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Expert systems in reference services
804
Book Reviews
cepts, methods, findings, and techniques about management with a broad range of sister disciplines, our central intellectual function probably should be to understand as well as we can just how it is that documents (in the broadest sense) are constructed, organized, distributed, and used. Perhaps then we can achieve the stage of real knowledge accumulation and the scientistic monkey will be off our collective backs. College of Library and Information Services University of Maryland College Park, MD
J.S. KIDD
Expert Systems in Reference Services. C. ROYSDON, H.D. WHITE, (EDs.). Haworth Press, New York (1989). $34.95. xvii + 238 pp. ISBN O-866656-839-5. Originally published as Number 23 of the Reference Librarian, (RL), this volume brings together many of the most notable authorities on expert systems in reference work. The volume includes eleven chapter articles by such names as James Parrott, Dana E. Smith, and Karen F. Smith. Novice readers in this field should recognize these people for their pioneering work: ORA and REFSIM at the University of Waterloo during the entire decade of the 1980s; the Reference and Information Station at Purdue University, reported on in 1984; and POINTER developed at SUNY, Buffalo in the mid198Os, respectively. Among our students this number is one of the most popular issues of the RL. For that reason, perhaps acquisition librarians can justify having a second copy; that way, maybe at least one copy will be on the shelves. Regrettably, though, the editors did not have or demand an opportunity to correct some of the most serious typographic error and outright bibliographic ghosts that appeared in the original number. Much of the issue is devoted to reports on expert system (ES) prototyping underway. For example, Butkovich et al. report on their interesting work at Texas A&M, but leave out crucial information on how many times reference librarians referred students in the freshman writing project to different reference formats. Of course, that is what constitutes private, professional knowledge, and unfortunately we still do not know much about it. Another chapter article reports on AquaRef, a descendent of Sam Waters’ work at the National Agricultural Library, but does not systematically address shell software selection criteria. There are some high spots; for instance, the report by Jeff Fade11and Judy Myers on Information Machine, a menu-driven orientation to library services, policies, procedures, and facilities at the University of Houston. This system could work in other libraries and is available through AMIGOS. Incidentally, look for more developments coming out of Houston, because the U.S. Department of Education recently awarded them $99,852 to create an experimental intelligent reference information system (IRIS). Like other expert system developers, Karen Smith is beginning to think about how we should evaluate the resultant systems. In her article, she suggests it is appropriate to compare ES to traditional, print-based sources of information. Besides her stated criteria, others include: accuracy of advice, reliability, consistency, and easy maintenance. Perhaps ALA’s Booklist committee will issue guidelines for expert systems much like their well-respected manual on the reviewing of more traditional reference formats. The major drawback of this work is that most of the articles are descriptive in nature, so that what is lacking is rigorous analysis, synthesis (although Cavanaugh’s article comes close), or interpretative essays that identify a historically consistent and valid approach to developing expert systems in reference work. In fact, how we have taught and learned reference work during the past one hundred years is fundamentally important. Yet, among the three dozen prototypes in existence already, no one seems to be building on what we have learned in the past. In my 1990 Justin Winsor prize paper, I do this, by examining the intersection of (1) the reference materials (i.e., the tools of choice), (2) the reference process of classifying a question into one of these formats, and (3) the mental traits of users and reference librarians necessary for reference to take place in the first place. In other words, in developing expert systems, must we ignore the imagination and sensitivity developed over several generations of practiced reference librarians? Nonetheless, this source is the single most comprehensive work on the subject of expert systems in reference service. Otherwise, the literature is quite scattered. Happily, though, several book-length treatments of the topic are under way and may be available by the time this review appears in print.
Book Reviews
805
First, there is Ralph Alberico’s and Mary Micco’s Expert Systems for Reference and Information Retrieval (which Meckler originally announced as available in September 1988, but now reports that the publication date has slipped to late March 1990). Similarly, Rao Aluri and Don Rigg’s Expert Systems in Libraries is a bibliographic ghost, although it is cited in the introduction as having been published in 1988; Ablex promises it sometime in Spring 1990. Finally, there is my own book, tentatively entitled Expert Systems in General Reference Work: Applications, Problems, and Progress, which will be published by the American Library Association sometime in early 1991. Graduate School of Library and Information Science University of Caltfornia, Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA
JOHN RICHARDSON, JR.
Subject Control in Online Catalogs. R.P. HOLLEY (ED.). Haworth Press, New York (1989). $34.95. 251 pp. ISBN O-86656-793-3. Fourteen papers and an extensive, annotated bibliography make up the body of this work. Some very familiar names are here: Lois Chan, Mary Dykstra, Nancy J. Williamson, and Robert P. Holley, but unfortunately, this volume will not be the landmark in stature for this generation that The Subject Analysis of Library Materials and Bibliographic Organization were for a previous generation of librarians. Th editor assembled research, user behavior studies, reports of overseas developments, a thinkpiece on a new subject cataloging code, and an overview bibliography. Only the bibliography by Doris Cruger Dale will bring the reader back to this volume over and over again, for it contains references for background and forward-looking articles, as well as research and development. The research reports in this volume are rather pedestrian, some reporting mere titleword matching studies, or Boolean searching. Williamson’s paper is mistitled as it is more about thesauri than about classification, with more opinion than research in it. The articles about catalogers and reference librarians (Murdock, McCarthy, and Klugman) are the best of the bunch, and contain some very quotable passages (e.g., “The online public catalog with its subject content, a key to the catalog’s very heart and soul, remains immutable, unimproved, unintelligible, and inaccessible” (page 66)). Chan’s paper is a very diplomatic fence-walking effort. The Canadian and French contributions, although interesting, are system bound, and therefore not very generalizable. The most interesting thread through several papers has to do with the comments made about indexing and searching. McCarthy says, “In thinking about ways to achieve the best subject retrieval for library users, it may be worthwhile to compare the mental process of a cataloger deciding which subject heading to assign with that of a library user deciding which term to enter into an online catalog. . . . the cataloger strives for precision . . . the user is interested in recall.” p. 205 Jouguelet ends her article by saying, “ . . . we have talked about librarian indexing strategies and about patron searching. It is clear that the search language is their meeting point and that its capabilities determine in large measure the success of the search . . . The primary goal is to allow the user to get an appropriate response even if the question is not formulated in the same terms as at the point of indexing.” p. 224
contends that “research on other approaches should look beyond the thesaurus as a search aid in retrieval” (p. 102). Dykstra voices the opinion that “online technology has [obliterated] the traditional distinction between input and output, or between indexing and searching . . . the same system vocabulary functions as both the indexing language and the language of searching” (pp. 89-90). In all, these four authors could confuse some readers about a very interesting development in our thinking about catalogs, indexing, and searching. It is unfortunate that no articles by Bates, Markey, Hildreth, to mention only a few, appear to clarify some of these issues. Published also as Volume 10, Numbers l/2, 1989 of Cataloging & Classlfcation Quarterly, the work seems better suited to a serial format than an edited, titled volume. Its purpose seems to be a survey without a proper framework given to the authors. Papers seem to have been collected rather than commissioned and outlined by the editor. Again, lest we forget, the literature of the past generation is still a good read: The Subject Analysis of Library Materials; Papers Presented at an Institute, June 24-26, 1952, Columbia University. Maurice F. Tauber (Ed.). School of Library Service, Williamson
Book Reviews
cepts, methods, findings, and techniques about management with a broad range of sister disciplines, our central intellectual function probably should be to understand as well as we can just how it is that documents (in the broadest sense) are constructed, organized, distributed, and used. Perhaps then we can achieve the stage of real knowledge accumulation and the scientistic monkey will be off our collective backs. College of Library and Information Services University of Maryland College Park, MD
J.S. KIDD
Expert Systems in Reference Services. C. ROYSDON, H.D. WHITE, (EDs.). Haworth Press, New York (1989). $34.95. xvii + 238 pp. ISBN O-866656-839-5. Originally published as Number 23 of the Reference Librarian, (RL), this volume brings together many of the most notable authorities on expert systems in reference work. The volume includes eleven chapter articles by such names as James Parrott, Dana E. Smith, and Karen F. Smith. Novice readers in this field should recognize these people for their pioneering work: ORA and REFSIM at the University of Waterloo during the entire decade of the 1980s; the Reference and Information Station at Purdue University, reported on in 1984; and POINTER developed at SUNY, Buffalo in the mid198Os, respectively. Among our students this number is one of the most popular issues of the RL. For that reason, perhaps acquisition librarians can justify having a second copy; that way, maybe at least one copy will be on the shelves. Regrettably, though, the editors did not have or demand an opportunity to correct some of the most serious typographic error and outright bibliographic ghosts that appeared in the original number. Much of the issue is devoted to reports on expert system (ES) prototyping underway. For example, Butkovich et al. report on their interesting work at Texas A&M, but leave out crucial information on how many times reference librarians referred students in the freshman writing project to different reference formats. Of course, that is what constitutes private, professional knowledge, and unfortunately we still do not know much about it. Another chapter article reports on AquaRef, a descendent of Sam Waters’ work at the National Agricultural Library, but does not systematically address shell software selection criteria. There are some high spots; for instance, the report by Jeff Fade11and Judy Myers on Information Machine, a menu-driven orientation to library services, policies, procedures, and facilities at the University of Houston. This system could work in other libraries and is available through AMIGOS. Incidentally, look for more developments coming out of Houston, because the U.S. Department of Education recently awarded them $99,852 to create an experimental intelligent reference information system (IRIS). Like other expert system developers, Karen Smith is beginning to think about how we should evaluate the resultant systems. In her article, she suggests it is appropriate to compare ES to traditional, print-based sources of information. Besides her stated criteria, others include: accuracy of advice, reliability, consistency, and easy maintenance. Perhaps ALA’s Booklist committee will issue guidelines for expert systems much like their well-respected manual on the reviewing of more traditional reference formats. The major drawback of this work is that most of the articles are descriptive in nature, so that what is lacking is rigorous analysis, synthesis (although Cavanaugh’s article comes close), or interpretative essays that identify a historically consistent and valid approach to developing expert systems in reference work. In fact, how we have taught and learned reference work during the past one hundred years is fundamentally important. Yet, among the three dozen prototypes in existence already, no one seems to be building on what we have learned in the past. In my 1990 Justin Winsor prize paper, I do this, by examining the intersection of (1) the reference materials (i.e., the tools of choice), (2) the reference process of classifying a question into one of these formats, and (3) the mental traits of users and reference librarians necessary for reference to take place in the first place. In other words, in developing expert systems, must we ignore the imagination and sensitivity developed over several generations of practiced reference librarians? Nonetheless, this source is the single most comprehensive work on the subject of expert systems in reference service. Otherwise, the literature is quite scattered. Happily, though, several book-length treatments of the topic are under way and may be available by the time this review appears in print.
Book Reviews
805
First, there is Ralph Alberico’s and Mary Micco’s Expert Systems for Reference and Information Retrieval (which Meckler originally announced as available in September 1988, but now reports that the publication date has slipped to late March 1990). Similarly, Rao Aluri and Don Rigg’s Expert Systems in Libraries is a bibliographic ghost, although it is cited in the introduction as having been published in 1988; Ablex promises it sometime in Spring 1990. Finally, there is my own book, tentatively entitled Expert Systems in General Reference Work: Applications, Problems, and Progress, which will be published by the American Library Association sometime in early 1991. Graduate School of Library and Information Science University of Caltfornia, Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA
JOHN RICHARDSON, JR.
Subject Control in Online Catalogs. R.P. HOLLEY (ED.). Haworth Press, New York (1989). $34.95. 251 pp. ISBN O-86656-793-3. Fourteen papers and an extensive, annotated bibliography make up the body of this work. Some very familiar names are here: Lois Chan, Mary Dykstra, Nancy J. Williamson, and Robert P. Holley, but unfortunately, this volume will not be the landmark in stature for this generation that The Subject Analysis of Library Materials and Bibliographic Organization were for a previous generation of librarians. Th editor assembled research, user behavior studies, reports of overseas developments, a thinkpiece on a new subject cataloging code, and an overview bibliography. Only the bibliography by Doris Cruger Dale will bring the reader back to this volume over and over again, for it contains references for background and forward-looking articles, as well as research and development. The research reports in this volume are rather pedestrian, some reporting mere titleword matching studies, or Boolean searching. Williamson’s paper is mistitled as it is more about thesauri than about classification, with more opinion than research in it. The articles about catalogers and reference librarians (Murdock, McCarthy, and Klugman) are the best of the bunch, and contain some very quotable passages (e.g., “The online public catalog with its subject content, a key to the catalog’s very heart and soul, remains immutable, unimproved, unintelligible, and inaccessible” (page 66)). Chan’s paper is a very diplomatic fence-walking effort. The Canadian and French contributions, although interesting, are system bound, and therefore not very generalizable. The most interesting thread through several papers has to do with the comments made about indexing and searching. McCarthy says, “In thinking about ways to achieve the best subject retrieval for library users, it may be worthwhile to compare the mental process of a cataloger deciding which subject heading to assign with that of a library user deciding which term to enter into an online catalog. . . . the cataloger strives for precision . . . the user is interested in recall.” p. 205 Jouguelet ends her article by saying, “ . . . we have talked about librarian indexing strategies and about patron searching. It is clear that the search language is their meeting point and that its capabilities determine in large measure the success of the search . . . The primary goal is to allow the user to get an appropriate response even if the question is not formulated in the same terms as at the point of indexing.” p. 224
contends that “research on other approaches should look beyond the thesaurus as a search aid in retrieval” (p. 102). Dykstra voices the opinion that “online technology has [obliterated] the traditional distinction between input and output, or between indexing and searching . . . the same system vocabulary functions as both the indexing language and the language of searching” (pp. 89-90). In all, these four authors could confuse some readers about a very interesting development in our thinking about catalogs, indexing, and searching. It is unfortunate that no articles by Bates, Markey, Hildreth, to mention only a few, appear to clarify some of these issues. Published also as Volume 10, Numbers l/2, 1989 of Cataloging & Classlfcation Quarterly, the work seems better suited to a serial format than an edited, titled volume. Its purpose seems to be a survey without a proper framework given to the authors. Papers seem to have been collected rather than commissioned and outlined by the editor. Again, lest we forget, the literature of the past generation is still a good read: The Subject Analysis of Library Materials; Papers Presented at an Institute, June 24-26, 1952, Columbia University. Maurice F. Tauber (Ed.). School of Library Service, Williamson