Re: Keyword vs Authority records was Martha Yee article picked up by CARL from SLC website

Marian Veld wrote:
> On 8/31/07, Brenndorfer, Thomas
<tbrenndorfer@...> wrote:
>> I think using Amazon to show what's wrong with alternatives to
>> traditional cataloging and authority control is a bit of a straw-man
>> argument.
>>
>> Try searching the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) for "Tom
>> Holland."
> 
> Arguing against Amazon, Google, etc. is not a straw man simply because
> they are seriously being advanced as a model for us to follow by some
> in the library community. Personally, I like IMdb and use it a lot for
> my authority work. Ditto Wikipedia. I don't want to get into an
> argument about the authoritativeness of Wikipedia, simply to state (as
> others have before) that their method of distinguishing between people
> with the same name works well. 

They may prove nothing, but they're indications of alternative 
approaches and treatments which may be more palatable, maybe more 
useful, for users -- possibly even for librarians as users.

 > But I am pretty sure that IMdb and
 > Wikipedia are what they are because of human intervention in the
 > information stream. They offer models we can adapt and learn from, but
 > what they probably do not offer is the cost savings of automating (or
 > eliminating) the authority control process.

They also have the cost-benefit advantage that they're fundamentally 
single sites, remotely accessed; whereas library catalogues are multiple 
sites, constructed on multiple software/hardware platforms (I don't 
think I know any single pair of independent library ILS installations 
which are absolutely identical, and that's without taking into account 
the circulation and management sides of the operation).  At least the 
MARC format is nearly universal and accomodates nearly everything we 
want to record.

Nor have we librarians come to agreement on what it is that we need 
systems (data systems and hardware/software platforms) to do and to 
provide by way of core functionality; we have to go on reshaping and 
polishing our axle-mounted rotating devices...

Hal Cain
Dalton McCaughey Library
Parkville, Victoria, Australia
hal@...

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