Happy Thanksgiving

I'll be away for this weblog until the Monday after Thanksgiving, November 27. All my U.S. readers have a good Thanksgiving. My 15th anniversary falls on Thanksgiving Day this year.

Metadata Paper

Beneath the Metadata: Some Philosophical Problems with Folksonomy by Elaine Peterson appears in the latest D-Lib Magazine.

A traditional classification scheme based on Aristotelian categories yields search results that are more exact. Traditional cataloging can be more time consuming, and is by definition more limiting, but it does result in consistency within its scheme. Folksonomy allows for disparate opinions and the display of multicultural views; however, in the networked world of information retrieval, a display of all views can also lead to a breakdown of the system.

Takes an either-or position. Why not both? Also, seems to make too much about incorrect tagging. If the mass of tags is large enough one incorrect among 1000 correct tags will just get buried. This is only a problem when there is a group effort to supply the bad tag or there are only a small number of tags. There is also the aspect of access for one person or a small group that tagging supplies. The reading list for a class tagged LIS2600 is not much use to most folks but could be very useful to those in the class. Is tagging a replacement for subject analysis? No. Does it provide some access that traditional cataloging misses? Yes. Play around with Library Thing, tags there compliment the LCSH that also exist.

Folksonomy

Koha Zoom

This announcement from LibLime, the support company for the open-source Koha library system.

LibLime, the leader in open-source solutions for libraries, announced today that the Nelsonville Public Library System in Athens Ohio has just gone live with Koha ZOOM, and they couldn't be more pleased. Koha ZOOM includes a powerful, full- featured search engine based on Zebra, a high-performance indexing and retrieval engine. Koha ZOOM catapults Koha into the big leagues, improving standards-compliance, eliminating scalability limitations, and offering some of the most advanced searching technologies available. For those libraries who have been waiting for an open-source ILS that rivals the expensive proprietary systems, the wait is over. Koha ZOOM is a true enterprise-class ILS, suitable for even the largest of collections.

....

And what makes Koha ZOOM so great? "After extensive usability testing, we realized that what patrons and staff really wanted was search behavior and interface that behaves like the successful commercial sites such as Amazon.com and Google," says LibLime's President, Technology and Koha Release Manager Joshua Ferraro. "In short, staff and patrons need an intuitive search that can practically read minds. A tall order, but that's exactly what we ended up accomplishing". As one NPL staffer put it: "This Koha upgrade is top-notch. I don't think I've ever had an easier time searching for items for our patrons."

Koha

Additions to the MARC Code Lists for Relators, Sources, Description Conventions

The codes listed below have been recently approved for use in MARC 21 records. The codes will be added to the online MARC Code Lists for Relators, Sources, Description Conventions.

The codes should not be used in exchange records until after January 14, 2006. This 60-day waiting period is required to provide MARC 21 implementers time to include newly defined codes in any validation tables they may apply to the MARC fields where the codes are used.

Description Conventions

The following code is for use in subfield $2 in field 506 (Restrictions on Access Note) in Bibliographic and Holdings records.

star

Standardized terminology for access restriction (DLF/OCLC Registry of Digital Masters Working Group) http://purl.oclc.org/NET/506Vocabulary [use after January 14, 2006]

Term, Name, Title Sources

The following codes are for use in subfield $2 in Bibliographic and Community Information records in 6xx fields and in subfield $f in field 040 (Cataloging Source) in Authority records.

aucsh

Qâ'imat ru'ûs mawdû'ât al-fahras al-'Arabîyah al-mowahad = Arabic Union Catalog Subject Headings [use after January 14, 2006]

spines

Tesauro SPINES: un vocabulario controlado y estructurado para el tratamiento de información sobre ciencia y tecnología para el desarrollo (Madrid: UNESCO, ICYT) [use after January 14, 2006]

The following code is for use in subfield $2 in Bibliographic records in field 752 (Added Entry - Hierarchical Place Name)

blnpn

British Library newspaper place names (London: British Library) [use after January 14, 2006]

MARC

Children's Book Week

A viral topic is posting about a fondly remembered children' book for Children's Book Week. This one is just too fun to pass.

One of my favorites as a child is Puck of Pook's Hill by Kipling. I always preferred history, even feigned, to make-believe. These short stories picked subjects hard to resist, Vikings, Romans, Britons for example. I may have go back and reread them.

Afghanistan Union Catalog

There ia an Afghanistan union catalog built using Koha, the open-source ILS. In English.

Koha