It can be a chicken-egg thing too.  Maybe more users would be doing more 
sophisticated searches if they actually _worked_. 

Plus I know that I could write systems to use federated search to embed 
certain functionality in certain places, if more sophisticated searches 
worked more reliably.

Walker, David wrote:
> I'm not sure it's a _big_ mess, though, at least for metasearching.
>
> I was just looking at our metasearch logs this morning, so did a quick count: 93% of the searches were keyword searches.  Not a lot of exactness required there.  It's mostly in the 7% who are doing more specific searches (author, title, subject) where the bulk if the problems lie, I suspect.
>
> --Dave
>
> ==================
> David Walker
> Library Web Services Manager
> California State University
> http://xerxes.calstate.edu
> ________________________________________
> From: Code for Libraries [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ray Denenberg, Library of Congress [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 8:32 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] exact title searches with z39.50
>
> Right, Mike. There is a long and rich history of the debate between loose
> and strict interpretation, in the world at large, and in particular, within
> Z39.50, this debate raged from the late 1980s throughout the 90s.  The
> faction that said "If you can't give the client what is asks for, at least
> give them something; make them happy" was almost religious in its zeal.
> Those who said "If you can't give the client what it asks for, be honest
> about it; give them good diagnostic information, tell them a better way to
> formulate the request, etc. But don't pretend the transaction was a success
> if it wasn't" was shouted down most every time.   I can't predict, but I'm
> just hoping that lessons have been learned from the mess that that mentality
> got us into.
>
> --Ray
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mike Taylor" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 10:43 AM
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] exact title searches with z39.50
>
>
>   
>> Ray Denenberg, Library of Congress writes:
>>     
>>>> The irony is that Z39.50 actually make _much_ more effort to
>>>> specify semantics than most other standards -- and yet still
>>>> finds itself in the situation where many implementations do not
>>>> respond correctly to the BIB-1 attribute 6=3
>>>> (completeness=complete field) which is how Eric should be able to
>>>> do what he wants here.
>>>>
>>>> Not that I have any good answers to this problem ... but I DO
>>>> know that inventing more and more replacement standards it NOT
>>>> the answer.  Everything that's come along since Z39.50 has
>>>> suffered from exactly the same problem but more so.
>>>>         
>>> I think this remains to be seen for SRU/CQL, in particular for the
>>> example at hand, how to search for exact title.  There are two
>>> related issues: one, how arcane the standard is, and two, how
>>> closely implementations conform to the intended semantics. And
>>> clearly the first has a bearing on the second.
>>>
>>> And even I would say that Z39.50 is a bit on the arcance side when
>>> it comes to formulating a query for exact title. With SRU/CQL there
>>> is an "exact" relation ('exact' in 1.1, '==' in 1.2).  So I would
>>> think there is less excuse for a server to apply a creative
>>> interpretation. If it cannot support "exact title" it should fail
>>> the search.
>>>       
>> IMHO, this is where it breaks down 90% of the time.  Servers that
>> can't do what they're asked should say "I can't do that", but -- for
>> reasons that seem good at the time -- nearly no server fails requests
>> that it can "sort of" fulfil.  Nine out of ten Z39.50 servers asked to
>> do a whole-field search and which can't do it will instead do a word
>> search, because "it's better to give the user SOMETHING".  I bet the
>> same is true of SRU servers.  (I am as guilty as anyone else, I've
>> written servers like that.)
>>
>> The idea that "it's better to give the user SOMETHING" might -- might
>> -- have been true when we mostly used Z39.50 servers for interactive
>> sessions.  Now that they are mostly used as targets in metasearching,
>> that approach is disastrous.
>>
>> _/|_ ___________________________________________________________________
>> /o ) \/  Mike Taylor    <[log in to unmask]>
>> http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
>> )_v__/\  "I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days
>> attack me at once" -- Ashleigh Brilliant.
>>     
>
>