MANY HORSES: Context Collisions in the Networked Catalog

Aislinn Sotelo Coordinator of Technical Services,

Mandeville Special Collections Library, University of California, San Diego

and

Brad Westbrook Metadata Librarian & Digital Archivist

University of California, San Diego RBMS Preconference 2011, Baton Rouge, LA, June 23

Problem Summary Collisions at Macro Level

Collisions at Micro Level

Effects on Quality of the Catalog

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Overview

Traditional catalogs Local collections, local audiences, and local

policies, Especially special collections catalogs

Next generation catalogs Aggregation of traditional catalogs Proliferation of context collisions

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Problem Summary

Special collections catalog and machine technologies Accelerates bibliographic description Leads to access standards Machine readable formats extended to

accommodate copy specific / local information

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Collisions at the Macro Level

Word Sentence

Paragraph

Chapter

Book Opera Omnia

Life and times Readers

Data element Data record

Catalog

Policies and practices

Collections Community

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Context Chains

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Context Collision in Next-Gen Catalogs

Representative types of context collisions from UC catalogs Genre terms

Relator terms

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Collision at the Micro Level

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UC Irvine’s Genre Term Policies

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UC Irvine’s Local Genre File

Artists’ books |z California |z Berkeley |y 20th Century Artists’ books |z California |z Berkeley |y 20th Century |x Women Authors Artists’ books |z California |z Berkeley |y 21th Century |x Women Authors

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Genre Comparison

UC Berkeley

UC San Diego UCLA

Artists Books California 1970-1979 Artists Books California 1980-1989 Artists Books California 1990-1999 Artists Books California San Diego 2000-2009

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Aggregated

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Aggregated

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The Battle of Special Files

Artists' books. Artists' books ǂy 1997. ǂ2 rbgenr Accordion fold format (Binding) ǂy 1997. ǂ2 rbgenr Flying Fish Press.

Artists' books -- California -- 1990-1999. Accordion fold format (Binding) -- 1990-1999.

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UCLA’s Library Catalog

Artists’ books --Specimens. Accordion fold format (Binding) --California --Berkeley --1997. Artists’ books --California --Berkeley --1997.

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Relator Term Granularity Vocalist vs. Performer

Domingo, Plácido, 1941- Domingo, Plácido, 1941-, Voc. Domingo, Plácido, 1941-, Prf.

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Varying Granularity When Aggregated

Recall: the fraction of all documents

relevant to a query that are retrieved Precision: the fraction of all retrieved

documents by a query that are relevant Inference: Ability to conclude that the set

of items retrieved for a query is exhaustive

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Effects on the Quality of the Catalog

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Performance of Local Catalog

Precision and

Recall

Retrieved Documents

Relevant Documents

Relevant Documents

Retrieved Documents

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Performance of Aggregated Catalog

Precision and

Recall

Statistically verify the degradation of

catalog performance Investigate / develop methods for

resolving or minimizing conflict collections Look to work re: quality shareable metadata

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Next Steps

THANK YOU!

QUESTIONS?