Emily,

Are you using LC or Dewey?

A while back, I wanted to generate browsable lists of new books,
organized by topic.  I ended up using the LC call number to group the
titles into manageable groups.  Here's an example:
    http://supportingcast.mannlib.cornell.edu/newbooks/?loc=mann

Titles are sorted by call number, and also grouped by the initial
letters of the LC classification, such as "Q" or "QL".  For monthly
lists of new books, most groupings usually have less than 20 titles,
which makes for easy browsing of titles within someone's general
subject of interest.  The Table of Contents at the top of the page
only lists those classifications that are present in the set of titles
currently being viewed.  (In an earlier version, Q would only be split
into QA, QB, etc. if there were more than 20 items with Q call
numbers.)

Things do tend to get a bit out of control in some of the
classifications for literature... no one wants to scan through a list
of 452 titles:
    http://supportingcast.mannlib.cornell.edu/newbooks/?class=PL

So for entire collections, a lot more work would be needed to create
finer subgroups, since each classification is uniquely complex.  For
example:
  PL1-8844 : Languages of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania
      PL1-481 : Ural-Altaic languages
          PL21-396 : Turkic languages
          PL400-431 : Mongolian languages
          PL450-481 : Tungus Manchu languages

(An idea... maybe it would work to simply forget about pre-determined,
named call number ranges and look for "natural breaks" in the call
numbers, rather than trying to model the intricate details of each
individual classification schedule.)

The site runs on a set of MARC records extracted from the catalog.
Users can also subscribe to RSS feeds for any combination of location,
language, or classification group.

I did some early experimentation to include cover images, but never
seemed to get enough matches to make that worthwhile.

Keith

Keith Jenkins
GIS/Geospatial Applications Librarian
Mann Library, Cornell University
Ithaca, New York 14853


On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 11:46 AM, Emily Lynema <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> I would love to tackle the issue of creating a really cool call number
> browse tool that utilizes book covers, etc. However, I'd like to do this
> outside of my ILS/OPAC. What I don't know is whether there are any indexing
> / SQL / query techniques that could be used to browse forward and backword
> in an index like this.
>
> Has anyone else worked on developing a tool like this outside of the OPAC? I
> guess I would be perfectly happy even if it was something I could build
> directly on top of the ILS database and its indexes (we use SirsiDynix
> Unicorn).
>
> I wanted to throw a feeler out there before trying to dream up some wild
> scheme on my own.
>
> -emily
>
> P.S. The version of BiblioCommons released at Oakville Public Library has a
> sweet call number browse function accessible from the full record page. I
> would love to know know how that was accomplished.
>
> http://opl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/1413841_mars
>
> --
> Emily Lynema
> Systems Librarian for Digital Projects
> Information Technology, NCSU Libraries
> 919-513-8031
> [log in to unmask]
>