It seems like groupings of books into categories such as Overdrive, "New
York Times best seller" etc. might best be handled in the way that library
catalogs have
used holdings records to indicate some group of titles that have been
assembled into a collection via editorial judgments regarding suitability.
Bibliographic information
can and should have a one to many relationship with all the collections
that hold the material.
Collection designations could also be accommodated as lists in the context
of the json citations used by the Open Library but probably not as a member
of the list of subject
headings.
Richard Aroksaar
NPS Voyager System Administrator
206-220-4252
206-612-2006 (cell)
frankie roberto
<fran...@frankier
oberto.com> To
Sent by: Open Library -- general discussion
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Subject
08/20/2010 02:38 Re: [ol-discuss] OverDrive as a
PM subject
Please respond to
Open Library --
general
discussion
<ol-disc...@archi
ve.org>
George Oates wrote:
> Hi Frankie,
>
>> I'm all for esoteric, folksonomy-esque subjects like "criminal
>> masterminds of Victorian London", but it seems a bit hack-ish to use
>> them for arbitrary lists (would I be allowed "Frankie's fav books"?)
>
> Negotiation and argument about classification (however esoteric or
rubbery)
> seems to be the nature of the beast. I like to think of it as if we've
borrowed
> the professional classification(s) available to us as a substrate to be
built
> upon, imitated or reacted to.
>
> You're certainly allowed any subject you like. We're not going to get
into the
> business of editorialising subjects. And, I suppose, since it's a wiki,
if there
> is someone out there that does have a problem with it, it might be
removed.
I'm all for that - you don't want to be in the business of policing
"subjects". Flat taxonomies beat hierarchical ones hands-down.
> Point taken though, about it being a bit hacky. We wanted a quick way to
gather
> these titles into a presentable page that was useful to link to, rather
than
> rely on people knowing what to search for, or only stumbling on OverDrive
> titles. Also found it curious to see what related subjects, publishing
history,
> authors and publishers emerged from counting it as a "subject".
Fair enough if it's a temporary hack. You could presumably provide the
same functionality using the 'borrowing' metadata at some point in the
future though?
> Re: Merging Works
> Yes! Soon! It's definitely up there, but for the next 2 months, we're all
going
> to be focussed on our annual October meeting, called Books in Browsers.
There's
> a draft schedule online here, if you're interested:
>
> http://reading20.posterous.com/tentative-draft-bib10-schedule
Looks interesting - bit of a long way to go for me though. Are the
sessions/talks going to be recorded at all?
Frankie
> Cheers,
> george
>
>
> Frankie Roberto wrote:
>> Hi George,
>>
>> You wrote:
>>
>> We've begun warping subjects a little bit. Overdrive is an example
>> of an easy
>> way for us to group a whole bunch of titles together, in this case,
>> ebooks that
>> are available for loan through the OverDrive lending system.
>>
>> There are a few others: "protected DAISY", "accessible book", "new
>> york times
>> bestseller"...
>>
>> Even though there are rules associated with subject headings and
>> cataloging, I
>> think what we're seeing is that in practice, it seems quite
>> folksonomic in nature.
>>
>>
>> Hmm, I can see why you're going down this route (avoiding the whole
>> complex classification hierachy thing), but I think it's a bit
>> non-obvious to lump stuff that's not related to the actual content of
>> the book in with "Subjects". The OverDrive info seems to be already
>> captured elsewhere (via the "borrow" links), so is it really needed?
>>
>> I'm all for esoteric, folksonomy-esque subjects like "criminal
>> masterminds of Victorian London", but it seems a bit hack-ish to use
>> them for arbitrary lists (would I be allowed "Frankie's fav books"?)
>>
>> P.S When do we get to merge Works? Is that up next? More magic wands
>> please... :-)
>>
>>
>> --
>> Frankie Roberto
>> Experience Designer, Rattle
>> 0114 2706977
>> http://www.rattlecentral.com
>>
>>
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>>
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