XXC@Blog

Eysenck & Keane (2000) 書中提到，人為何需要去組織各式各樣的知識。是因為人不僅僅只需要獲取或儲存知識，還需要以一種經濟合內容豐富的形式以組織知識。

Eysenck & Keane 進一步以波赫士(J.L. Borges, 1944)小說中富內斯(Funes)這個角色作為例子。這個故事的中文版本為「博聞強記的富內斯」，在台灣商務版的波赫士全集第一冊中。Funes 具有驚人的知覺記憶力；不僅僅是過目不望而以，他能記得所有不同的時刻所看過的個別具體的東西。「富內斯非但記得每一座山林中每一株樹的每一片葉子，而且還記得每次看到或回想到它時的形狀。」以這樣的理解力與記憶力為基礎，富內斯的某些認知行為便與一般人不同了。一般人可能認同這樣的看法：「洛克指出，每一件具體事物，、每一塊石頭、每一隻鳥、每一根樹枝都有其專名的語言是不可能的。」而富內斯卻反而認為這樣的作法太過於概化了「富內斯也層設計過一種相似的語言，但後來棄置不用了，因為他認為過於一般化，過於含混。」

Continue reading “波赫士的富內斯”

I heard some open source projects for faceted browsing OPAC UI before. Just like the Endeca or AquaBrowser, the new-era end-user-interface will function alongside, not integrate into ILS(Integrated Library System). I think it’s a new trend for future Library system framework.

Now, here comes a Open-Source soluation: FacBackOPAC by Casey Durfee, based on the Apache lucene search project: Solr.

Solr is an open source enterprise search server based on the Lucene Java search library, with XML/HTTP and JSON APIs, hit highlighting, faceted search, caching, replication, and a web administration interface. It runs in a Java servlet container such as Tomcat.

Durfee’s lovely coding is just 250 lines program in PYTHON/Django to present a Endeca-like feature. The code is in Google Code and licensing in Apache License, everybody can download it.

Here are more Solr in Libraries experiments in various program languages (Perl, Rudy on Rails, etc…).
But there are still problems. The codepage in old MARC. And also the integrate between different Library information systems; meta-Search in multiple database is still complex. Someday the NISO MetaSearch Initiative may help this situation.

Another interesting open-source project is eXtensible Catalog (XC):

The University of Rochester’s River Campus Libraries is studying how best to develop an open-source online system that can unify access to traditional and digital library resources.

This project has several phases, the the phase 1(2006-2007): survey users and system environments was done. see the XC Survey Report here. There are some interesting results. For example, researchers ask respondents for their “What is the Dream on-line catalog products they will buy if money were no object?”:

Respondents clearly favored Endeca (17instances). Other popular choices were III Encore and Millennium (7 instances) andAquabrowser (6 instances). Fewer respondents chose Evergreen (4 instances) and Primo (3 instances). Several products were named less frequently, including Aleph (2 instances), Talis’snew product (2 instances), WorldCat (2 instances), and Sirsi (1 instance). When given theopportunity to think without being limited by financial concerns on this question, other librariessaid that they would purchase either Google (3 instances) or Amazon (1 instance) if money wereno object. Amazon’s programming was even more frequently named in the respondents’comments than in their product selections (3 comments).

This survey also ask respondents for OPAC features they most wanted, the top 3 :

1. Works alongside your existing library servers (catalog, metasearch, OpenURL link resolver, authentication server, repository, course management system) to provide new features to end users (578 response)
2. Faceted search interface (545 response)
3. Integrated user interface that searches across digital and non-digital resources (books, articles, digital repositories, DVDs and more) at the same time (497 response)