[499] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Post-Boolean OPACS (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Charles Hildreth)
Wed Jun 17 12:11:13 1992
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1992 11:05:42 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
From: Charles Hildreth <hildreth@eagle.sangamon.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
In response to my call for input to my CLR-sponsored next-generation OPAC
study, Margret Lippert privately sent me the following contribution. At
my urging, she has consented to my forwarding it to PACS-L. Thank you,
Charles Hildreth (hildreth@eagle.sangamon.edu)
>
> Regarding your call for ideas for the "Post-Boolean" OPAC, I thought
> I'd suggest something completely off the wall and see what you think.
> To my knowledge, there is no experimental work being done in this area.
> (I can hear you groaning already)
>
> There is one type of search that is not addressed by existing OPACs, and
> that is the search for a few GOOD books - it's the old question of
> quality. One way to get this info. is through annotated bibliographies,
> another is by finding review articles in journal citation databases (some
> of which do use "review" as an indexing access point), still another
> tactic is ISI's method of providing the number references in an article
> to identify review articles, and of course the citation count for articles
> and authors and journals. (The "impact factor") Somehow one is always
> referred to the "best" through another publication or by recommendation.
> "Current Cites" on PACS-L is another example.
>
> My idea is to tie in circulation history with an OPAC bib record to
> distinguish those titles which are the most used titles. I find that
> the most used books in this library tend to be the classics, the most
> recommended by professors, (and the most missing). This may not hold
> true for the public libraries, but probably works for academics. For
> instance, if there are 10 copies of a title in the OPAC, and each of
> them has high circulation, it's more likely to be an important work
> than a one copy hardly ever circulated work on the same subject. I
> know that some systems (Innopaq) keep track of circulation for each
> copy, and it's not hard to determine number of copies. One of the
> user-initiated options after a set is retrieved could be "high demand
> title" along with limits by language, year, etc.
>
> Two problems immediately come to mind; 1- popularity doesn't equal
> quality and 2- this would be a self-perpetuating system; people
> would continue to choose those marked titles, thereby increasing
> their circulation, thereby ensuring their rank.
>
> So what do you think - crazy or brilliant?
>
> Margret Lippert
> University of Cincinnati
>
