[SAC-FAST] Fwd: Date ranges in FAST for geological periods?

[Sherman Clarke]

It seems to me that words and date ranges serve different functions in 
conveying chronology. "Jurassic" and "190000000-140000000 BC" 
exaggerate the difference in that the date range is almost beyond 
comprehension. If, however, you think of "art nouveau" and "1890-1915," 
it makes good sense to have both index points on a relevant resource. 
If the user seeks stuff from "around 1900," the date range would be 
included if your indexing is able to nest dates and date ranges. Or if 
you have some groovy visual retriever where the user can click on the 
time. If the user wants "art nouveau," s/he gets it. (So when I'm doing 
the exercise, I'll add both kinds of chronological access to my sample 
topics when relevant.)

Even though it's hard to imagine, the user might say "give me 150000000 
BC" and you want them to find the resource with that incomprehensible 
range of 190 to 140 million years BC.

Thanks for passing this on, Lynn.

Sherman

----- Original Message -----
From: qiangjin at uiuc.edu
Date: Thursday, July 13, 2006 11:15 am
Subject: [SAC-FAST] Fwd: Date ranges in FAST for geological periods?

> ---- Original message ----
> >Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 08:03:13 -0400
> >From: "Lynn M El Hoshy" <lelh at loc.gov>  
> >Subject: Fwd: Date ranges in FAST for geological periods?  
> >To: <qiangjin at uiuc.edu>
> >
> >Qiang,
> >     Members of the FAST Subcommittee might be interested in 
> seeing this Autocat posting if they haven't already.  Lynn
> >________________
> >Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 15:50:26 -0500
> >From: Daniel Belich <dbelich at oeb.harvard.edu>  
> >Subject: Date ranges in FAST for geological periods?  
> >To: AUTOCAT at LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU
> >
> >Is there anyone else out there who's troubled by the proposed
> >chronological headings in FAST regarding pre-historical 
> time? I quote this
> >from the latest issue of TechKNOW:
> >
> >Period
> >Following the recommendations of the ALCTS/ SAC 
> Subcommittee, and those
> >recommendations made at the Airlie Conference, period 
> headings in FAST
> >reflect the actual time period of coverage for a specific 
> resource.
> >Therefore, FAST chronological headings are expressed as 
> either a single
> >numerical date or a numerical date range. For example, the 
> LCSH heading
> >"20th century" is expressed in FAST as "1900-1999." A 
> prehistory period
> >such as the Jurassic period is expressed as "190000000-
> 140000000 B.C."
> >
> >I don't see how expressing the Jurassic period that way 
> simplifies it.
> >Someone dropped the ball on this because unlike the Western,
> >biblically-based way of maintaining chronology (BC-AD), 
> geological time
> >scale terms are internationally accepted and not culturally- 
> biased (so
> >long as one accepts the scientific view of the Earths 
> development). In
> >fact, the date range in FAST is inaccurate and arbitrary. I 
> have a chart
> >on my desk published by the International Commission on 
> Stratigraphy
> >giving the Jurassic era as between 199.6 millions of years 
> ago (ma) and
> >145.5 ma. Will the internationally- accepted terminology of 
> geological and
> >paleontological time periods (era-period-epoch-stage) have 
> to be used as
> >topical terms in FAST instead?
> >
> >dbelich at oeb.harvard.edu
> >Dan Belich
> >Ernst Mayr Library, MCZ
> >Harvard University
> >26 Oxford St.
> >Cambridge, MA. 02138
> >(617)495-3946