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I never did finish my experiment with XSLT to be able to sort the items taken from Robert Teeter's Great Books Lists by applying different stylesheets. His data are compiled form an assorted list of "Great Books" Lists. I just put them into XML so that I could sort by the number of lists that mentioned each particular book. Here's the lists sorted by the number of Great Books Lists that mentioned the title. http://exlibris.colgate.edu/staff/charper/bestbooks/greatbooks.xml My effort to apply various stylesheets - under (delayed) construction: http://exlibris.colgate.edu/staff/charper/bestbooks/greatbooks.html It's in serious need of paging to make the load time realistic. And is there anyway to keep a client-side XSLT cahced so that it doesn't download the entire thing every time. Obviously, I've got a lot to learn about XSLT, but that was one of the points of this exercise. Aside from that, I really did want to see which were the Great Books Lists "most-cited". Cindy Harper, Systems Librarian Colgate University Libraries [log in to unmask] 315-228-7363 On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 4:23 PM, Eric Lease Morgan <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > On Nov 4, 2010, at 4:03 PM, Roberto Hoyle wrote: > > >> http://bit.ly/bPQHIg > > > > If you haven't read one of the books, doesn't that argue for it's lack of > 'greatness?' > > > > As Hamlet said, "Ay, there's the rub" because the definition of "greatness" > is ambiguous. The items in the set of Great Books were selected because > they: > > ...posses them [the great ideas] for a considerable > range of ideas, covering a variety of subject matters > or disciplines; *and among the great books the > greatest are those with the greatest range of > imaginative or intellectual content.* [1] > > In other words, the Great Books are "great" because they discuss a wide > variety of "great ideas" thoroughly. A great book, according to the > Hutchins, is one that elaborate upon many of the core concepts debated > throughout Western civilization. > > Consequently, a great book can be one that no one has read but elaborates > on many of the great ideas. > > [1] Hutchins, Robert Maynard. 1952. Great books of the Western World. > Chicago: Encyclopędia Britannica. Volume 3, page 1220. > > -- > Eric Lease Morgan > Hesburgh Libraries, University of Notre Dame > > (574) 631-8604 >