[WEB4LIB] Re: FW: Important Article

[Avi Rappoport]

While I agree with David, I had an interesting conversation with 
someone at a union catalog recently.  They were testing search on 
their catalog with a distributed Z39.50 search on the individual 
catalogs.  The union system did a whole lot better, partly because a 
lot of the identification and rationalization issues were worked out 
during the merge rather than as query or post-process on the search.

Having both local and union catalogs, while not cheap, is probably 
the most effective way to store and search the information.

Avi

At 2:53 PM -0800 3/28/1999, David Merchant wrote:
>
> >The solution is the same one that Bezos came up with for Amazon: 1) Do away
> >with the local catalog; 2) Build a global catalog
> >that allows patrons to search all the material in the local collection PLUS
> >the 40+ million items available through ILL in the OCLC
> >Worldcat database, and, because the OCLC database doesnít pick up everything
> >in print, toss in the 3 million items from the
> >Amazon database for good measure. (Weíll talk about how you might deliver
> >those non-OCLC titles in a bit).

<snip>

>I believe I'm going to have to disagree.  While on the surface, this looks
>great, there are a couple of issues not addressed:
>
>1. the 'Net has connectivity problems.  Where would this "one catalog" sit?
>
>2. Local collection.

________________________________________________________________
Avi Rappoport, Search Tools Maven: <mailto:avirr at lanminds.com>
Guide to Site Indexing and Local Search Engines: <http://www.searchtools.com>