I think GBS has to be viewed as one component in a broader interactive information space and not as complete in itself vis-à-vis its metadata manipulation capabilities, which remain comparatively primitive. Assuming OCLC is successful in its plans to automatically populating WorldCat with MARC records for items digitized under the various GBS library projects, then there will be a synergy between GBS and Open WorldCat to mutual advantage, and users of GBS will be able to exploit the particular strengths of each.
Ed Jones National University (San Diego) -----Original Message----- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dan Matei Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 9:00 AM To: RDA-L@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] libraries, society and RDA > -----Original Message----- > From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description > and Access [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of > Weinheimer Jim > Sent: 10 noiembrie 2008 10:25 > To: RDA-L@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA > Subject: Re: [RDA-L] libraries, society and RDA Dear Jim > takes time to digest. Some good, solid examples of where a > more coherent result is found in a library catalog vs. > full-text retrieval may be a good idea. Easy :-) My (real) case: I was looking for "Romanian" material in Google Books (i.e. trying to locate digitized books qualifying for "Romanian Patriotica"). Tough ! Simplifying the matter, I was trying to locate: A. books in Romanian B. books about Romania Full view only :-( A. ... advanced search, language: Romanian and then as keys, several "very" Romanian words (like "mamaliga" [i.e. polenta], "suflet" [i.e. soul], ?ara [i.e. country], istorie [i.e. history], even "daca" [i.e. if], "obiect" [i.e. object] etc. etc. Poor crop, lot of wasted time. I felt like shooting crows, blindfolded. B. ... advanced search, key: "Romania". 1,558 hits. Many only marginally related to Romania, plus some totally false hits. In contrast, in the LOC catalogue, (as expected) searching subject: Romania, within the first page (i.e. 100 headings, i.e. about 200 titles), maybe 2-3 titles are not relevant. Maybe Google could improve the score, if they would allow me (also) to limit my query only to metadata. > Jim Weinheimer > Dan Matei ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dan Matei, director CIMEC - Institutul de Memorie Culturala [Institute for Cultural Memory] Pia?a Presei Libere nr. 1, CP 33-90 Bucure?ti [Bucharest], Romania www.cimec.ro
