If you check the Subject metadata for AYBD, New Nave's Topical Bible, and about 5 others that I have, in the Subject metadata it has "220.3". What is that?
Thanks!
What is that?
It is the Dewey Decimal System number assigned to that resource by the publisher. 220.3 refers to a dictionary or cyclopedic reference on the Bible. Both Dewey numbers and Library of Congress numbers (the more modern system) appear in resource metadata.
Thanks Mark, had not run across that before...
What is that? It is the Dewey Decimal System number assigned to that resource by the publisher. 220.3 refers to a dictionary or cyclopedic reference on the Bible. Both Dewey numbers and Library of Congress numbers (the more modern system) appear in resource metadata.
Mark, you sound like a winning contestant on Jeopardy other than not giving the answer in the form of a question. [:D]
Mark, you sound like a winning contestant on Jeopardy
Strange Numbers for $100.
What is the Dewey Decimal System?
Now if the Dewy system had not been so variously interpreted and sloppily applied it might have been a good system. My local Library still uses it. My college library did, but seminary did not. In fact I think the seminary had a shared proprietary cataloging system for theological libraries. Probably LC now. IMO this is totally useless information for a digital library like Logos and both Dewey and LC should be left out of the subject listing. (I'll probably awaken the ire of a librarian on that statement.) It would clean it up some, thought the subject listings would still be a mess.
I agree, I really didn't see the value of having a Dewey number in the subject, especially since they are not universally applied. I don't know the numbers anyway, so it's little help to me.
I'm guessing Logos just imports the subject data from some standard library database. If you click on the Subjects column header to group by Subject, you'll see a large number of Dewey Decimal numbers that are used in the subject field. There are also a few Library of Congress catalog numbers. Some books have both (e.g. Ethics for a Brave New World has subject "Social ethics.; Christian ethics.; HM216 .F4 1993; 170"). The inconsistency is odd, but I never use those numbers anyway, so it isn't a big deal to me. I think the LOC numbers are probably the more standard overall, so perhaps Logos should switch to using those predominantly, but it would be a huge project to bring all the metadata of all their 10,000+ resources up to that standard.
(I'll probably awaken the ire of a librarian on that statement.)
As a college librarian, I consider the appearance of the Call Numbers in the subject field as part of the huge metadata problems we have. It would be fine if there was a separate call number field, but they shouldn't be in the subject field. But I agree with you Mark: for our purposes in our Logos libraries, the subject, type author and series fields are all we really need, I think, to craft most of our collections. The Dewey numbers shouldn't appear at all. I'll bet most of the time, you can go to Worldcat.org and look up the book to see what really should be in the subject field.
BTW, generally, public and school libraries use Dewey, colleges and universities use LC (my favorite, of course!)
(I'll probably awaken the ire of a librarian on that statement.) As a college librarian, I consider the appearance of the Call Numbers in the subject field as part of the huge metadata problems we have.
As a college librarian, I consider the appearance of the Call Numbers in the subject field as part of the huge metadata problems we have.
David, you're not the only Logos user I know of who has experience with library cataloguing and metadata. Jonathan Burke has a great interest in this area too, particularly as it relates to Logos. He is doing his PhD in industrial & information management. He intends to use Logos as his case study for his dissertation. He says “the information literacy of the Logos client base, and the use of metadata, will feature prominently.” I wonder if there would be any interest in getting together a user SIG (special interest group) on metadata, and see if we could provide some input to the Logos folks who are responsible for this area. Not just suggested metadata fixes, which they get reams of from us in emails and the wiki. But form a collaborative team to come up with better strategies overall to keep it from being such an ongoing problem. I don't know who they've got inhouse designing the metadata, whether it's someone with much if any library background or not. It would probably behoove them to get some such expertise if they don't have it.
For Jonathan's input thus far, see this thread (particularly later on in the thread after he got the complaint out of his system and started talking about his academic interests and how it might benefit Logos). I could put you two in touch by email if you'd like. He gave me his, and David I've found yours on the web as the only David P. Moore working as a college librarian. UAH, right? [;)] He was going to contact a couple of the Logos architects I gave him contact info for. I'd be interested to see if that goes anywhere, and I'd be interested to be part of the conversation.
I could put you two in touch by email if you'd like. He gave me his, and David I've found yours on the web as the only David P. Moore working as a college librarian. UAH, right?
Hi Rosie, yes, you found me! Thanks for pointing me to that thread. I just spent the last few minutes reading it, and it was very interesting. I've been on vacation for the past week, letting my forum activity slide, so I hadn't see that thread yet. Yes, put me in touch with Jonathan--we do have some background in common. I would be pleased with assisting in a SIG startup, but we really need to get Logos's ear on this early on to see what is going on internally with this, and how we could possibly plug into it. Accurate metadata has always been important to me, as I can tell it is with Jonathan too. Logos is very top drawer software, and having clean library metadata should therefore be characteristic of it!
I wonder if there would be any interest in getting together a user SIG (special interest group) on metadata, and see if we could provide some input to the Logos folks who are responsible for this area. Not just suggested metadata fixes, which they get reams of from us in emails and the wiki. But form a collaborative team to come up with better strategies overall to keep it from being such an ongoing problem. I don't know who they've got inhouse designing the metadata, whether it's someone with much if any library background or not. It would probably behoove them to get some such expertise if they don't have it.
Rosie, in the highly likely event that the Logos information architects don't respond to my email (they do have better things to do with their time than correspond with random PhD students after all), I will have to examine Logos externally. This is a suboptimal approach, but I won't have a choice. I would be very interested in joining and observing such a group as you describe, as it would provide me with considerable material for study.
David, I would be happy to correspond. You can get my email address from Rosie.
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