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Dear librarian friends
Because I have so many of you, and what are you for if not to abuse shamelessly with question about libraries?
When I use my library's online catalog, which I do at a frequency ranging between daily and hourly, I am presented with four search methods: keywords, authors, subjects, and titles. I nearly always use authors or titles, and I am generally happy with the results. I understand keyword searching.
Why does the concept of a subject search still exist? It can't help but present you with useless statistics, such as "there are 14,577 books in the library about the Civil War" followed by the first twenty books written by Arthur Aardvark about that subject. If it led to some sort of taxonomy or shelving system it might at least be excusable for helping the novice librarian point a patron to the right part of the building... but it doesn't.
Shouldn't this be replaced by DMOZ or the original Yahoo! directory or something similar? What am I failing to get?
When I use my library's online catalog, which I do at a frequency ranging between daily and hourly, I am presented with four search methods: keywords, authors, subjects, and titles. I nearly always use authors or titles, and I am generally happy with the results. I understand keyword searching.
Why does the concept of a subject search still exist? It can't help but present you with useless statistics, such as "there are 14,577 books in the library about the Civil War" followed by the first twenty books written by Arthur Aardvark about that subject. If it led to some sort of taxonomy or shelving system it might at least be excusable for helping the novice librarian point a patron to the right part of the building... but it doesn't.
Shouldn't this be replaced by DMOZ or the original Yahoo! directory or something similar? What am I failing to get?