F.A. Roos writes
>
> OK, yes, I see, for ranking and sorting. But if we refer to resource discovery on
> the Web, the ranking in your AltaVista or HotBot or whatever search engine seems
> rather different ("relevance" ranking for instance) than OPACs do sorting. I know
> examples of OPACs however (not large volumed databases I must admit) where
> collapsing primary author(s) and contributors in one index seem to work
> satisfactorily.
>
Look closer.
> An question would be whether DC should accomodate sorting and ranking.
>
Yes, but also easy identification when looking at brief displays - i.e.
the ability to create meaningful brief displays. As I said, for people used
to identify works be the familiar Author/Title shorthand, it is of great
help in library catalogs if this can be displayed.
Additionally, in library databases, we have often used combinations of
several letters from first author, title, date, publisher or other elements
as "deduplication" search keys. We are frequently confronted with the
task to merge databases, and what we want is to identify as many duplicates
as possible. In the absence of other, unique identifiers like LC number
or ISSN, we use such keys.
Depends, of course, on the project whether or not you envision such
functions, sooner or later, and whether or not you want meaningful brief
displays.
Bernhard Eversberg
Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329,
D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany
Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836
e-mail [log in to unmask]
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