Re: [IUG] Encore and authority records

[Elizabeth Thomsen <et at noblenet dot org>]

On Mon, 17 Dec 2007, Martha Sanders wrote (in part):
> [Dinah Sanders]
> explained (and I'm paraphrasing), that III's research showed that 
> most catalog users need to refine their searches far more often than 
> broaden them, so Encore is designed to help with the refinement process.  

I understand that, but the initial set is skewed by the users' choices of
search terms, which may not happen to match the LC's preference for
Hanukkah over Chanukah, capital punishment over death penalty, cookery
over cooking, etc.  Whichever of these terms they happen to choose, they
are missing a large number of equally relevant hits, and however they
refine that search, that initial flaw persists.

There are complex solutions that involve indexing all authority records,
but some of us would be happy just to be able to create and maintain a
list of search equivalents for some of these common search traps, which 
gets us back to the original question, why some catalogers (and even more 
public service people) see tags as a way to fix the "mountain biking" 
problem.

-- 
Elizabeth Thomsen, Member Services Manager
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