Approved-By:  Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <LIBPACS@UHUPVM1.BITNET>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.pacs-l
Date:         Fri, 28 Aug 1992 14:14:37 CDT
From:         William Oldfield <liboff27@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca>
Subject:      Subject Headings for Gopher Virtual Library

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Hi,

Joel Cooper of Notre Dame and I are leading an effort to turn GopherSpace
into a virtual library system.  By this, we want to set up a Gopher hierarchy
organized by subject instead of by site or chaos.  For example, you might
find top levels like "Humanities" and "Science".  Then under Science, you would
find "Biology", "Chemistry", etc.  The whole thing would be organized in this
matter.

The project will involve some librarians, but I'm wanting a wider view than
the people we pick out.  Joel and I were thinking of using the Library of
Congress Subject Headings for starters to organization.  Then we will fix
what problems we see in the LofC Subject Headings.  If you are familiar with
the LofC Headings (especially if you are a librarian), then I'd like to
hear your opinions on the following:

1.  Are we making a bad mistake in using the Library of Congress Subject
    Headings?

2.  If you answered YES to #1, what is a better organizational scheme?
    We think starting from scratch would be a bad mistake.

3.  What could be fixed with the LofC Subject Headings?  Major or minor
    tweaks wanted.

Also, does anybody have the LofC Subject Headings on-line that I could get
a copy of?  Likewise, I'm interested in any other organizational schemes
that people have on-line.

Thanks,

--------------------------End of Original Message-----------------------

At the University of Waterloo we are in the process of establishing a CWIS
based on the gopher protocol.  We have been discussing ways of providing a
subject based organization to all the information.  I was, therefore very
interested in the question posted by Billy Barron.

As previously the Head of the Cataloguing Department at the UW Library, I
would argue that LCSH is definitely not the direction to go.  Subject
terminology is volatile and almost impossible to keep update date even
within a single library catalog without an authorities system.  As an
organizing principle for the Internet it would be impossible.

Someone mentioned using the Library of Congress classification system as
the organizing principle.  Using classification at least solves the
problem of volatile terminology.  But because the LC classification is
additive and grows in any direction as new subjects arise I would argue
against it.  Dewey on the other hand is logical approach to the
organization of knowledge.  As subject areas changes it would also be a
relatively simple matter for a machine to chomp through a database and map
the old numbers to the new organization.  But whether subject headings or
classification, this will work satisfactorily only at the article
level.  Perhaps each article added to a database should have a
classification number assigned. The Gopher+ protocol has a logical place
for this information.  This might be a long term goal but
currently in gopherspace we are dealing with databases with a variety of
subjects.  Hundreds of subject heading or classification numbers would
have to be assigned to each database.  Based upon these problems, we
have started looking in a slightly different direction.

Since most of the computers (I could be wrong.) on the Internet are
operated by academic or research organizations a pragmatic overall
organization could be based upon university faculties/departments. If a
database had a broad coverage it could be assigned to more than one
faculty/department.  If a database was specific subdivisions based upon
the specific areas of study could be added.  This general level of
assignment would also not require the expertise needed for the proper
assignment of subject headings or class numbers.  This would be
a simple organizational structure and one that meshes with the
organizational approach needed by most institutions on the Internet.

We have also discuss some practical approaches to collating and
distributing this information.  Use a gopher to collect gopher links.  A
gopher organized on the faculty principle could be setup so that anyone
adding a database to the Internet would merely ftp the gopher link or
wais source description to that directory.  Using the proposed Gopher+
protocol a description of the database could be included, and other access
information such as the need for an ftp gateway for access.

Bill Oldfield	(Networked Information, Research Associate)
University of Waterloo Library     Waterloo, Ont. Canada
liboff27@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca     (519) 885-1211  ext.2461
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU