[yul-naco] Exploiting authority records in Ex Libris

[Steven Arakawa]

I thought this Ex Libris feature was pretty interesting. Since Ex 
Libris authorities was supposed to be pretty bad, I suppose this 
makes up for it.

--Steven

Date:         Fri, 25 Jan 2008 14:52:36 -0500
Reply-To: AUTOCAT <AUTOCAT at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>,
         Barbara Anderson <bjanders at VCU.EDU>
Sender: AUTOCAT <AUTOCAT at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>
From: Barbara Anderson <bjanders at VCU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Unexploited richness of cross references
Comments: To: Ed Jones <ejones at NU.EDU>
To: AUTOCAT at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
In-Reply-To:  <9001F9F1C5A99842AEB11A28C67CD2A8014116FE at exchange1.nu.edu>
Precedence: list

Status: RO

Our ILS (Ex Libris Aleph 500) allows us to add "virtually" to a bib
record all cross references from authority records linked to headings in
the bib record.  That is, the cross references from a connected
authority record are indexed as if they were part of the bib record that
contains the authorized heading.

So, we are able to do keyword searches like "death penalty" (which is
searchable as a phrase if you select the "words adjacent" option) and
retrieve bib records that do not contain that actual text string but
*do* contain the subject heading "Capital punishment"

We turned this feature on a few months ago with some concerns that users
might find it confusing to retrieve records that don't contain the words
they used for searching, but public service librarians reacted favorably
and we've had no complaints so far.

-------
Barbara Anderson
Head, Cataloging Dept.
VCU Libraries
Box 842033
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, VA 23284-2033
Tel:   804-828-6358
Fax:   804-828-0151
Email: bjanders at vcu.edu

Ed Jones wrote:
 > Betsy
 >
 > I'm not sure it's possible, because keyword searches operate differently
 > than more structured types of searches.
 >
 > Structured online searches mimic traditional (card/book) catalog
 > searches and are carried out by the ILS against various discrete files
 > (of authors, titles, subjects, etc.) called "indexes".  Each entry in an
 > "index" is stored with the IDs of the various bibliographic and
 > authority records in which it occurs, and an alphabetical display of the
 > index produces the ordered list; clicking on the entry retrieves the
 > associated bibliographic and authority records.
 >
 > Keyword searches, on the other hand, search for strings of text.  Each
 > string of text is stored separately with the IDs of the various
 > bibliographic records in which it occurs, and this is your result set
 > (there is no intermediating "index").  If multiple keywords are entered,
 > then the result set is the bibliographic records they have in common (if
 > connected by "and") or the totality of bibliographic and authority
 > records associated with each (if connected by "or"), with the result
 > typically ordered either by the number and frequency of keywords in each
 > record.  Most authority records would get lost in this mix (and wouldn't
 > be able to sort on the other method often available for keyword
 > searches: ascending/descending date of publication.
 >
 > This is the frustration of catalogers.  Users overwhelmingly use keyword
 > searches, and this choice completely undermines the elaborate and
 > elegant syndetic structures that we've designed to guide them.
 >
 > Ed Jones
 >
 > -----Original Message-----
 > Sent: Friday, January 25, 2008 11:07 AM
 > To: AUTOCAT at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
 > Subject: Re: [ACAT] Unexploited richness of cross references
 >
 > On Fri, 25 Jan 2008 09:36:19 -0500, Watters, Cynthia
 > <cwatters at MIDDLEBURY.EDU> wrote:
 >
 >> The biggest problem with our authority record in OPACS, in my opinion,
 >> is that most users use keyword searching and cross references are not
 >> integrated into keyword searches.
 >>
 >> I honestly think this is the biggest challenge we have in cataloging.
 >> We should be demanding that ILS vendors integrate them.
 >> This would mean, for example, that if a user put 'death penalty' into a
 >> keyword search, he would retrieve not only records that had 'death
 >> penalty' in them but also all records that had the subject heading
 >> 'capital punishment.'
 >
 > Our ILS does just that.  If you use 'death penalty' as a keyword search,
 >
 > you retrieve records that have "death penalty" in all indexed fields,
 > including all records with "capital punishment" as a subject heading.
 >
 > Our ILS is Library.Solution from The Library Corporation (TLC).
 >
 > Betsy Moon
 > Cataloging Supervisor
 > U.S. Senate Library
 > SRB-15, Senate Russell Office Bldg.
 > Washington, DC 20510
 > betsy_moon at sec.senate.gov
 > 202-224-5581 (phone)
 > 202-224-0879 (fax)
 > ***********************************************************************

----------------------------------------------------------
Steven Arakawa
Catalog Librarian for Training & Documentation
Catalog & Metadata Services, SML, Yale University
P.O. Box 208240 New Haven, CT 06520-8240
(203)432-8286 steven.arakawa at yale.edu