Organizing Web Information

[S. M. S.]

At 03:45 PM 7/17/96 -0700, you wrote:
>S. M. S. wrote:
>>With all this discussion about how to organize web information, I've yet
tosee any mention or discussion concerning OCLC's current project to catalog
>the Web.
>
>I hear from my catalogers constantly how poor the marc records are in OCLC in 
>comparison to LC or BiblioFile, how difficult it is to edit records within
OCLC, how 
>awkward the interface is, how slow the connection it, and what a pain it is
that when 
>they callup a record on OCLC that they have edited. They see the original
and can't 
>get the edited copy they made.  
>

Well, it seems my comment has brought some criticism.  Hmmm.  Okay, so OCLC
is not necessarily the greatest thing since sliced bread, but seeing as it
is the largest online cataloging service in the world (and seeing as I am
from the Columbus, Ohio area and their headquarters are situated there,
aside from the fact that I took MLS classes there), it would seem they have
been at least "adequate" so far.

Be that as it may, it would seem that the arguments against OCLC would be
the same arguments used against any project(s) to organize and catalog the
Internet. If Joe Blow in Podunk USA (my luck there will be an actual place
with this name! ;-) begins to catalog Web sites, even with the best of
intentions and imput from other professionals, then how is he/she going to
guarantee availability to everyone, accessability to everyone, or usefulness
to everyone?

I remember taking a course called "Information Technology" where we spent
weeks on the question of just what is information, what is productive
information, and if the patron is happy, is that enough?

It seems that the question may be more for the Information Specialists (MIS)
majors than MLS majors - how to build a better search engine for the
information that is out there, instead of thinking along the lines of
hard-copy cataloging where production is limited by publishers, buyers
(librarians and professional reviews), and the sheer cost of publishing even
in the vanity presses.

I remember going to a hospital library for a special library course.  The
sheer volume of speciality work available, especially the serials which came
with astronomical prices, was far beyond the type of information most
ordinary citizens would want or could use.

In over two years of being on the Internet, our library (public) has found
that hard-copy books still provide more information faster for the
ready-reference type of questions fielded at the reference desks than
anything on the WWW.  Even if the Web is successfully cataloged, let's say,
the increasing numbers of people on it will only continue to bog sites down,
bog the Internet itself down, making it very slow to obtain whatever
information may be available.  Have you been on the Internet in the
afternoon, let's say?  Trying to get to Microsoft's site (I'm the System
Operator, so Technical Information is important to my job) is nearly
impossible.  And if I can get there, downloading a file could be near
impossible.

You speak of ephemerial material - we are in the process of entering many
ephermerial documents relating to our local history museum online - but I
daresay that those documents are still going to be chosen out of the many we
have.  We are also producing a CD-ROM - where the information will be more
readily obtainable.

The question of authority on the Web and the ever changing nature of the
Internet has been brought up.  But there are also questions of what
constitutes the "valid" document for cataloging, as a piece could change
everyday with new research and input from others.  Online papers have been
known to change hourly. How do we get around that?

It would seem the sheer volume of the Internet precludes the type of
cataloging done in the past for books, tapes, art prints, etc.  

The questions we focused on in school revolved around the old question of
whether such ready access to information would doom libraries per se anyway
(we felt they would not, librarians would just become information brokers
and search specialists), and how people would go about getting the
information, which in our discussions did not revolve around "cataloging"
the net but in search mechanisms on the net.

I've seen complaints here about Alta Vista.  There is a page on the net
called the All-In-One Search Page, which contains numerous search
mechanisms.  It is a good place to start.  Slow and cumbersome?  Yes, as you
have to use each mechanism in turn.  But there are an increasing number of
mega-search engines and info-bots which will do the searching for you while
you are asleep.  

As for the comment about there being no public access to OCLC - there is no
public access to ERIC, DIALOG, and the many other companies that specialize
in "specialty" information and searches.  Do you think LEXUS/NEXUS gave
their info away for free?  Their info was not cataloged either - but
searchable through their search engines (for a fee, of course).  Special
librarians have been using these resources for years - with no cataloging
that I am aware of.  Indexing, yes.  But then how do you "index" the
Internet?  Almost every word could have the potential of being used so often
that it becomes a "stop" word - unsearchable due to the high number of times
it occurs.

Just some more thoughts.

S.M. Sansenbaugher
System Operator
Westerville Public Library