[SAC-FAST] History as form subdivision

[Childress,Eric]

Sherman, Stephen, thanks for the comments.  Let me respond very briefly
and invite discussion (and particularly responses from the FAST team --
Ed's away from the office at the moment, but I'm sure he'll want to
respond; we've thought/talked around so many the free-floating topical
vs. genre cases  so many times that I'd happily have other members of
the FAST team correct/amend any mis-comments I may make :).

"History" is one of those items that has consumed quite a bit of time
for the FAST team to ponder many options.  No option has struck us as
entirely satisfactory, but moving it from a free-floating topical
subdivision to a genre term seemed to offer a pragmatic solution.  

Stephen -- I wasn't able to find the record (I didn't look too hard I'll
admit ;) with it being treated two ways; can you specify which it is?
My guess is that we intended to have "history" apppear solely as a genre
term, and the output might a case that the algorithm didn't handle as
intended.  

"History and criticism" and various other cases have been part of
conversations, but let me defer to others to respond specifically.  The
point that predictability for searchers is a practical requirement is
absolutely on target.  That's our intent.  

Thanks for the feedback -- this exactly what we'd love to get from SAC!


Cheers,

Eric

> Eric Childress
> Consulting Project Manager
> OCLC Research {http://www.oclc.org/research}
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