D3.4 Report on Cross-Language Subject Access Options Subject access seminar, Prague Patrice Landry Swiss National Library

Goal of the study Overview of approaches used in establishing interoperability between subject access tools Emphasis on successful or viable practices, projects and research Basis for realistic recommendations

Focus on subject access in national libraries  National libraries are committed to providing controlled vocabulary access to large collections of printed documents  Standard subject indexing tools are still the best means of providing quality access.  The 10 NMS are all using current standard indexing tools (many from the 1990s)  Full-text access to electronic collections represent a new challenge for researchers needing in-dept access to documents in all subjects

Subject access issues in networked environment  Many different type of controlled subject vocabularies used for access to resources in various networks (subject headings, thesauri, classification schemes and ontologies) and in different languages  Subject queries across databases or networks limited by heterogeneous language environment  Lack of interoperability between subject indexing tools limits access and use of national libraries catalogues and databases

The case of the 10 NMS  Subject headings 4 different types of subject heading languages LCSH (or adaptations of): in 6 languages, including English Sears Subject Headings in English 2 national subject heading languages (Poland and Slovenia 10 languages used  Thesauri 4 different thesauri used 4 languages used, including English  Classification 2 classification schemes used (UDC-DDC) Captions in 5 languages

Interoperability in the context of the 10 NMS  The TMM project has focused attention on the 10 NMS national libraries and has gathered precise information on subject indexing tools used  The type of vocabularies used (currently or previously) are similar to those used in many interoperability projects  Some NMS libraries already involved in interoperability projects (i.e MSAC)  The use of the LCSH (and equivalences), Sears, UDC and DDC offer a good base for interiperability projects

Interoperability: some basic approaches  Merging (Integration) of thesauri: UNESCO, TermSciences  Co-occurrence: LCSH/CSH = RVM  Translation: LCSH  RVM  Automatic translation: Dandelon  Adaptation / Derivation: RVM  RAMEAU ; LCSH  FAST  Mapping: between similar languages (MACS) or between different type (OCLC’s LCSH/DDC, CrissCross)  Switching: using an existing language (DDC): Renardus or (UDC): MSAC

Merging of Thesauri: UNESCO (1)

Merging of Thesauri: UNESCO (2)

Merging of Thesauri: TermSciences

Co-occurrence: LCSH/CSH = RVM

Automatic translation: Dandelon

Automatic translation: Dandelon (2)

Adaptation / Derivation: RVM → RAMEAU

Adaptation / Derivation: LCSH → FAST LCSH: Furniture–United States–History–19th century FAST: Topic: Furniture--History Chronological: Geographic: United States

Mapping between similar indexing languages: MACS (SHLs)

Mapping between different indexing languages: WebDewey (LCSH → DDC)

Mapping between different indexing languages: CrissCross (SWD → DDC)

Switching: using DDC (Renardus)

Switching: using UDC (MSAC)

Methodological considerations in conducting the study  Identify and describe relevant projects and practices  Select the most interesting and viable ones for TMM  Organise by categories / types according to the 10 NMS needs  Recommend future actions within TMM and TEL (part of the recommendations proposed in D.3.6)

Categories of subject access interoperability projects reviewed  Between subject headings:MACS  Between thesauri: Merimee, UMLS Metathesaurus, TermSciences  Between subject headings and classification (UDC): MSAC  Between subject headings and classification (DDC): OCLC’s WebDewey, CrissCross  Between various type of subject indexing tools: HILT, Renardus

Some thoughts on the study  Used previous studies as a guide to recent projects (~last 10 years): Zeng and Chan (2004), Doerr (2001) and HILT Project(2001)  Interesting to see the life circle of each project  Many projects have difficulties in moving to a production / institutional phase  Sustainability is often an issue (financial and institutional support)

Evaluation of the projects reviewed  Evaluated in the context of the subject indexing tools of the 10 NMS and potential for TEL Some projects were still at the early stage of development or production (MSAC, CrissCross) but are relevant to the situation of the 10 NMS. MACS project the only one that deals with linking subject headings (but does not include yet the SHLs used by the 10 NMS) Some projects have succeeded in specialised domains (UMLS Metathesaurus, Merimee and TermSciences) using thesauri. HILT project offers a good project model and an efficient automatic support for link creation. The scope of the project is nevertheless outside of the scope of the needs of the 10 NMS.

Recommendations The study did recognize the value of the mapping approaches used in MACS, MSAC, CrissCross (WEbDewey) as a way to achieve multilingual subject interoperability using different subject indexing tools What is presently lacking is results showing the feasibility of large scale searching across heterogeneous databases and catalogues. Propose further mapping tests involving MACS and MSAC and further mapping could include data from other projects, i.e. CrissCross and WebDewey. Projects such as HILT, TermSciences and WebDewey could be further investigated for automated mapping testing.

Specific recommendations Test cross-language searching in TEL using the 70’000 RAMEAU-LCSH links against data from the BL and BnF Test large scale linking and searching using links of up to 10 languages already created by MACS and MSAC in the areas of sports and theatre Use the MACS Link Management System as a central source (clearinghouse) of mapping results (including subject headings and classification links) Test automated mapping to speed up link creation

Conclusion The survey of projects revealed the quality of results of many European and international projects and their value in developing interoperability solutions All of the projects are oriented toward practical solutions in relations to libraries needs What is lacking is a global view of integrating the results of these projects It is recommended that TEL develop a coordinated subject access interoperability approach in order to integrate these and other projects