[SAC-FAST] SAC FAST assignment

Wed Jan 4 13:30:44 EST 2006

Sherman,

Thanks for sharing your results - very helpful.

I checked to see why "Same-sex marriage" wasn't mapped to FAST.  The
quick answer is that the full heading: Same-sex marriage $x Religious
aspects $x Episcopal Church is not an established FAST heading and
therefore was not be validated (although it should have been).  That
full heading has only been assigned once in WorldCat.  We will
periodically examining LC's bibliographic records to identify new FAST
heading and (hopefully) will add this heading to the FAST authority
file. 

One other quick comment regarding the cases when LCSH retrieves a few
more records than FAST.  For LCSH, all 6xx fields are indexed but the
uniform titles and conference names facets are not yet available for
FAST.  As a result, it has been typical to get a few LCSH hits from the
611 and 630 fields that FAST misses.

See you in San Antonio, Ed

________________________________

From: sac-fast-bounces at mailman.yale.edu
[mailto:sac-fast-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Sherman Clarke
Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 8:57 AM
To: sac-fast at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: [SAC-FAST] SAC FAST assignment

[Qiang: I'm going to try to send this in an email rather than as an
attachment but it may go kerflewey in the ether. Hope not, and happy new
year! --Sherman]

LIS 2406: Subject Analysis
Due: Wednesday, June 22

A.G. Taylor
Summer 2005

FAST Assignment

For the following you will use a test database constructed for the
purposes of this project.  The database includes all WorldCat records
within Library Science very broadly defined (all DDC

000 and LC A & Z).  The database and its search interface are found at:

http://fast.oclc.org/Pitt.html

The userID and password are both PittGuest.

Part I.

1.  Search for the topic of Newspapers in your home state.  Search using
the "FAST Subject" tab and do another search using the "LC Subject" tab.

2.  Which state did you search?  How many results are found for each
search tab? RHODE ISLAND; FAST = 6 HITS; LCSH = 2 HITS 

2.  Compare the results and if they are different, explain why they are
different.  LCSH HAPPENED TO FIND HITS WHERE THE TWO TERMS WERE IN THE
SAME HEADING; FAST FOUND THREE THAT ONLY HAD "R.I." IN LCSH; FAST FOUND
ONE NEWSPAPER ABOUT RHODE ISLAND THAT WAS PUBLISHED IN PENNSYLVANIA;
SUMMARY = SPELLING OUT QUALIFIERS INCREASES RELEVANT HITS;
DECONSTRUCTING LCSH MAY LEAD TO FALSE HITS

Part II.

1.  Select four topics of interest to you that would be found in this
database (e.g., the topic of a paper you are to write for a class).
Please work independently so that as many different topics as possible
will be represented in the collected results.  COMMUNISM, METADATA,
HOMOSEXUALITY, WESTERN  

2.  Search each topic using both the "FAST Subject" tab and the "LC
Subject" tab.  However, search two topics in FAST first and the other
two topics in LC first.

QUESTION 3 REPEATED BELOW FOR EACH TERM

3A.  Answer the following questions for each topic:

            a.  What is the topic you searched?  COMMUNISM

            b.  Which tab did you use first, FAST or LC? LCSH

            c.  What search terms did you start with?  COMMUNISM - 858
HITS WITH LCSH; 851 WITH FAST

            d.  What steps did you take in revising your search?  ADDED
"PERIODICALS"

            e.  How many records were retrieved in your final results
set when searching FAST?  44 HITS (FIRST REFINED BY SELECTING FAST
SUBDIVISION AND GOT 1 HIT; CHANGED TO FAST KEYWORD AND GOT 44)

            f.  How many records were retrieved in your final results
set when searching LC?  44 HITS

g.  If the numbers of records are different in the results for FAST vs.
the results for LC, explain why they are different.  IT IS INTERESTING
TO ME THAT THE REFINED RESULTS ARE THE SAME NUMBER (I DID NOT TRY TO
FIGURE OUT WHICH 7 RECORDS WERE NOT FOUND IN THE FIRST SEARCH IN FAST
OVER LCSH)

3B.  Answer the following questions for each topic:

            a.  What is the topic you searched?  METADATA

            b.  Which tab did you use first, FAST or LC?  LCSH

            c.  What search terms did you start with?  METADATA: 8 HITS
IN LCSH (SMALL ENOUGH RESULTS TO JUST LOOK AT RESULTS; ON 6 RECORDS,
METADATA APPEARED ALONE, 2 WITH SUBDIVISION STANDARDS); 8 HITS IN FAST

            d.  What steps did you take in revising your search?  NOT
APPLICABLE; SMALL ENOUGH RESULT SET TO ANALYZE WITHOUT REFINEMENT

            e.  How many records were retrieved in your final results
set when searching FAST?  N/A

            f.  How many records were retrieved in your final results
set when searching LC?  N/A

g.  If the numbers of records are different in the results for FAST vs.
the results for LC, explain why they are different.  SINCE THE HEADING
APPEARS ALONE OR AS LEAD TERM IN SUBJECT HEADING, THE RESULTS ARE THE
SAME

3C.  Answer the following questions for each topic:

            a.  What is the topic you searched?  HOMOSEXUALITY

            b.  Which tab did you use first, FAST or LC?  FAST

            c.  What search terms did you start with?  HOMOSEXUALITY
(FAST = 130; LCSH = 132) (DIDN'T ANALYZE WHICH 2 WEREN'T FOUND BY FAST)

            d.  What steps did you take in revising your search?  ADDED
"MARRIAGE" AS SUBJECT KEYWORD

            e.  How many records were retrieved in your final results
set when searching FAST?  2

            f.  How many records were retrieved in your final results
set when searching LC?  3

g.  If the numbers of records are different in the results for FAST vs.
the results for LC, explain why they are different.   ONE OF THE LCSH
HITS HAS A SUBJECT HEADING WHICH SEEMS NOT TO HAVE "TRANSLATED" TO FAST
(RECORD ID = 56479977 HAS FOLLOWING 65X'S; DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO
FIRST LCSH IN FAST) 

650  0 Same-sex marriage   $x Religious aspects   $x Episcopal Church. 

650  0 Homosexuality   $x Religious aspects   $x Episcopal Church. 

650  7 Homosexuality   $x Religious aspects   $x Episcopal Church   $2
fast 

3D.  Answer the following questions for each topic:

            a.  What is the topic you searched?   WESTERN 

            b.  Which tab did you use first, FAST or LC?  FAST

            c.  What search terms did you start with?  WESTERN (FAST =
1208; LCSH = 726)

            d.  What steps did you take in revising your search?   ADDED
"WYOMING" AS SUBJECT KEYWORD

            e.  How many records were retrieved in your final results
set when searching FAST?  6

            f.  How many records were retrieved in your final results
set when searching LC?  4 (TWO OF THE OCCURRENCES OF "WESTERN" WERE IN
655 WITH "gsafd" SO THEY WERE NOT INCLUDED IN LCSH  SEARCH)

g.  If the numbers of records are different in the results for FAST vs.
the results for LC, explain why they are different.  NOT ALL HITS WERE
"WESTERN" IN THE SENSE I ANTICIPATED (ONE HAD 650 "Education $z Western
Hemisphere" AND FAST WITH SAME WORDS IN TWO HEADINGS; ANOTHER WAS
"WESTERN SILVERY MINNOW")

Part III.

1.  For two of your topics from Part II, search each topic through the
FAST Authority File (indirect search).  Compare the results with what
you found in Part II.  NOT SURE ABOUT THIS PART; I SEARCHED MY FIRST
TERM AND IT GIVES AN OPPORTUNITY TO "VIEW BIB RECORDS" (COMMUNISM 660;
METADATA 8; HOMOSEXUALITY 100) - NO SINGLE "WESTERN" AUTHORITY RECORD
ANALYZED SINCE THERE WERE 1967, NOT ALL BUT MOSTLY CORPORATE NAMES -
WITH REFINEMENT TERMS: PERIODICALS 1981 (CLEARLY EXPLICIT
HEADING/SUBDIVISION RECORDS GREATLY INCREASED THIS NUMBER); WYOMING 1281
WITH A LOT BEING CORPORATE BODIES AND GEOGRAPHIC HIERARCHIES; GEOGRAPHIC
HIERARCHIES START AT 810 SO MAYBE 400 HEADINGS HAVE "WYOMING" IN FAST
THAT WOULD ONLY HAVE "WYO." IN LCSH; OF COURSE YOU COULD TRAIN YOUR LCSH
SEARCH ENGINE TO EXPAND QUALIFIERS)

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