As time goes on, and more and more books are printed with their LC numbers, that code would end up coming out as even better.
Isn't it true that every book in the Library of Congress, i.e. pretty much every book in the English language, has an LC number, even if it isn't printed inside the book? If so, then LC numbers are close to ideal book identifiers.
However, an ISBN -> {all equivalent ISBNs} converter would also be really nice. Personally, I think there's nothing wrong with the traditional method of identifying a book by title and author though. Spelling differences can always be solved by appeal to authority: use the spelling of the Library of Congress.
Axel
At 04:35 PM 8/31/02 +0200, Axel wrote:
As time goes on, and more and more books are printed with their LC numbers, that code would end up coming out as even better.
Isn't it true that every book in the Library of Congress, i.e. pretty much every book in the English language, has an LC number, even if it isn't printed inside the book? If so, then LC numbers are close to ideal book identifiers.
However, an ISBN -> {all equivalent ISBNs} converter would also be really nice. Personally, I think there's nothing wrong with the traditional method of identifying a book by title and author though. Spelling differences can always be solved by appeal to authority: use the spelling of the Library of Congress.
Not sure anyone has worked on that type of converter, never seen it anyway. Could be useful or even profitable.
Use of Library of Congress numbers is complicated by several things: one is the use by many libraries of the Dewey Decimal System; the other is the ease of use of the ISBN number and its entrenched position on the internet.
BTW check out [[how to find a book]] and see how it is and how it could be improved. Needs more work on how to find a book in your local library.
Fred
Fred Bauder wrote:
At 04:35 PM 8/31/02 +0200, Axel wrote:
As time goes on, and more and more books are printed with their LC numbers, that code would end up coming out as even better.
Isn't it true that every book in the Library of Congress, i.e. pretty much every book in the English language, has an LC number, even if it isn't printed inside the book? If so, then LC numbers are close to ideal book identifiers.
Use of Library of Congress numbers is complicated by several things: one is the use by many libraries of the Dewey Decimal System; the other is the ease of use of the ISBN number and its entrenched position on the internet.
The LC Classification does have many benefits, but it remains a subject based listing, and as such involves a great deal of subjectivity. Would a book of the correspondence between an American and a French novellist, for example, be included in the PQ or the PS class? An author with multiple interests would have his works all over the place. What's more some libraries are free to deviate from LC to meet the needs of their own particular conventions.
The author/title approach probably remains the best basis. Eclecticology
Eclecticology wrote:
The LC Classification does have many benefits, but it remains a subject based listing, and as such involves a great deal of subjectivity. Would a book of the correspondence between an American and a French novellist, for example, be included in the PQ or the PS class? An author with multiple interests would have his works all over the place. What's more some libraries are free to deviate from LC to meet the needs of their own particular conventions.
Of course, this is no argument for ISBN in preference to LC; it's only an argument for author/title. I think that LC is better if we can make it work.
The author/title approach probably remains the best basis.
My worry here is that this isn't very conducive to look up by computer, since the spelling can vary (not only foreign names, but prepositions and articles in the titles). If we have people look these up in the LC catalogue, then they might as well look up the LC number as well.
-- Toby
Books are most easily found by ISBN if you wish to buy them. To find them in a library or if they don't have an ISBN author and title (supplemented by publisher or binding information) works best. Many libraries us Dewey Decimal rather than Library of congress classification. To find all the editions of a book you have one ISBN for a further search for author and title will produce them on a good search engine like ABE or if they all have an ISBN on AddAll.
Not all books that have ISBNs have Library of Congress numbers or are in the Library of Congress. (Two copys of any book copyrighted in the US go to the Library but not all are put in the collection and cataloged). That includes many books published in the past that don't have ISBNs too of course.
If a book published outside the US is in the Library of Congress Collection it has a LC number, but it almost always has an ISBN (the ones starting with something else than 0 or 1 which cover the US and UK.). This leaves out several hundred thousand books published each year (about 100,000 in Spanish).
Practically a link to a good author title search like the AddAll used search is probably the best thing we can give our users. I think the How to Find a Book has progressed enough that it could be included in at the bottom of that page clicking on an ISBN takes you to, but don't freeze it just yet, it doesn't have how to use OCLC (World Cat) on it yet.
Fred
At 09:53 PM 9/18/02 -0700, you wrote:
Eclecticology wrote:
The LC Classification does have many benefits, but it remains a subject based listing, and as such involves a great deal of subjectivity. Would a book of the correspondence between an American and a French novellist, for example, be included in the PQ or the PS class? An author with multiple interests would have his works all over the place. What's more some libraries are free to deviate from LC to meet the needs of their own particular conventions.
Of course, this is no argument for ISBN in preference to LC; it's only an argument for author/title. I think that LC is better if we can make it work.
The author/title approach probably remains the best basis.
My worry here is that this isn't very conducive to look up by computer, since the spelling can vary (not only foreign names, but prepositions and articles in the titles). If we have people look these up in the LC catalogue, then they might as well look up the LC number as well.
-- Toby [Wikipedia-l] To manage your subscription to this list, please go here: http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
AxelBoldt wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote:
As time goes on, and more and more books are printed with their LC numbers, that code would end up coming out as even better.
Isn't it true that every book in the Library of Congress, i.e. pretty much every book in the English language, has an LC number, even if it isn't printed inside the book? If so, then LC numbers are close to ideal book identifiers.
I think that the LC tries to do everything that ever appears in the US; given the US's global reach, that should be just about everything, regardless of language. So yes, it's great in theory. The downside is that the book in your hands is much more likely to contain the ISBN than the LC #.
Presumably this is even more true outside the US. New books published in the US need to include their LC #s; but is this true in the UK? in Germany? in China? in Zambia? Probably not anymore.
However, an ISBN -> {all equivalent ISBNs} converter would also be really nice. Personally, I think there's nothing wrong with the traditional method of identifying a book by title and author though. Spelling differences can always be solved by appeal to authority: use the spelling of the Library of Congress.
And if the LC spelling includes a diaeresis, how to we enter that? The nice thing about using codes is that people know that they need to look them up and will copy them bit for bit, not misspelling names from memory. But we need a code that you can easily look up just from having the book in your hand, and unfortunately that seems to only be the ISBN right now, and that has its own problems, as you've mentioned.
-- Toby
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