THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services Finna and Ontologies Erkki Tolonen and Ere Maijala Nordlod Oct 2014

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services  The Finna search service brings together the collections of Finnish archives, libraries and museums.  It is part of the National Digital Library, NDL, key electronic research and culture infrastructures in Finland.  Finna = NDL user interface Finna and NDL

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services Finna - Background  2009 Requirements for NDL user interface  2010 ExLibris Primo  2012 Open source  2013 Finna 1.0  Based on open source products  Also our own code is open source  Agile development. New version every three weeks.

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services

Finna  Two services:  National view (portal service) and local views (platform service)

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services National view  Finna.fi  9.1 million descriptive metadata entries from libraries, museums and archives

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services Local views  At the moment around 10  hkm.finna.fi, museot.finna.fi, jyu.finna.fi, kansalliskirjasto.finna.fi,..

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services Finna – Shared Index  Diverse metadata is harvested into Finna from multiple sources  Even though metadata is indexed as is, it is also normalized for search. Normalization also happens at the user interface layer when records are displayed.  A lot of work has been put into this, and it’s being worked on in continuous collaboration  Makes it possible to have common filters and facets  Overarching decisions are made in e.g. Finna workgroups  Collaboration between organisations and sectors LIDO Metadata EAD Record Manager Metadata harvesting and manipulation VuFind Solr Metadata index and search engine Finna.fi User interface

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services ”Google-like Search”  By default Finna provides a single search box  Not really a service for browsing

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services Preparing for Changes in Cataloguing  Different sectors have already presented time tables for migrating to new cataloguing rules  It is expected that the new ways will facilitate smarter search services  Discussions about linked metadata with the National Archive and FINTO Project ( already under wayhttp://finto.fi/en/about  Collaboration and discussion with client organisations will continue. Services are planned together.  Examples of metadata cataloguing according to the new guidelines will be available in 2015

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services Challenges in the New Cataloguing Standards

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services Challenges in the New Cataloguing Standards  There will still be data sources where linked vocabularies are not used  Maybe some of them can be ”ontologized” on the fly if they use a well- defined vocabulary, at least for non-ambiguous terms..  A lot of work will be required for the standards to be able to ”talk” to each other.  All the different metadata needs to be normalized for a single search and display in a common user interface  Usability may suffer if some functions only work with a subset of metadata available in the index (easier in organisational views and the national view) Finna

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services Possibilities in the New Cataloguing Standards  Linked data, finally!  Common vocabularies and linked data make it possible to improve the search and recommendations  Research and planning of how to take advantage of ontologies and vocabularies begins in 2015  Limited scope: each ontology and linked vocabulary needs to be checked individually  Aim is to improve the search service  Will research more demanding browse-style features  Co-operation with the AHAA project

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services Some Ideas for Further Testing  On-the-fly ontologization  For unambiguous terms when the vocabulary is known  Search suggestions  Refinement  Expansion  Spelling check  Similar records  Lateral linking  Geographic enrichment (points, but also polygons if available)  Tested not to work without identifiers (there’s Finland in Norway…)

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services Something Concrete Already  We have discussed at least two ways even before further examination and co-operation with clients 1.Real-time enrichment of search results with linked ontologies or vocabularies

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services Something Concrete Already 2.Enrichment of the search index  Must be done at least when Finna starts to receive metadata that contains only URIs instead of the actual terms. So far few people se URIs for searching.  Metadata needs to be enriched before indexing so that the actual terms are searchable.  Enrichment is an easy way to improve the usability of the search…  Problems  How do we know to update the index if a linked vocabulary is updated?  An error in linked data may wreak havoc

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services Something Concrete Already  Enrichment has been tested with a set of records that have URIs for subject terms  Enrichment is already in use in Finna, and it does not cause performance problems  Index size and thus hardware requirements may be affected, though  > DEMO > DEMO

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services General Ontology – A Practical Impossibility?  Ontology of a specific subject is viable, but is a general ontology bound to result in (some) insanity?  How do you model the world in a way that at least most people can understand and feel familiar with?  Would you relate a cemetery to a landfill?a cemetery  How does the machine choose sensible relations e.g. when providing similar results?

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services Depending on an Ontology  Who’s in charge and what happens if  a mad scientist decides to “fix” the taxonomy?  a system failure brings an ontology service down?  an entity decides to stop maintaining the ontology?  the Internet ceases to exist as we know it?  Need to maintain searchable stuff locally anyway  Maybe it’s a good idea to also record the source/authority

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services Technical limitations  No hierarchical relationships between records in the index  E.g. EAD records need to be split, and their relationships indicated with linking fields  On the UI level it is still possible to e.g. provide a hierarchy tree that can be used to browse archival series and their units On the UI level  Ontology data merged into other record metadata  Updates are more complicated  Any denormalization affects relevance ranking

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services Any Questions?