Webcats and checklists: Some cautionary notes

loan M. Cherry's September 1998 ITAL-article does a careful job of evaluati ng Web online catalog displays based on checklist judging. This communicati on mises some questions about checklist judging in general and the Cherry c hecklist in particular, suggesting that checklist judging is inherently fla wed and that we don't know enough to establish the ideal online catalog dis play (if such an animal exists). A digression discusses the draft IFLA guid elines for catalog displays and suggests that they may do more haunt than g ood in recommending particular approaches for "standard" catalog displays.