HILT High Level Thesaurus Project

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HILT High Level Thesaurus Project

• Interoperability and cross-searching distributed
  services
• Dennis Nicholson
• Centre for Digital Library Research, Strathclyde
  University

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Overview

• The participants and aims of HILT
• Background CAIRNS issues
• Outline of the proposed approach
• Progress to date
• Hypotheses Why and what
• Stakeholder Survey Outcomes
• Focus Group Outcomes
• Interim advice

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HILT

• A one year project
• Led by Centre for Digital Library Research at
  Strathclyde University, Glasgow
• Funded jointly by RSLP and JISC

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HILT

• Main partners
• CDLR, UKOLN, MDA, NCA, OCLC, NGfL (Scotland),
  SLIC, SUfI
• Wide range of other participants, including
• RDN, DNER, Clumps projects, NPO, SCRAN and others

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Aims

• To study and report on the problem of
  cross-searching and browsing by subject across a
  range of communities, services, and service or
  resource types in the UK given the wide range of
  subject schemes and associated practices in place

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Looking at

• .Libraries, Museums, Archives, HE, FE, Public
  Libraries, electronic services, clumps projects,
  the DNER, the RDN, bibliographic databases,
  numeric data, and others

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HILT charged with

• Researching the problem through literature,
  stakeholders surveys, analysis, discussion and so
  on
• Analysing and documenting its exact nature in
  detail
• Determining whether it can be solved and, if so,
• How it can best be solved

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HILT charged with

• Attempting to reach a consensus on the issue
  across the various communities, services and
  initiatives identified by the project as
  stakeholders
• Bearing in mind the need for any viable UK
  solution to be compatible with international
  activities in the area.

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HILT charged with

• Not to mention
• Affordable, sustainable, implementable,
  politically acceptable, useful, future proofed,
  and the rest
• An impossible task?
• But one that has to be tackled...

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Background CAIRNS

• A distributed catalogue with a mix of subject
  schemes in use
• A collections database using another subject
  scheme (Conspectus)
• Subject-based user navigation attempting to link
  the two
• So CAIRNS Needs a widely accepted common subject
  scheme because

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Background

• Need to cross-search with other clumps
• Need to harmonise Conspectus scheme with CAIRNS
  sites
• Need to find scheme acceptable beyond Scottish HE
• Services aiming to choose scheme
• Global integration concerns

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Approach agreed

• 1. Research the problem
• Survey, review literature and expert opinion
• Identify key communities, services and
  initiatives
• Establish their perspective on the problem and on
  the requirements of their users

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Approach

• 1. Research the problem
• Determine the schemes in use and identify others
  that exist as possible solutions
• Identify relevant organisational,
  inter-organisational, 'political' and other
  issues (e.g. legacy metadata retroconversion
  costs)

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Approach

• 2. Find, Agree Solution
• Analyse and organise the data
• Chart and discuss the results
• Produce an interim report
• Discuss it in depth at a workshop
• With the aim of reaching a consensus
• Report the results

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Progress to date

• In the data gathering, discussion and analysis
  phase of the process
• Initial literature survey complete
• Survey of stakeholders complete
• Various discussions held at project meetings,
  elsewhere (Focus Group)
• And a Literature survey on machine solutions,
  interfaces is underway

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Progress to date

• Have also begun to agree, compile and organise a
  set of hypotheses that will be used to structure
  the data gathered and focus later attempts to
  reach a consensus on a possible solution (or a
  path towards a solution if that proves more
  appropriate to the situation as uncovered).

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Hypotheses Grid

• No retrieval problem in practice?
• There is a retrieval problem, and the solution is
  some combination of the following top level
  options
• All adopt LCSH or UNESCO or DDC or UDC or whole
  new scheme in the short term

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Hypotheses Grid

• Top level options
• Mapping service covering at least LCSH, UNESCO,
  DDC, UDC, AAT
• Mapping service short term with further
  investigation longer term into whether single
  scheme best
• One or more of the second level options also
  needed

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Hypotheses Grid

• Second level options include
• Create new scheme specific sub-thesauri
• Map existing domain specific sub-thesauri
• Add multi-lingual capability
• Add community control
• Add machine assistance, AI
• Add User training

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Hypotheses Grid

• Second level options
• Add flexible user aids
• Add user mind maps
• Train/monitor staff consistency
• Add librarians
• Add local mappings
• Use ontologies

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Stakeholder Survey

• Shows
• LCSH, DDC, UNESCO most common overall
• Archives UNESCO
• Libraries LCSH and DDC
• Museums LCSH, UDC, subject specific thesauri
  like AAT, BMMT
• E-services DDC and LCSH

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Stakeholder Survey

• Shows
• Mixed approach on handling new editions of
  schemes
• Majority adapt scheme used
• All schemes held to have strengths and weaknesses
• Legacy data a problem

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Stakeholder Survey

• Shows
• Almost all see subject access and cross-searching
  with other services as important to both users,
  staff
• Mapping between terminologies believed to be
  possible - but perhaps labour intensive?
• 26/42 would adopt single scheme, 15 said
  depends, 1 no

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Stakeholder Survey

• Other points to note
• The results of the survey are still being
  analysed
• A follow up mini-survey to draw out specific
  points and obtain data relevant to the hypotheses
  is likely in the near future

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Focus Group

• People from HILT, Archives, Museums, Libraries,
  E-services
• Participants agreed that
• Cross searching by subject desirable
• Finding solutions to terminology problems
  important
• Problems included resourcing reliance on
  project-based funding legacy material
  differences over standards

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Focus Group

• Archives Subject indexing of collections recent
  and not universal.
• Subject indexing down to item level a huge task.
• Archival approach makes assigning 'subject'
  problematic
• Increasing use of UNESCO means divergence from
  library standards,
• But also substantial use of LCSH.

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Focus Group

• Museums Subject indexing historically seen as
  relatively unimportant.
• When done, often without a controlled vocabulary
  or with an institution-specific controlled
  vocabulary.
• Library schemes inappropriate for collections of
  objects, so not used
• 'Subject' can depend upon the ideological or
  subject bias of the museum or collection

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Focus Group

• Museums
• Resistance to making information available or
  adhering to standards.
• Huge numbers of objects aren't indexed.
• AAT is becoming more accepted and is wider area
  than its name implies
• SHIC is used but is not presently maintained or
  updated.
• MDA maintain lists of object names.

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Focus Group

• Libraries Large amounts of legacy material
• Different versions of schemes, often within one
  library catalogue
• Local variations of schemes.
• Most common (but still minority) schemes are LCSH
  and DDC.
• LCSH structure poor for electronic use.
• British/European schemes more relevant but US
  schemes better maintained

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Focus Group

• Electronic Information Services Developing own
  schemes to suit their users as existing schemes
  sometimes aren't appropriate
• Content increasingly catalogued by its authors
  rather than by professionals
• Lack of centralised community control for
  coordinating use of vocabulary standards
• Not always consistent with other HILT findings

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Focus Group

• Hypotheses
• Differences mean difficult to make a single
  subject scheme approach work
• Mapping or switching between schemes might work
  would need to investigate user terminology, and
  how mappings are used to create user friendly
  front-end search tools which accommodate the
  complexities of the schemes in use.

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Focus Group

• Other agreed views were that
• Political and professional support will need to
  be engaged for any solution(s) resourcing
  addressed and technological possibilities
  investigated.
• The possibility of collection-level description,
  as a workable starting point across communities,
  needs further investigation.

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Advice?

• If changing or choosing scheme
• Standard scheme if possible, e.g. LCSH, UNESCO,
  DDC, UDC, AAT
• Preferably in major use in your community (e.g.
  Archives or other services important to your
  users)
• Only adapt if absolutely necessary
• Consult HILT if in doubt

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Advice?

• Personal view
• Preferred outcome should be a mapping service
  short term and a longer-term examination of
  whether other options better
• But is a consensus possible?
• What about cost, effort, etc.
• A problem we MUST solve?

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Further Information

• Website http//hilt.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/
• e-mail
• d.m.nicholson_at_strath.ac.uk
• susannah.wake_at_strath.ac.uk
• sarah.currier_at_strath.ac.uk
• Http//cdlr.strath.ac.uk/