1. The European Thesaurus on International Relations and Area Studies A Multilingual Resource for Indexing, Retrieval, and Translation SWP Michael Kluck and Axel Huckstorf Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin

2. SWP Page LREC 2008, Marrakech 2 European Thesaurus IRAS Development of the Thesaurus –Cooperation project within the EINIRAS Network –Source thesauri –Cross-concordances Structure of the Thesaurus Use Cases of the Thesaurus –Printed edition –Online edition as part of the IREON Gateway –Indexing tool –Translation tool –Semantic heterogeneity service Online Demonstration

3. SWP Page LREC 2008, Marrakech 3 Development of the European Thesaurus  Subject: International Relations and Area Studies (IRAS)  Cooperation project of the European Information Network on International Relations and Area Studies (EINIRAS)  Source thesauri (CoE, RIIA, SIPRI, IFRI, German Network=FIV)  Development path: 24 fields (micro-thesauri), thematic sub-fields, compare source terms, definition of concepts behind the terms, translation work, choice of descriptors and non-descriptors, seman- tic relations, scope notes, original term within source thesauri  Cross-concordances to other terminologies: PAIS Subject Term Th. (EN), Th. Economics and Social Development (DE,EN), Standard Th. Economics (DE,EN), Th. Social Sciences (DE,EN,RU)

4. SWP Page LREC 2008, Marrakech 4 Structure of the multilingual European Thesaurus English as primary language Target languages: Croatian, Czech, French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Spanish (Greek planned) 8,200 descriptors Numerous non-descriptors (synonyms, acronyms) 24 micro-thesauri Subdivided into topical sub-field-groups Compound terms, phrases (i.e. CFSP) Inclusion of geo and geo-political terms, proper names (institutions/organisations, treaties/ agreements)

5. SWP Page LREC 2008, Marrakech 5 Thesaurus Versions Printed version (7 languages) –Systematic part: all 7 languages in parallel –Alphabetic parts: 7 single-language volumes –Only a selected number of non-descriptors included –No display of hierarchical or associative relations Online version (8+1 languages) within IREON Gateway –Russian coming soon –Searchable in all thesaurus languages –Display of all semantic relations, scope notes, subject field-groups and sub-groups –Translation can be displayed on demand –(coming soon): Cross-concordances to other thesauri can be displayed on demand –Alphabetical and systematic display at the entry point –Direct start of search within the IREON gateway

6. SWP Page LREC 2008, Marrakech 6 Thesaurus as an Indexing Tool Used for World Affairs Online (WAO) database produced by the German Information Network for IRAS (FIV), which is coordinated by SWP, Berlin Used for the library OPAC of the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM), Warsaw Used for the library OPAC Clavius of the Czech Institute on International Relations (IIR), Prague European Thesaurus Development Group (ETDG): maintenance, further development

7. SWP Page LREC 2008, Marrakech 7 European Thesaurus as Translation Tool Direct translation of specific vocabulary in the field of IRAS Relationships between terms are available Listing of „word clouds“ in micro-thesauri and sub- fields

8. SWP Page LREC 2008, Marrakech 8 Treatment of Semantic Heterogeneity The IREON gateway allows an integrated search in several databases in the field of IRAS. These databases are using different thesauri for indexing their documents. Between these thesauri cross-concordances are available that were intellectually produced. They are the basic element for the heterogeneity service incorporated into the gateway. The heterogeneity service allows the mapping of user queries to the different vocabularies of the databases included into the gateway. Thus, the user needs not to know the other vocabularies, the system will do the mappings behind the scene. The heterogeneity service treats the mapping of descriptors, the translations of terms, the synonyms and acronyms of terms.

9. SWP Page LREC 2008, Marrakech 9 Subject Gateway Query A Query Vocabulary A HT Service DB A Entry Voc. = Query Voc. A DB B Entry Voc. B DB C Entry Voc. C

10. SWP Page LREC 2008, Marrakech 10 Links  IREON Gateway www.ireon-gatewy.eu  EINIRAS Network www.einiras.org  FIV (German Network) www.fiv-iblk.de/eindex.html  GESIS-IZ, Competence Centre Modelling and Treatment of Semantic Heterogeneity, Bonn: developer and provider of HT Service www.gesis.org/en/research/information_technology /komohe.htm