to go away. People have discovered a universe of information resources out there and the library materials are only a tiny, and diminishing part of that universe. We can put our efforts toward making our small part of the universe subject to the FRBR user tasks, which will be a lot of work, and what difference will it make to our users? I don't think they will even notice a difference. And remember that our users include the people who determine the library budgets. Is this then the best use of our resources.? It brings me no joy to point out these issues, but I think somebody needs to do it. It's the future of our field. It's only reasonable to ask that in the information landscape of today, is FRBR/RDA any kind of a solution? Undertaking these changes will demand enormous efforts from library staff and budgets, and we need to know that it will be worth the effort. I question it and feel that the same efforts would be better used in different areas. I may be wrong, but I think it is vital to discuss it. If we want to be able to find resources by their authors, titles, and subjects, our systems all allow for it right now. There are huge problems we are facing today in the entire workflow from selection to description and organization, to access and reference. Libraries need to change in fundamental ways if they want to make a dent in that ever-widening information universe of our users. I don't see how, if FRBR /RDA were fully implemented right now, this moment, how it would change anything. We need to focus on things that make a difference. Does it mean we have to throw it all out? No. I still maintain that people want traditional library access, and many think they are getting it in Google now when they
[RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?)
I thought that Robin Mize had written an excellent response to Jim Weinheimer, but once again Weinheimer insists that the FRBR user tasks are not relevant. I'm wondering now if maybe the problem is that Weinheimer is not characterizing the user tasks accurately. He says: I don't believe that the user tasks are to 'find, identify, select, and obtain' 'works, expressions, manifestations and items.' I really don't think that is what people do today, I don't think they particularly want to, and perhaps they never did. As I have written previously, the FRBR user tasks as stated in FRBR (page 82) are: . to find entities that correspond to the user's stated search criteria (i.e., to locate either a single entity or a set of entities in a file or database as the result of a search using an attribute or relationship of the entity); . to identify an entity (i.e., to confirm that the entity described corresponds to the entity sought, or to distinguish between two or more entities with similar characteristics); . to select an entity that is appropriate to the user's needs (i.e., to choose an entity that meets the user's requirements with respect to content, physical format, etc., or to reject an entity as being inappropriate to the user's needs); . to acquire or obtain access to the entity described (i.e., to acquire an entity through purchase, loan, etc., or to access an entity electronically through an online connection to a remote computer). Users aren't expected to go looking for works, expressions, manifestations, and items per se. Such are merely the concepts proposed for use in organizing the information to facilitate the user tasks. They're behind-the-scenes stuff that the user doesn't need to be conscious of. So the FRBR user tasks never come into play when someone searches Google? I *strongly* beg to differ. Let's say I'm searching via Google for Lesley Gore's CD Ever Since. I want to: . find an entity that corresponds to my stated search criteria (I enter the search terms lesley gore and ever since, hoping to get results matching my search terms) . identify an entity (I want to make sure I find Lesley Gore's entire CD called Ever Since, not just the song Ever Since written by Blake Morgan with recordings by both Blake Morgan and Lesley Gore, not Sayaka's single Ever Since, not an album by the group Ever Since) . select an entity that is appropriate to my needs (I want to find the CD, not MP3 files) . acquire or obtain access to the entity described (I want to check it out of a library; or I want to buy a copy) I'm not at all denying that a case can be made (perhaps even convincingly) that the way FRBR proposes to address the user tasks is not the best way. Maybe the work/expression/manifestation/item hierarchy is too cumbersome, or perhaps even all wrong. But please let's not throw out the baby with the bath water. The FRBR user tasks are nothing new at all, and I maintain as always that they are essentially timeless and universal. Kevin M. Randall Principal Serials Cataloger Bibliographic Services Dept. Northwestern University Library 1970 Campus Drive Evanston, IL 60208-2300 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone: (847) 491-2939 fax: (847) 491-4345
