Cataloging Utilities for maintainers

[John C. Matylonek]

As Kuhn outlines:


>1.)   Better robots which can do some hierarchical indexing and 
someday even mapping of terms in different languages. (There has 
been a project in Germany to do the multilingual mapping for a 
"normal" library OPAC already ...)

>2.)  Increased indexing by the authors of WebDocs using the  
controlled vocabulary of their field of interest (like e.g. MeSH or 
Biosis concept codes and biosystematic codes). These index-terms 
would then be recognizable to the improved robots.

Yes, since authors are generally unfamiliar with thesaurus 
construction and indexing practice, software utilities that assist 
that funtion can be bundled with future servers. Ideally, the
server and robot would be configured to get this meta-information
and tie it to the actual URL. So what happened to the URN standard? 

3.)  Increased manual cataloguing of WebDocs of greater interest by
libraries.

Tieing the marc record through a url and urn field in the opac and
making the opac database robot-readable would nicely bring this 
information outside the library networks.
 
4.)  An even increasing number of lists of specific resources in 
certain subjects (like there are good and very specific 
"bibliografies raisonees" in the realm of printed material).

5.)  Other things we don't yet know about. 

Opportunity for speculation!!

How about Encarta-like shells that work on clients. They would 
accept all the compressed indexes of a well-defined relational 
database at a particular URL. That would allow complete information 
to come over the net and save network bandwidth.