John Marr wrote:

>   4. Are we (and should we be) in the business of controlling headings or
> supplying hotlinks?

Are you asking whether *either* of those is our business, or whether it's one vs. the other?  I certainly hope you mean the latter, because I can't wrap my head around the idea that controlling headings is something that shouldn't be done.

But if you're talking about one vs. the other, why does there have to be a choice?  It should be both.  With current technology, hotlinks should be an integral part of the metadata, either directly (in the record) or indirectly through various software routines that make up the user interface.  In this day and age, the user has every reason to expect that a name heading in an OPAC display should function as a link to other resources related to that name.

Kevin M. Randall
Principal Serials Cataloger
Bibliographic Services Dept.
Northwestern University Library
1970 Campus Drive
Evanston, IL  60208-2300
email: [log in to unmask]
phone: (847) 491-2939
fax:   (847) 491-4345