Chapter 6. Accessing Library Catalogs in the Age of Digital Libraries and
6.3. The secret order
6.3.4. Realizing the project
6.3.4.1. How members of the secret order carried out the project
Figure 6.4. Homepage of the municipal library in Reims showing the subject tree of the online catalog
Members of the secret order tried to implement the aims laid out in the manifesto within their own institutions.
Alongside traditional ways of accessing their online catalog, two libraries offer a topic-based access based on Dewey’s elements of classification:
Accessing Library Catalogs in the Age of Digital Libraries 95 – Reims municipal library has offered this type of access with the introduction of their “subject tree” that enables the user to discover the collection based on different themes18;
– the regional library of Aisne offers an interface where on the same screen keywords can be entered or a list of subject areas can be accessed directly19.
Figure 6.5. Homepage of the online catalog of the regional library of Aisne, France
18 http://www.bm-reims.fr/masc25/default.asp?instance=REIMS&setlanguage=fr. The content management tool Absys and the interface were created by a company called Archimed and adapted to the needs of Reims municipal library.
19 http://bdp.cg02.fr/catalogue.htm. The content management system Aloes was created by a company called Opsys who also participated in the installation of this interface.
96 Digital Libraries
The regional library of Val-d’Oise offers several interfaces on a topic-based search on its homepage20. Different topics that might be chosen are, for example, illustrated books for children, expositions, topic-based presentation of CDs and tapes for young people, presentation according to the different genre of music, books or CDs. A subject tree has been created for the first three topics mentioned above.
Music is classed according to the PDCM (principles for the classification of music documents applicable to library collections21).
Figure 6.6. Homepage of the regional library in Val-d’Oise. The interface shows a theme-based access to illustrated books for children
20 http://www.valdoise.fr/biblio/bdvo/. The company Sirsi created the content management system Multilis and the interface web DRA-web2. This adjustable interface was adapted by Victoria Courtois who is responsible for new technologies as well as information systems and communication NTIC at the regional library of Val-d’Oise.
21 This type of classification was published in [MUS 02].
Accessing Library Catalogs in the Age of Digital Libraries 97
Figure 6.7. Homepage of theme-based presentation of CDs and tapes for young people at the regional library of Val-d’Oise
The multimedia library of Agneaux (Manche) offers a catalog that enables the user to browse through different categories and is based on the Grumeau thesaurus which was especially created for this task.
Last but not least, MOCCAM22 is an open source program written by Quentin Chevignon which works as a collective virtual catalog. It provides a traditional search engine similar to Yahoo23 that enables the user to browse through categories of Dewey’s classification as well as a search based on the keywords of this classification. When entering a term MOCCAM also indicates Dewey’s sections that contain one of the terms.
22 My personal collective catalog: http://www.bmtriel.no-ip.org/ccy2.
23 http://www.moccam.no-ip.org/ccy2/modules/xoopsfaq/index.php ?cat_id=4#q14.
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6.3.4.2. How French software companies carried out the project
On his website Richard Roy has established and continually updates a directory of software companies24.
After the manifesto had been published, several companies created a topic-based access to catalogs:
– the company Opsys created a program called Aloes. In addition to the regional library of Aisne, the municipal library of Dijon25 also uses this program to provide access to themes such as literature for young people, different genres of novels and different genres of music;
– with its program Paprika Décalog offers two different types of topic-based access. This program is used in the municipal library of Vienne26, where Dewey’s classification is used for books, documentaries, and the PDCM standard is used for music, as well as in several French centers for culture abroad27, where this program provides access to different fields of interest that have previously been established by the company.
Creators of open source such as Koha28 or PMB29 are emerging and are progressively offering an increasing number of solutions for content management systems for libraries.
6.3.4.3. Other attempts to carry out this project
The members of the secret order are, of course, not pretentious and do not claim to have invented the concept of creating topic-based access for digital libraries. They recognize similar applications and other interfaces used for research.
When it comes to bibliographic references that do not stem from libraries, we can quote the bibliography of the SMES (society of medieval historians working in public higher education) that provides over 10,000 descriptions of the records which are structured in a hierarchical order30. Many other libraries worldwide also use
24 Please refer to http://site.voila.fr/le_butineur/web.htm, section: Réalisations.
25 http://www.bm-dijon.fr/c103.htm.
26 http://193.251.9.79/opacweb.
27 Instituts français in Madrid (http://www.ifmadrid.com), Budapest, (http://mediatheque.
inst-france.hu/Opacweb), Prague (http://ifp.paprika.net/Opacweb), Rio de Janeiro (http://medrio.paprika.net/opacweb) and New Delhi (http://firc.paprika.net/opacweb/).
28 http://fr.koha.org.
29 http://www.pizz.net.
30 http://www.mom.fr/shmes/biblio.
Accessing Library Catalogs in the Age of Digital Libraries 99 topic-based search tools. These can be youth interests such as the one in Auckland (New Zealand31) or popular subjects like in Kansas City (USA)32.