Subjects
Assignment
Due:
December 7, 2009
Bayo
Cary
Part
I.
Information
Object: The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for
Living
Descriptor: book-text
A.
Dr. Howard D. Cutler, an American
psychiatrist, interviews the Buddhist monk His Holiness the Dalai Lama (H.H.
the Dalai Lama). Cutler believes that H.H.
the Dalai Lama is happy. Cutler seeks to
uncover the roots of H.H. the Dalai Lama’s happiness. Through interviews with H.H. the Dalai Lama,
Cutler identifies what practices of H.H. the Dalai Lama can be applied to the
life of a lay person. The Art of Happiness
presents a summary of the conversations between Cutler and H.H. the Dalai Lama
as well as advice on to how to live a happier life.
B.
The audience for this book could be individuals in search of books by
and about H.H. the Dalai Lama, or individuals interested in self-help books
regarding mental health, or mental health professionals interested in how the
field is evolving. Individuals who are
interested in H.H. the Dalai Lama would be interested in H.H. the Dalai Lama’s
recommendations for living a happier life.
People who may consider themselves unhappy or discontent in some way
could apply some of H.H. the Dalai Lama’s recommendations to their life to
improve their quality of life. Mental
health professionals may be able to gain new helpful techniques to apply to the
mental health services that they deliver.
An unlikely audience may be a religion student who is interested in
having a better grasp of the tenets of Buddhism. The Art of Happiness does not describe
Buddhism in detail. The Art of
Happiness is about achieving happiness regardless of an individual’s
religious preference. Therefore, this
book is not really a Buddhist text per se.
C.
1. meditate,
Buddhism, H.H. the Dalai Lama, psychiatrist, happiness, Dr. Howard D. Cutler
2. self-help,
religion, mental health, psychology
Part
II.
A.
1. Buddhist,
psychology, H.H. the Dalai Lama, self-help, happiness, Dr. Howard D. Cutler,
religious, mental health
2. What is aboutness? Aboutness is an information retrieval issue (Hjorland, 2001). Aboutness has the
same meaning as the word “subject” (Hjorland, 2001). The concept of
aboutness is a relatively familiar, although it is not always thought of as
such (P.D. Bruza, 2000).
Therefore, the idea of compiling a list of terms which refer to a
subject’s aboutness should be relatively facile. However, I found it to be somewhat
challenging.
The list of terms for object was very
precise and concrete. I was able to
cover the aboutness of the object with one word descriptors. However, when I attempted to use one word to describe
the subject of the text I was, for the most part, unable to do so. The subject of the text covers more than can
be expressed in a one word summary. I
think the most effective subject search for The Art of Happiness would
be to use Boolean search terms or search phrases.
B.
1. Yahoo
and Bing
2. Dr.
Howard D. Cutler and Buddhism Self-help Happiness
3. Since the inception of the Internet
search and retrieval have been an issue.
There is a plethora of information and very few ways have been devised
to organize it all. Recommendations were
made to improve Online Public Access Catalogs (OPAC) (Young, 2004). However, those recommendations have yet to
be implemented by OPACs(Young, 2004). Over the years, those same recommendations
have been adopted into the new and evolving web search engines (Young, 2004). Users of web search engines have gotten use
to a certain mode of query (Young, 2004). However, the same search options are not
available in OPACs. This is to the
chagrin of many library catalog searchers.
Thankfully, this is not the case when using web search engines.
When I searched both Yahoo and Bing I
expected more books to be returned having to do with happiness and
Buddhism. I have read several books on
the subject of Buddhism and happiness; however, I did not see any of their
titles listed. The only book that was
returned was The Art of Happiness.
Clearly, more improvements can still stand to be made of web search
engines.
Yet another suggestion to improving
search and retrieval, which could be applied to both OPACs and web search
engines, is the addition of an intelligent agent. According to James Jensen, agents are not
completely autonomous, however, they do rely on artificial intelligence to
direct their tasks and are capable of learning by example (Jansen, 1997).
Because the agent is an extension of, the computer and is capable of
complex tasks, the agent can carry out tasks on behalf of the computer operator
(Jansen, 1997). Jansen concludes, after having tested his
hypothesis: that an intelligent agent may improve search and retrieval engines,
that combining intelligent agents with search and retrieval engines could in
fact improve retrieval rates (Jansen, 1997).
C.
Subject searches have been a way to locate items in a library for over a
century now (Hoffman, 2001).
Charles A. Cutter suggested
that libraries organize their objects by subject headings (Hoffman, 2001).
Some objects in libraries are organized by subject headings while other
objects are not (Hoffman, 2001).
For this reason some objects in libraries are difficult to locate. Therefore, I had no idea how difficult or
easy it would be to locate The Art of Happiness in the WorldCat
database.
My first search was for
the key words psychiatrist and happiness.
The search returned 36 hits. The
number one hit was The Art of Happiness.
My second search was for key words Howard D. Cutler and happiness. There were 16 hits returned. The number one hit was The Art of
Happiness. My third search was for
key words Dalai Lama and happiness. I
received 317 hits. The Art of
Happiness was the first hit. The
last query was for key words Buddhism and happiness. There were 810 hits. The first hit was The Art of Happiness. These were the most successful of the
searches. Had I used different terms, I
would have gotten varying results.
There is another way that libraries are considering implementing to
increase their subject access hit count, and that is through the utilization of
social tagging (Rolla, 2009). Social tagging is a popular way of labeling
objects. It is used on the Internet at
many websites such as delicious and fickr.
The library of Congress Working Group on the future of Bibliographic
Control wants, along with others, to bring social tagging into the library
setting (Rolla, 2009). Social tagging and subject headings would be
utilized concurrently (Rolla, 2009). Individuals would have an opportunity to
compare the social tags on objects to the subject headings on objects (Rolla, 2009). This would grant patrons a fresh
perspective. Patrons would have a second
opinion.
D. Subject headings are traditionally
nonbiased (Naun, 2006). When searching for The Art of Happiness, I
did not need to worry that there was some stigma attached to the book because
Buddhist principles are mentioned. The
purpose of the library is to provide everyone equal access to all kinds of
literature (Naun, 2006). Although the breadth and depth of collections
vary from library to library variety and inclusiveness are encouraged. For this reason I was hopeful that I would
locate The Art of Happiness in the WorldCat online Catalog.
I entered the key words the Dalai Lama
and happiness and came up with The Art of Happiness as the first record
retrieved. I clicked on a detailed view
of the record and then scrolled down to the subjects section of the
record. I clicked on the descriptor: Happiness--Religious
aspects -- Buddhism. It
led me to a list of 313 hits all having to do with happiness and Buddhism.
According to a study conducted by
Julie Banks, contrary to what would seem to be normal, books with a greater
number of subject headings tend to circulate the least (Banks, 2004). The subject headings are so helpful at
locating specific information, I would think that the more subject headings the
better. The results I received from the
subject search were much more narrowly construed than the results I received
when I did the search in Part II C. I
was not able, through my mix and match of terms, to come up with terms which
reflected what I was searching for as well as those terms which were provided
by the library catalog.
E.
1.
Religious
life -- Buddhism.
Happiness -- Religious aspects -- Buddhism.
Buddhism -- Doctrines.
Happiness -- Popular Works.
Buddhism -- Popular Works.
Happiness -- Religious aspects -- Buddhism.
Buddhism -- Doctrines.
Happiness -- Popular Works.
Buddhism -- Popular Works.
2. While each of the headings pulled up a
different list of objects, The Art of Happiness was always the first
object on the list. As previously
stated, there were different objects being pulled up for each category some categories
pulled up more than 1,000 hits and some of less than 100. I think that it is helpful to have that
variety available. In that way an
individual can choose between additional objects that are closely related to
their original subject area or further away from their original subject area.
Part
III.
A. The keyword Howard D.
Cutler was the best term for locating The Art of Happiness via Yahoo and
Bing. While the keywords Dalai Lama and
happiness were the best phrase for locating The Art of Happiness in
WorldCat. Yahoo and Bing immediately
pulled up The Art of Happiness as a book which Cutler had authored. Because The Art of Happiness was a New
York Times bestseller it is a rather popular text and therefore well known on
the web through its association with the author.
In WorldCat the book The Art of
Happiness was most easily retrieved in connection to H.H. the Dalai
Lama. The subject headings on the
detailed record of The Art of Happiness all have to do with happiness
and Buddhism or religion and Buddhist popular works. There are not any subject headings listed
under The Art of Happiness for psychiatry or Dr. Howard D. Cutler. The WorldCat library system basically
classifies The Art of Happiness as a Buddhist text. However, the web search
engines, Yahoo and Bing, classify The Art of Happiness as a book by the
psychiatrist Dr. Howard D. Cutler.
B.
Controlled vocabularies are most useful
when used in conjunction with a closed system such as an OPAC (Joudrey, 2009). The vast amount of information available on
the Internet is not readily organized by a controlled vocabulary (Joudrey,
2009). There are so many possibilities insofar as
web data is concerned. Controlled
vocabularies not only have to be developed but they also must be maintained (Joudrey, 2009). This takes a great deal of time and
energy. Organizing the Internet would be
a monolithic task.
The benefits of a controlled vocabulary
are both increased precision and increased recall of objects (McLain, 1987).
In a controlled system, such as a library, where there are professionals
to label the objects a controlled vocabulary can be constructed and maintained (Joudrey, 2009). Searches which utilize an uncontrolled or
semi-controlled vocabulary tend to have decreased precision and tend to return a
lower hit count. However, information
contained in web search engines such as Yahoo and Bing tend to contain an
infinite amount of information. The
information contained in web search engines bodes amazing possibilities because
of its vastness, whereas the OPAC’s contain a finite amount of information.
Part
IV.
References
Banks, J. (2004). Does the Number of Subject Headings
on a Bibliographic Record Affect Circulation Intensity? Retrieved November 29,
2009, from: http://pdfserve.informaworld.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/747257_751309558_904054597.pdf
Hjorland, B. (2001).
Towards a Theory of Aboutness, Subject, Topicality, Theme, Domain, Field,
Content . . . and Relevance. Retrieved November 29, 2009 from: http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/ehost/pdf?vid=2&hid=107&sid=02cf1a12-64ac-4250-af5d-bd1b63e4450d%40sessionmgr110
Hoffman, H. H. (2001).
Subject Access to Works in Online Catalogs. Retrieved November 29, 2009 from: http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/hww/results/results_single_fulltext.jhtml;hwwilsonid=ETJY5CKNDVSTBQA3DILSFGGADUNGIIV0
Jansen, J. (1997,
March). Using an Intelligent Agent to Enhance Search Engine Performance.
Retrieved November 29, 2009 from: http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/517/438
Joudrey, A. G. (2009).
The Organization of Information. Westport: Libraries Unlimited.
McLain, B. R. (1987).
Entry Point Depth and Online Search Using a Controlled Vocabulary.Retrieved
November 29, 2009 from: http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/ehost/pdf?vid=2&hid=107&sid=2fb0fda0-f926-4124-a46b-32da50a522cd%40sessionmgr111
Naun, C. C. (2006).
Objectivity and Subject Access in the Print Library. Retrieved November 29, 2009
from: http://pdfserve.informaworld.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/178900_751309558_903289652.pdf
P.D. Bruza, D. S.
(2000). Aboutness from a Commonsense Perspective. Retrieved November 29, 2009
from: http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/ehost/pdf?vid=2&hid=107&sid=df7aab12-5327-40b6-b7a4-e5dfbbbca336%40sessionmgr104
Rolla, P. J. (2009).
User Tags versus Subject Headings: Can User-Supplied Data Improve Subject
Access to Library Collections? Retrieved November 21, 2009 from: http://find.galegroup.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/gtx/retrieve.do?contentSet=IAC-Documents&qrySerId=&inPS=true&tabID=T002&prodId=AONE&searchId=R1&retrieveFormat=PDF¤tPosition=1&userGroupName=tall85761&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&sort=DateDescend&docId=A203335838&noOfPages=11
Young, H. Y. (2004).
The Impact of Web Search Engines on Subject Searching in OPAC. Retrieved
November 29, 2009 from: http://find.galegroup.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/gtx/retrieve.do?contentSet=IAC-Documents&qrySerId=&inPS=true&tabID=T002&prodId=AONE&searchId=R2&retrieveFormat=PDF¤tPosition=1&userGroupName=tall85761&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&sort=DateDescend&docId=A129629261&noOfPages=13
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