RE: {LibGaming} Re: Controlled Vocabulary?

[Eli Neiburger]

I'm not aware of anyone who's done this purely library-style, but in the game industry there are several sites that have developed controlled vocabularies for the same reasons that a library would... they just don't call them 'controlled vocabularies'. The best example is probably gamerankings.com. If you go to their advanced search page, and check the category dropdown, you'll find a robust and thorough hierarchical vocabulary of game genres that is as complete as it gets. Unlike any library collection, essentially every game released in the past 7 years is in their database, and every item is already assigned a category; you might even treat it as an OCLC for games. No MARC records to copy, though. =) Going even further, since gamerankings review score is an average of essentially all published reviews for a given game, your collection development policy might even specify a range of gamerankings scores required for an item to be considered for the collection.

For a simpler but still standard set of terms, Gamefaqs.com is even more exhaustive in terms of titles as gamerankings, but they've made do with a simple set of 8 genres: Action, Adventure, Driving, Puzzle, Role-Playing, Simulation, Sports and Strategy. That certainly does the trick, but having the level of detail that the gamerankings vocabulary offers would be a benefit to gamers who might use your collection. On the other hand, if the vocabulary gets too specific, it can lose utility for casual users. On the gripping hand, most gamers don't need a MARC record to tell them what genre a game is.... they just know.

Cool project, good luck!

Eli Neiburger
AADL Tech Manager

-----Original Message-----
From: LibG...@googlegroups.com [mailto:LibG...@googlegroups.com]On
Behalf Of Scott Nicholson
Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2007 11:49 PM
To: LibG...@googlegroups.com
Subject: {LibGaming} Re: Controlled Vocabulary?

This isn't a trivial question, as there isn't much out there for
libraries to use right now. In fact, that's one of the things we have
requested funding to develop through the
currently-seeking-funding-nonexistent-Game Lab. It certainly won't be
ready for your project, but if we get funding, that is one of the
first problems to tackle. So, if you know anyone in the IMLS
decision-making process, let them know it's a great idea!

Scott Nicholson

On 4/4/07, Jeremy L <holy...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Carina,
>
> I am also currently in library school. The best way to do this in my
> opinion would be do use the game genre categories that are already in
> everyday use. Role-Play Game, First Person Shooter, Strategy and so on.
> And then to further subdivide it into age categories by those already in use
> by the ESRB.
>
> -Jeremy
>
> Hi!
>
> I'm developing a hypothetical video games collection for a class @
> Library School. I'm curious what kinds of controlled vocabularies or
> subject heading authority lists everyone is using for their metadata
> content?
>
> Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
>
> Carina
>
>
> >
>

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