On 29/12/06, Steve Block <steve.block(a)myrealbox.com> wrote:
Matthew Brown wrote:
On 12/19/06, Steve Bennett
<stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
All these things are sliding scales. It's
easy to objectively say "all
the victims were women". It's just *harder* to objectively say "all
the papers supported notion X". Maybe it's ok. Maybe it isn't.
For one thing, if a source exhaustively lists all X, it's a definitive
claim that can be sourced. Stating that all of them have something in
common is simply a collation and editing function, IMO.
A database search like that described is different; it's not
definitive and not a single source that can be cited. It's headed
into original research to deem the results definitive and decisive;
there is no guarantee whatsoever that the results have to be
exhaustive and complete.
Funny you discuss this. At
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Taylor_Allderdice_High_School&…
I've got someone asserting in the article that "a search of WorldCat
reveals that as of 2006 Taylor Allderdice remains one of fewer than
sixty high schools in the world to have its newspaper archived on
microfilm in a major library." I agree this is original research, but
can't find anyone to back me up. Fancy popping your head in and
discussing the point?
And here we hit the problem with limited original research - bad
interpretation. He's shown that "fewer than sixty high schools in the
world are known to have...", not that "fewer than sixty high schools
in the world have..." It's based on a false premise - that WorldCat is
some kind of "grand global catalogue", which it isn't; it doesn't
claim to be comprehensive, just large.
Looking in further detail, he's also demonstrated it only for cases
where the originating body is called (and catalogued as) "XYZ High
School", and has made no attempt to figure out how many of the 56 hits
are actually in "major libraries" rather than, say, a microfiche copy
acquired by the local public library. It doesn't apply in cases where
the journal is catalogued with the school as an author rather than a
corporate author (technically wrong, but does happen, and if there's
one thing you won't get in WorldCat it'll be consistent cataloguing).
So it's not even automatically a comprehensive or accurate listing of
what he intended to be looking for...
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk