[Dspace-general] Broad concept question

[David Goodman]

Writing as a librarian, the current practice of online cataloging is not suitable 
for individual articles. The subject headings are too broad, and free text 
access is available only for titles and chapter headings, not abstracts 
and full-text. The catalogs do not provide citation indexing, nor tracking of 
multiple coauthors, nor many of the functions we associate with the 
usual repository. OCLC now does include some articles and book 
chapters in the catalog, and the result as I see it is increased confusion,
even for knowledgeable end-users.

Doesn't mean it couldn't. But it would have to be deliberately re-designed to 
have both functions. Given the speed at which catalog practices change, it
is probably more realistic to develop starting from D-space. To a librarian
some current practices seem inadequate, such as the stable identification of 
authors, and consistency of subjects, but all this can be developed. 

There are some potential dual purpose systems. Probably the most likely
is the Entrez system at NLM. The potential scope can be best seen at
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gquery/gquery.fcgi?itool=toolbar
There is a continuum from the full text of articles--and of books--to 
journal articles and non-bibliographic databases. The subject heading 
list is designed so that it can be applied for either articles or books, 
and essentially all the functions of the most sophisticated D-space systems 
are available. 

Even the most widely ranging systems such as RePEc cannot match this--
at least not quite  yet. 

David Goodman, Ph.D., M.L.S.
previously:
Bibliographer and Research Librarian
Princeton University Library

dgoodman at princeton.edu


----- Original Message -----
From: Glenn Bunton <gbunton at odu.edu>
Date: Sunday, January 28, 2007 11:45 am
Subject: [Dspace-general] Broad concept question
To: DSpace General <dspace-general at mit.edu>

> If you will bear with me, I have a question only peripherally about 
> Dspacebut one I think this community can really help me with.
> 
> I work in a general liberal arts university library so you know the
> environment from which this question arises. Obviously in such an
> environment the integrated online information system (online 
> catalog) has
> been the pre-eminent information access and management system in 
> use. While
> I don't know "real" numbers I suspect a significant, if not 
> majority, of
> similar libraries hold the same perspective of the online catalog 
> being, if
> not the be-all end-all information access system then at least 
> being the
> focal point for everything the library provides.
> 
> My question, then, is this. How does one answer the question of why
> something like Dspace (or any other repository or information 
> managementsoftware) be used instead of just dumping everything into 
> the online
> catalog? Catalogers, of course, argue they can put anything into 
> MARC with
> a little effort and online catalog vendors are more than willing to 
> sellall kinds of add-on modules for big bucks that supposed do 
> everything.
> Thanks in advance for any ideas. I've been fighting this battle for 
> yearsand have run out of ideas of my own.
> 
> ==================================
> Mr. Glenn Bunton
> Head of Systems Development
> Old Dominion University Libraries
> Norfolk, Virginia 23529
> gbunton at odu.edu
> (757) 683-5952
> ===================================
> 
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