Library anomalies

I am having trouble understanding some of the ways resources are tagged in 4.0. Here is an example (look at lines 1, 2, and 4).

All three are map collections. Two are tagged as 'monographs' and one as 'media collection.' One of the two tagged as a monograph is given the subject "Bible--Geography--Maps..." and the one tagged as a media collection is given that subject as well. Then the other monograph is tagged as an atlas.

First, I really don't understand the differences. Aren't they basically the same type of resource? Trying to find resources is a challenge that I find frustrating at times. Unless I know the name of the resource, it is not intuitive to me how to find what I know I have.

I know I could type 'maps' in the search box and find these, but would I ever think to find them under "Bible--Geography--Maps"? Yikes. What is wrong with "Maps" or at least "Atlas".

(Shaking his head)

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Comments

Damian McGrath

Mark,

I know that they are working on a way to be able to fix the bad metadata of many of these resources and "push" it to us without the whole indexing thing happening. I'm not sure where they are on all this or when they hope to achieve it.

I do believe it would be beneficial for them to ask some users how they would categorise some of these resources. That way, they would get an idea of the sorts of terms we use to search for materials.

Mark Smith

Example two: English Bibles. Here is the result in my library of what to me is a needlessly complicated search (type:bible subject:bible--english)

The trouble is I also have the HCSB which doesn't show up. Its subject is just "Bible" with no '--English'. I also have the Weymouth NT and that subject is "Bibles" (plural). I also have "The Five Books of Moses" and that subject is "Bibles--O.T.--Pentateuch--Commentaries...." I know this is more that just a translation, but it should at least have a subject somewhere of Bible.--English should it not?

Anyway, if Logos is trying to reduce support calls someone needs to give attention to this maze of tagging issues. Please.

Damian McGrath

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/13535#Comment_13535

Mark,

Those subjects have very clearly been extracted from a library catalogue.

Given that Logos is attempting to be a "digital library", it's appropriate that we have as much trouble finding resources in Logos as in our local university library Now, all we need is for very important items to be strangely mis-filed every few days and for other expensive titles to disappear.

Mark Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/13543#Comment_13543

Mark,

Those subjects have very clearly been extracted from a library catalogue.

Given that Logos is attempting to be a "digital library", it's appropriate that we have as much trouble finding resources in Logos as in our local university library Now, all we need is for very important items to be strangely mis-filed every few days and for other expensive titles to disappear.

Well the whole thing (are there Dewy Decimal numbers in some of those subjects?) looks like a cat fight between two long retired librarians to me. [;)] (OK, all you fine librarians out there, don't flame me. I'm just sayin.)

Todd Phillips

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/13544#Comment_13544

The subject tagging in Logos has long been problematic, even in v3. I think the subjects in v4 are the same as the ones found in v3 when you sort the library by subject.

Logos has said in the past that the subjects are chosen by the publishers, ostensibly from a list of LoC subjects, but with the spelling errors in the subjects and other things, I don't think anyone paid much attention to it.

Hopefully with the subjects front and center in Logos, and the ability to update metadata, we will see a change. I still wish I could edit the subjects, but at least I can add my own tags.

Simon’s Brother

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/13544#Comment_13544

Mark,

Those subjects have very clearly been extracted from a library catalogue.

Given that Logos is attempting to be a "digital library", it's appropriate that we have as much trouble finding resources in Logos as in our local university library Now, all we need is for very important items to be strangely mis-filed every few days and for other expensive titles to disappear.

Well the whole thing (are there Dewy Decimal numbers in some of those subjects?) looks like a cat fight between two long retired librarians to me. (OK, all you fine librarians out there, don't flame me. I'm just sayin.)

The subject data is the Library of Congress Data as per the print edition of these resources. The electronic editons mimic the print so I really have no issue with teh subject data per see. it is what it is....where there is a clear typographical error it would be great if this were fixed ..but otherwise it matches the real world as Damian pointed out. Ths was heavily debated many times in Logos Newsgroups since L1 first came out ....the Library of Congress system is not perfect but then if it was it would suit me and probably nobody else in terms of the categories that were used.... What L4 does is introduce user tagging so you can categorize the resources with your own subjects - yes this is time consuming. To assist in finding resources L4 offers the + and - search operators that you can use in the entry box..... this is something that takes getting use to using also

Mark Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/13592#Comment_13592

The subject data is the Library of Congress Data as per the print edition of these resources.

Perhaps. But the Logos generated map sets are under Logos' control and they aren't consistent. Likewise 'Type' is under Logos' control and it could be much more useful than it is.

Logos could add a standardized subject of its own to the subject listing so we'd know what to search for. 'Bible, English' would get a vote for one of them from me. I'll bet that would cut down on a lot of people's frustration.

I agree that the Library subjects have been terrible. Being able to search them doesn't help much. Standardization would and I think Logos could manage that at least with the resources it helps produce.

Bob Pritchett

4.0 will allow us to push down new, uniform metadata. What you're seeing now is whatever is in the book -- sometimes 12 year old data.

This metadata doesn't really represent what will be in the final 4.0 release, and even after release we'll be able to edit and push it from the server.

Mark Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/13737#Comment_13737

4.0 will allow us to push down new, uniform metadata. What you're seeing now is whatever is in the book -- sometimes 12 year old data.

This metadata doesn't really represent what will be in the final 4.0 release, and even after release we'll be able to edit and push it from the server.

That is encouraging. It will make life easier. The new library tools are great but because of the crazy data they end up being frustrating when one thinks they ought to be simple. Glad this is finally going to be addressed.