[114] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
MARC for OPAC
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Noam Kaminer guest)
Tue Apr 28 11:43:41 1992
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1992 10:33:02 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
From: Noam Kaminer guest <kaminer%Mordor.Stanford.EDU@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.BITNET>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Apr. 27 my list of USMARC data elements for online catalog were
posted. The first part of it that was on separate mail was not posted
as far as I know.
********************
A Catalog of Online Catalogs - Can We Use The MARC Record?
Part 1: Introduction.
Part 2 and 3: MARC's fields for online catalog.
The question of identifying information resource on the Internet is
becoming more important every day. The number of available
resources is increasing daily. The availability, on the Internet, of
online catalogs is just one aspect of this new "information explosion".
So far the tools to control and gain access to these new resources are
directories. The directories provide us with some information about
the communication to the online catalog. It seems that in a short
while these directories will be of a limited help. We will need to
provide tools that will help the user to decide in which online catalog
to execute his/her search.
Some projects in a seminar taught by Prof. M. Buckland and Dr. C.
Lynch at Univ. of California at Berkeley School of Library and
Information Studies are centered around issues of network resources.
As a project for that seminar I examined the possibility of using the
MARC format to describe Online Catalog. From this examination it
seems that it is possible to build a database where each record will be
an online catalog, but its effectiveness in directing a user to a relevant
catalog is limited. Such a catalog could be helpful in selecting an
online catalog by its title
(usually the title will represent the organization responsible for the
catalog and library.), location language and other relatively simple
features. However, the MARC record for online catalog seems limited
in directing the user to a specific catalog where the collection is most
relevant to the user's information need. To describe the subject
content of a collection we may need more than a simple MARC record.
One might think of an application, connected to the online MARC
record, that will present data on the absolute and relative size of
subject X in the collection. In such a case a user will have some
logical reasons to pursue a search in a specific catalog. There are other
questions that need to be addressed regarding catalog description of
online catalog. Among them is the different IR methods or systems
that can access the same collection. For example, here at Univ.
of California @ Berkeley we can access the school's library via four
different systems or interfaces namely Gladis (Univ. of California @
Berkeley online catalog) Melvyl (Univ. of California online catalog)
Cheshire: An experimental online catalog using probabilistic methods,
developed by Prof. Ray Larson and Oasis: Adaptive online catalog
that works as a front end to Melvyl, developed by Prof. M. Buckland,
Barbara Norgard and C. Plaunt. Each system has different features
and might be used under different circumstances. The catalog of
online catalogs therefor must inform the user about the IR method in
that catalog. These are some of the problems we are dealing here in
California regarding Internet resources.
second and third parts were posted on April 27.
