[Yulcat-l] Ajax-powered LCSH search tool

[Manon Theroux]

Thanks for passing along the link, Rebecca. I 
hadn't seen this. I took a brief look the other 
day and tried to go back for a longer look today 
but I'm getting an error message :(

I have played around a little bit with an OCLC 
site that might be similar for names (not sure 
whether it is Ajax-powered as well): 
http://www.oclc.org/research/researchworks/authority/

The name site doesn't seem to be kept up-to-date 
(I wonder if the same holds true for the LCSH 
site). Example: I looked up Richard Nixon, who 
got a death date added to his heading back in 
February, but the site still has the old heading 
(without the death date). And new headings, added 
to the authority file earlier this year, are not 
there. It's also hard to interpret the fixed 
fields in the 008 string unless you have the 
positions memorized. Not that crucial for 
personal names, but much more crucial for 
subjects (e.g., to see if you can subdivide the 
heading geographically or not) so I wonder if the 
LCSH site works the same way.

Of course, the name site is only a research 
project - I wouldn't use it for production work. 
But it's good to play with and think about!

-Manon


At 02:13 PM 11/9/2006, Rebekah Irwin wrote:
>I recently stumbled upon this interesting Ajax 
>(a programming language for creating interactive 
>web-pages) powered search tool for LSCH created by OCLC:
>
>http://lcsh.orhost.org/
>
>I would be interested to hear if anyone has been experimenting with it...
>
>Cheers,
>
>Rebekah Irwin
>Catalog Librarian for Digital Projects
>Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library
>Yale University
>PO Box 208240
>New Haven, CT 06520
>e: rebekah.irwin at yale.edu
>p: 203.436.4692
>f: 203.432.4047
>www: http://www.library.yale.edu/beinecke/

____________________________________________

Manon Théroux
Authority Control Librarian
Catalog Department
Yale University Library
P.O. Box 208240
New Haven, CT 06520-8240

203-432-8376 (tel)
203-432-7231 (fax)
manon.theroux at yale.edu 
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