High-Level Thesaurus (HILT) project: Recent work IFLA 2007 Dewey Translators Meeting 21 Aug 2007, Durban

The Problem Spade: Shovel? Digging tool? Playing cards? Shaufel? La Pelle? HILT aims to facilitate cross-searching distributed information services by subject in a multi-scheme, multi-lingual “common information environment” Archives, Libraries, Museums, Online

Requirements Success requires distributed collaborative action at local, national, and international level Focus of HILT: to identify a generic standards-based approach allowing widespread participation

HILT: Background Funded by Joint Information Systems Committee, and supported by OCLC To provide subject interoperability in a multi-scheme environment via inter-scheme mapping Ideally by identifying a generic approach that can be developed through distributed collaborative action …

Mapping DDC used as a semantic translator between different Anglophone subject terminologies Availability of DDC mappings to captions, relative index and LCSH Tested with other terminologies DDC also used to classify collections “Subject landscaping” gives best places (catalogues) to search for items (Item > Collection) = (Specific > General) = Truncation of DDC notation

Possibilities Recent development of a distributed machine-to-machine architecture Search/Retrieve over Web; Simple Knowledge Organization System Allows other, non-DDC mappings to be used within the HILT model Encouraging the wider participation required to facilitate global subject interoperability A model architecture for collaboration whatever the preferred approach to interoperability

Can see: description (top) Top levels browse hierarchy This is the introductory screen On it you can see: A brief description of what the pilot aims to do (at the top of the page) The top levels of a browse hierarchy to allow users to navigate to specific subjects (at the bottom of the page) A search box (in the middle of the page) Entering a term in the search box is the most common approach to using the pilot. Here, the user has entered the term ‘teeth’ and pressed the search button Can see: description (top) Top levels browse hierarchy Search box – common - teeth

System responds by finding term Identifying possible DDC captions Returning to user as shown User then chooses best fit for topic Number 3, dental diseases . The system responds by finding the term in the database, identifying the DDC captions that might possibly cover the user’s subject, and returning these to the user as shown on this screen. The user then chooses the term that best fits his or her interests – number 3, dental diseases in the instance shown here.

DDC no. For Dental diseases 614.5996, Screen shows using for 3 things 1. Successive truncation used to find these relevant services at DDC 610 2. Identifying the subject schemes they use (MeSH in these two instances) 3. Determining best term in scheme via mapping to DDC 614.5996 (dentition) . The DDC number for dental diseases is 614.5996. On this screen, we see the results of the system using this number to do three things: Using successive truncation of the chosen number (614.5996) to find these relevant services classified at DDC 610, Identifying the subject schemes they use (MeSH in these two instances), Determining the best term in the scheme for the user’s query by finding the mapping from the scheme to 614.5996 – dentition in the case of the last of the services shown on this screen

Finally the system uses the term dentition to search the last of these services and send back (hopefully relevant) hits Finally, dentition used to search last of these services; send back relevant hits

6 functions based on use cases Get_DDC_records Returns DDC captions and numbers related to an input term; list for user to choose best fit caption/no. Get_collections Returns collections classified under a specified DDC number or its stem, including subject scheme used Get_non_DDC_records Returns mappings to other schemes from a specified (untruncated) DDC number

6 functions based on use cases Get_explain Information about the service Get_all_records Combines the functions of get_DDC_records and get_non_DDC_records Get_filtered_set Allows specified fields from specific terminologies or combinations of terminologies to be searched – enabling functionality beyond phase II to be added

Further information Website (all HILT phases): E-mails: http://hilt.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/ E-mails: d.m.nicholson@strath.ac.uk e.mcculloch@strath.ac.uk

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