"How about this scenario? You like a book by John Smith. You retrieve it by title Book X. The record includes a hotlink with message: More by this creator. If all John Smiths are controlled by one undifferentiated record, you will retrieve books by all of the undifferentiated John Smiths. If each currently undifferentiated John Smith has a separate authority record (a separate ID) linked to all titles created by John Smith the author of Book X, I think that would be a great service for the user."

I think so, too, but in the case of authors with ubiquitous names, how would the books by the same author be determined and who would do the determining? Amazon and a few other websites attempt to do this kind of matching and they still put the George Clinton who writes filmscores in with the George Clinton who writes and performs funk. It's definitely better for patrons, but how do we go about accomplishing this, especially if we are constrained by our employers to do things in a timely manner?


Mike Tribby
Senior Cataloger
Quality Books Inc.
The Best of America's Independent Presses

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