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Dear Peter (Walch), I was very interested by your recent presentation at Collins Cinema concerning the AMICO project. Thank you for sharing this information with the Wellesley community. You may recall at the presentation that I asked a question concerning how the AMICO library database will handle names and titles in various languages, so that users will be able to retrieve data with an acceptable level of consistency. Micheline Jedrey has shared with me a copy of the Wellesley College AMICO Testbed Package, including the "AMICO Library - By Creator, Provisional Contents as of March 1, 1998." This list raises some specific concerns I have. Even now, with the database in its infancy, there is no consistency in the forms of names being entered. Without a mechanism in place for collocation, what librarians call "authority control" in bibliographic databases, this problem will expand exponentially and seriously compromise the utility of the database. There are in the database at present, for example, seven different forms of Degas' name; six of Renoir's. Works by El Greco are found both under two different spellings of El Greco and under three different spellings of Domenikos Theotokopoulos. A searcher looking for works by Georges de la Tour will find some under "De," others under "La." I hope you will consider at this early stage how this issue should be addressed, for it will surely begin to have a very adverse impact upon information retrieval, especially as titles of artworks are added and foreign museums begin adding to the database. There is clearly a need for controlled language in the AMICO database. As a library cataloger who was involved in the creation of Wellesley's online library catalog, I would be happy to offer any advice that I can, and to learn the viewpoints of others involved in this worthwhile project.
Yours sincerely, Ross Wood rwood@wellesley.edu Head, Monographs Acquisitions & Cataloging Wellesley College Library 106 Central St. Wellesley, MA 02181-8275 781-283-2104; FAX 781-283-3690 |