[WEB4LIB] Re: Table of contents database

[Jan Figa]

old hat -- visit Grainger's web site at
http://shiva.grainger.uiuc.edu/refcoll/opent1.asp

for an example of emergent technologies (Active Server Pages) to address
this issue. ASP is a nice solution to providing unmediated access 
to A&I's and in-house intellectual capital.

cheers,

jan

------------------------------
On Tue, 23 Feb 1999, Judy Myers wrote:

> Two responses to the posting below:
> 
> 1) Are there other projects like this?
> 
> The most significant related project that I know of was the Subject Access
> Project, conducted at the Syracuse University School of Information
> Studies, reported in Atherton, Pauline, "Books are For Use, final report of
> the subject access project to the Council on Library Resources," 1978. This
> report was published as Syracuse Univ. School of Inf. Studies number
> IST-10. There are also articles about this project. It entered tables of
> contents and indexes, and covered books in the general collection. The
> major finding was that they considered the data entry to be cost-effective
> and the retrieval by these terms was much more effective than with typical
> catalog searches. Before then, and even today, people are maybe too hung up
> on controlled vocabulary. I think controlled vocabularies are great, but
> the Citation Indexes and Biological Abstracts are useful tools without them.
> 
> 2) A concern:
> 
> Maybe your reference books are different from ours, but in our library the
> reference collection would be perhaps the least suitable for access by
> table of contents -- and particularly if you didn't scan and enter the
> index. So many of the reference tools arrange the content alphabetically,
> they don't have much of a table of contents (it says something like
> "Entries A-Z," and in effect the text serves as the index. On the other
> hand, many reference tools have many more subject terms in their prefatory
> matter than we include in the OPAC; this data would seem useful to me.
> 
> Judy E. Myers                              jm at uh.edu
> Assistant to the Dean of Libraries         713/743-9805 (voice)
> University of Houston Libraries            713/743-9811 (fax)
> Houston, TX 77204-2091
> 
> -----original posting follows--------
>  
> >> At 01:36 PM 2/22/99 -0800, Hanan Cohen wrote:
> >> >Our library is engaged in quit an ambitious project. We are scanning the
> >> >table of contents of ALL our reference books, OCR them and put it in a
> >> >database. The objective of this project is for our patrons to be able to
> >> >find books not only by their title or classification but also by words
> >> >that appear in their content.
> >> >
> >> >We are a small town library with about 8,000 reference books.
> >> >
> >> >I would like to know if there are other projects like this and would
> >> >like to share thoughts and experience.
> >> >
> >> >Thanks
> >> >-- 
> >> >Hanan Cohen
> >> >
> >> >Kiryat Gat Central Library
> >> >Kibbutz Tamuz - Beit Shemesh http://www.tamuz.org.il
> >> >***Love and Peace***
> >> >
> >> >
> >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >> Isabel L. Danforth  Technology Librarian, Wethersfield Public Library
> >> danforth at tiac.net       http://www.wethersfieldlibrary.org
> >> 		    Coordinator of Librarians' Online Support Team
> >> 		        http://admin.gnacademy.org:8001/~lost/ 
> >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >> 
> >
> >
>