Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Multilingual Access to Subjects (MACS) Patrice Landry Swiss National Library M-CAST Seminar, Prague 24th November 2006

2 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Approaches to multilingual subject access - Construction -Translation (RVM, MESH) -Satellite thesauri approach (linking various online thesauri) – with a common search interface -Switching (Renardus) -Direct mapping (equivalences between terms in different controlled vocabularies or between terms and classification numbers)

3 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Methods used for link storage and access Authority records (equivalences coded in a local or networked database): RVM, MSAC Links database: MACS Semantic Network (organised structure where each unit is linked to a cluster of equivalent terms): UMLS

4 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Why the MACS approach? In 1997, the need to find a « neutral » solution for linking SHLs forced some national libraries to find a solution not based on translation Approach to add value to existing data instead of creating new data (value added data) Linking work and management outside of each library’s authority files

5 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL What is MACS? A project that is developing a system that offers multilingual subject access using current subject headings languages (SHLs) A project that is based on a coordinated approach between national libraries A system that will permit users to search library catalogues in the language of their choice

6 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Library of Congress Subject Heading Répertoire d’Autorité-Matière Encyclopédique et Alphabétique Unifié Schlagwortnormdatei / Regeln für den Schlagwortkatalog Die Deutsche Bibliothek SWD/RSWK Deutsch Die Deutsche Bibliothek SWD/RSWK Deutsch The British Library LCSH English The British Library LCSH English Bibliothèque nationale de France RAMEAU Français Bibliothèque nationale de France RAMEAU Français Swiss National Library project leader SWD/RSWK Deutsch Swiss National Library project leader SWD/RSWK Deutsch 3 SHLs On behalf of CENL Partners

7 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Basic principles Equality of languages and SHLs (no pivot) with autonomy of each SHL (only local, MACS is an external link database) Establishment of equivalences (no translation) between the SHLs involved (no new thesaurus) Equivalence links conceived as concept clusters MACS = mappings and numeric identifiers Consistency of results (goal = users retrieval) Extensible to other SHLs

8 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL indexer assigns headings in German user has to search in German Doc. in Russian SH English SH German SH Italian Doc. in French Doc. in German Doc. in English SH French Indexer German User English ? ? ? Subject searching in a MONOLINGUAL environment?

9 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL indexer assigns headings in German user can search in English Doc. in Russian SH English SH German SH Italian Doc. in French Doc. in German Doc. in English SH French Indexer German User English Subject indexing and searching in a MULTILINGUAL environment

10 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Milestones Proposal & Feasibility study ( ) Prototype development ( ) Testing & Link Management (LMI) upgrade to production database (2002-April 2004) New Link Management Interface production database accepted by partners (2005) New Project Proposal: June 2005 (revised August 2006) Move to production: adding SWD headings to RAMEAU-LCSH links (2006) Integration in The European Library : end 2006?

11 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Short overview of the Link management database and search interface The project has produced a Link Management Database which presently contains: - 70’000 RAMEAU-LCSH links and 3’000 RAMEAU / LCSH / SWD links A search Interface that was developed as part of the prototype and will be fully developed as part of the MACS development

12 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL This is the screen where all of the linking work starts

13 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Links are organised by domains

14 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Search is used to locate a link (using either a term, authority Number or a MACS number

15 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Display of results from where work on adding or modifying a link is done

16 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL With the « edit » button a SHL can be modified

17 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Work is organised in a decentralised environment and managed by « To Do » And « To Know »

18 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL

19 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL

20 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL

21 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL

22 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL

23 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL

24 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL

25 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL

26 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Becoming operational (or how to move an international project into a library) The « project syndrome » is a common occurance in international projects: succesful projects but difficulties in moving to production or applying results generally The MACS project accomplished many tasks with a lot of enthusiasm (and human resources, and a little money) but …. The longer a project exists, the more there is the risk of staff turnaround and the decrease of institutional committment to the project

27 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL The four MACS Project constraints Consortium agreement Financing Human resources Strategic

28 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL The solution: A new project proposal A new project structure with roles and responsabilities (project and within each partner’s institution) A project manual with specific action plan A strategic plan (operational and development) Takes in consideration mapping recommendations from BS 8723, Part 4 (draft), in particular source and target language strategy

29 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Current activities MACS has moved to production (2006) – work is underway to add SWD headings to RAMEAU-LCSH links Search Interface (SI) – New interface needs to be developed MACS linking manual is being written (using the BS 8723, Part 4 (draft) as standard source) Investigating integration in The European Library (TEL)

30 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Future An operational system and cross-language subject access to the Catalogues of European National Libraries THANK YOU!

31 MACS | Multilingual access to subjects Patrice Landry Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Contacts