Approved-By:  "Leslie M. Haas" <LHAAS@KENTVM.BITNET>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.libref-l
Date:         Mon, 23 Nov 1992 15:04:28 EDT
From:         Ken Grabach <KGRABACH@MIAMIU.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: searching in the chaos
              20 Nov 1992 11:08:24 EDT from <cmdarby@oswego.OSWEGO.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Chris Darby mentions some intriguing problems to  puzzle over, but I am not
sure I understand some of her description, so I want to ask for clarification.
I do not do this to criticize what she says, or the problem as she describes
it.  I think if we are clear in definition we can be sure we are discussing
the same issue.
One aspect of my confusion is over subjects, call numbers, etc.  The "groups"
appear to be subject headings.  Browsing through such a large number of titles
in such broadly defined headings as Russian and Soviet History would surely
be difficult for an average user.  For collection development I can under-
stand the need to see the whole collection.
But subject headings are not assigned one to a book.  I recall from working
with catalogers that an average is three, but may require more to cover the
topics treated by a book.
Some of the browsing described sounded to me like a desire to browse
electronically by call number, which catalogers refer to as "class number".
From replies others have sent in, it seems some systems allow such searching
and browsing and others don't.  It's not a function of the cataloging but
of the OPAC system you have that determines if you can browse by class
number or not.
As for discrepancy between the OPAC total and the shelf-list total.
Does the OPAC purport to represent all the books of the library collection,
or not?  Our OPAC does not.  Many titles before 1972 are not yet in our
system.  We have not yet been able to have a retrospective conversion, so
our card catalog is closed but not abandoned yet.  So our shelf-list is
much larger than the online catalog.  Again, not a fault of catalogers or
cataloging, but of financial facts of life.

Class numbers that appear to not be relevant.  Chris mentions some items
found by subject that have not relevant class numbers like P or L.
That could be many things.  P might be works of historical fiction.  I would
think in that case the full subject heading would read Russia--History (dates)
--Fiction, or something like that.  In that case, the computer was only
doing what it was asked to find, which was Russia--History.  L class number
is another question; it would require looking at each item and its record
to see what happened.  Other apparent non-relevant classes might require
further examination, too.

I wonder, is the online catalog Chris describes recently produced?  Maybe
the database is still messy.  No-one seems to know why bad records appear,
but they do and need to be cleaned up or deleted.  That is another thing
catalogers need to do besides getting new items cataloged and into the
system.  If you think you've got problems mounting up, so have they.

I, for one, am thankful the catalogers are willing to take this stuff on.
I will say, as I did before, reference librarians and catalogers need to
communicate with each other.  The result is a better catalog.  With a better
catalog, reference work improves.

Ken Grabach  kgrabach@miamiu.bitnet  kgrabach@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu
Documents Dept.
Miami University Libraries
Oxford, OH 45056
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU