A lesson to be learnt from the britannica site?

[Bigwood, David]

> Hanan,
> 
> There used to be books that gave common misspellings and then the correct
> spelling.  These work great for some who did not know the correct spelling
> of a word and could not find it in the dictionary because they did not
> know
> the spelling.
> 
> Then there is the Soundex system used by the US Census to index names.
> MacGreggor and McGregor would both have the same code.  Any census or
> genealogy collection should have more information on it.  I remember
> hearing
> some search engines or databases trying to use it as an additional access
> point.  It would convert the name on the fly into the Soundex code and
> then
> search the index it built from the name index.  I don't know how far any
> of
> that work went.
> 
> Then there is a list of the 100 most common spelling mistakes in library
> catalogs.  We could use that to clean up our catalogs or maybe as a
> beginning of a redirect to the proper spelling.  A basic authority file.
> 
> Sincerely,
> David Bigwood
> 
> > ----------
> > From: 	Hanan Cohen[SMTP:hanan at qglibrary.org.il]
> > Reply To: 	hanan at qglibrary.org.il
> > Sent: 	Wednesday, November 24, 1999 12:54 PM
> > To: 	Multiple recipients of list
> > Subject: 	[WEB4LIB] Re: A lesson to be learnt from the britannica
> > site?
> > 
> > Hanan Cohen wrote:
> > > 
> > > I think there is a lesson to be learnt here, but being a non-librarian
> I
> > am not sure what it is.
> > 
> > This thread developed into (almost exlusivly) a domain name discussion.
> > What I was thinking is that our readers and computer sometimes find it
> > hard to find online information because of bad spelling.
> > 
> > If someone comes to you and asks for information about a plant with a
> > Latin name, it is sometimes impossible to find it if you don't know the
> > correct spelling.
> > 
> > I wander if we have ways to help people find information using "sound
> > alike" tools or other means that I don't know of.
> > 
> > Is there a "dictionary" of all possible spellings to any word in a
> > language?
> > 
> > -- 
> > Hanan Cohen
> > 
> > Qiriat Gat Library - http://www.qglibrary.org.il
> > In association with : Bashan Systems
> > ***Love and Peace***
> > 
>