(please excuse cross-posting) All, If what follows seems *too enthusiastic*, forgive me. One of my non-lib friends who has published papers and recently told me how frustrated he got with library catalogs, said in response to this tool: "Simply amazing. Really" - and put it on his wiki page immediately, so I'm going on that. Also, James Weinheimer, a frequent poster on AUTOCAT and NGC4Lib lists, has said "This is a wonderful beginning! It looks as if there is finally something browsable for ordinary people to use... MUCH easier for the public to search than the LC authority file" (of course James wanted to rewrite this, fearing it sounded "a lot like a blurb on a book cover", but I wouldn't let him, not wanting to lose the impact of his initial enthusiastic reaction). Before I myself go into "active promotion mode" please note: As Bernhard says, *"This is still a demonstration of a concept rather than a full-fledged and robust application. After all, it was only a few hours I could devote to it."* He also adds that *"Improvements are certainly necessary, but also possible",* adding that, "There are... imperfections in the data conversion, as I left out all the 670s and such stuff that is not of immediate use for searching. Also, some special characters are wrong. And there are duplicates." There are currently 5.3 million records and 14.9 million index entries. Scope notes will be forthcoming. With that said... Many of us have no doubt noted that Google Book Search has started to use one part of librarians' inheritance -LCSH - no doubt to bring some order to the chaos... to control the flood of information. (http://www.catalogingfutures.com/catalogingfutures/2007/10/google-using -lc.html) This makes sense. Search engines like Google and the like, with their undeniably useful mathematical algorithms, popularity ("relevance") rankings, and ability to pinpoint exact phrases, etc. obviously have their place - especially to obtain quick facts. But we all experience not only the power, but also the limitations of keyword searching. Issues of the quality of results aside, search engines themselves are *not always even the best way of getting quality information in a timely fashion*, depending on one's area of inquiry (disciplinary focus), purpose, etc. And though we might make some serendipitous finds using Google, etc., sometimes the amount of hits unrelated to our spoken and unspoken questions can be very frustrating - what we really want is a more "controlled" - and even "assured" type of serendipity *** - see below Many of us also probably noted that back in Feb., LCSH authority data was "freed" (and probably a lot of people were trying to figure out what they could do with it) (http://www.librarian.net/stax/1970/loc-authority-files-yours-to-keep/) Bernhard Eversberg (Universitetsbibliothek Braunschweig [log in to unmask]) has done something - and I think his accomplishment will sink in more and more, as you play with the tool: http://www.biblio.tu-bs.de/db/lcsh/ (screen with explanation) http://www.biblio.tu-bs.de/db/lcsh/detail.php (boolean search option screen) Try it out. I suggest the topic of World War II. Start your search by choosing "phrase" and using "ww II", "world war 2", or "world war two" - and see what happens (and keep in mind, as James Weinheimer likes to point out to his students, a keyword search for "world war II" is not going to get you any primary documents :-) ). Also, on the Boolean search option screen try "battle" in the first field and "world war" in the second, and press the "search" button... Also... choose the "word" search and try "horses". Browse down the list and you will notice "Equine herpesvirus diseases", probably asking yourself, "How did my search term 'horses' find that... how did it know this was related?" Click on it to get an idea of how it happened. No, it is not "semantic web" technology. Rather, the whole valuable structure of LCSH is simply being more effectively utilized and presented in a more intuitive way for the user (and the links right into WorldCAT, Google Books, and LT are pretty cool too). As Bernhard puts it: "LCSH, in particular, consists mostly of multi-part terms which to input correctly as such is outside reality. But the complexity of it represents a considerable investment that can be tapped into by browsing, with very little effort." (Aside: I think this is a great complement to the Endeca-type of search we've become accustomed to seeing, which takes a basic keyword search and utilizes the structure of LCSH and LCC, dropping the user into a structured environment that is easy to use, and can entice them to surf around the catalog some more with the help of the controlled vocabulary, structure, etc). Of course, useful "maps" of the world's persons, places, things, ideas, etc. might come to us in a variety of forms. Alphabetical lists of things have been found to be particularly useful, if not necessary, for collections of large size, and have been with us since the library of Alexandria. This, of course, does not preclude still other creative ways of doing lists and browsing, perhaps by combining this text with this related text or image, etc. Kevin Kelly of Wired magazine has predicted that users of the future electronic library would be able to bring together, "all texts- past and present, multilingual - on a particular subject". I submit that Bernhard has provided *a* *realistic* - and exciting - way forward for us - showing how the old and the new can come together to serve the user. I suspect there are some real possibilities here. I think that all in all, this is not too bad for something done in one's spare time without funding. Play with the tool and let Bernhard know what you think. ***for more thought on the limitations of this kind of searching and inquiry, see the fine articles referenced by these blog posts: -http://www.everythingismiscellaneous.com/2007/06/25/why-we-need-librari ans/ -http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/09/the_work_of_lea.html -http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2007/11/digitization_and_i ts_discontents.html) [sorry if all my URLS in this message break up - I can't get them to work with tinyurl for some reason] Regards, Nathan Rinne Media Cataloging Technician ISD 279 - Educational Service Center (ESC) 11200 93rd Ave. North Maple Grove, MN. 55369 Work phone: 763-391-7183