Scenarios for subject and multilingual access : presentation of results

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Scenarios for subject and multilingual access
presentation of results

• TEL-ME-MOR/M-CAST seminar, Prague 24.11.2006
• Genevieve Clavel-Merrin
• Swiss National Library

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TEL-ME-MOR ('The European Library Modular
Extensions for Mediating Online Resources)

• Funded by the European Commission under the Sixth
  Framework Programme of the Information Society
  Technologies (IST) Programme
• started on 1 February 2005
• duration 2 years
• budget 1.4 million Euro

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Goal

• To stimulate and facilitate the participation of
  organisations from the New Member States (NMS) of
  the European Union in projects funded within the
  Information Society Technologies area and
  integrating the national libraries into The
  European Library, a portal to access the
  collections of European national libraries
  (http//www.theeuropeanlibrary.org)

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Partners

•  Die Deutsche Bibliothek (The National Library
  of Germany) - Coordinator
•  Koninklijke Bibliotheek (The National Library
  of the Netherlands)
•  The British Library
•  Bibliotheque Nationale Suisse (Swiss National
  Library)
•  Stichting Conference of European National
  Librarians (CENL)
•  Eremo srl, Italy
•  Národní knihovna Ceské republiky (National
  Library of the Czech Republic)
•  Ministry of Education and Culture, Cyprus
  (Cyprus Library)
•  Eesti Rahvusraamatukogu (National Library of
  Estonia)
•  Országos Széchényi Könyvtár (National Széchényi
  Library of Hungary)
•  Latvijas Nacionala Biblioteka (National Library
  of Latvia)
•  Lietuvos Nacionaline Martyno Mažvydo Biblioteka
  (Martynas Mazvydas National Library of Lithuania)
  
•  Bibljoteka Nazzjonali ta Malta (National
  Library of Malta)
•  Biblioteka Narodowa (The National Library of
  Poland)
•  Slovenská národná knižnica (The Slovak National
  Library)
•  Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica (National
  and University Library of Slovenia)

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Workpackages

• WP1 Analysis of research requirements
• WP2 Developing the network for access to national
  resources
• WP3 Developing the multilingual capacity of the
  network
• WP4 Awareness building and electronic information
  space for research partnerships
• WP5 Management

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Objectives of WP3

• To develop the networks localisation and
  multilingual capabilities thus making information
  and knowledge available from the national
  libraries in the NMS easily accessible to their
  principal clients (researchers, educational and
  cultural workers) through multi language
  interfaces. To advise on future multilingual
  support requirements for improved access to the
  collections of Europes national libraries.

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Why is it important

• The increase in full-text material and therefore
  full-text searching does not obviate the need to
  provide controlled vocabulary access
• The extension of networked information and the
  growth in cross-database access has highlighted
  the need for cross-language access to both
  bibliographic records and full-text.
• New online catalogues allow subject headings and
  other authority data to be displayed in ways that
  enhance searching and understanding.

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Task 1

• Conduct a study by means of questionnaire and
  email discussion and produce a report into the
  UNICODE capabilities of NMS partners evaluating
  display options followed by the installation of
  available conversion modules.
• Led by SNL (Pierre Clavel), report available

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Recommendations

• The European Library portal
• Move the entire portal, or at least the
  navigation frame, to UTF-8.
• Address the Unicode questionnaire retroactively
  to current The European Library members, since
  these character set issues have been overlooked
  until now.
• Complement the collections descriptions by
  information about the use of special characters,
  where appropriate.
• Add to the search page 3 displayable soft
  keyboards, for Latin special characters, Greek
  and Cyrillic, with information about script
  prevalence, their characters use and usual
  transliteration
• Study the feasibility of adding to the results
  page an automatic transcription option from Greek
  and Cyrillic to Latin, tailored to the interface
  language, respectively from Latin and Cyrillic to
  Greek on the interface in Greek.

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Task 3

• Produce an overview of existing subject systems
  and headings in use in the NMS national libraries
  
• Led by NUK (Maja Žumer)
• Deliverable completed and available on the Web

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Task 4

• Analyse cross-language access options in
  distributed databases
• Led by SNL (Patrice Landry), report available

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Recommendations for improving subject access
interoperability

• In EDL
• Test a selection of cross-language approaches to
  subject data, including MACS, MSAC and CrissCross
• Investigate the feasibility of loading into the
  MACS system the Luxembourg subject headings
  (Laval English / French) and the Spanish subject
  headings (Spanish English), and if feasible,
  load the data
• Provide an updated overview of recent European
  projects and initiatives that may have relevance
  to cross-language access to various types of
  collections.

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Recommendations for improving subject access
interoperability

• Additionally
• Test cross-language searching in the European
  Library using the 70000 RAMEAU/LCSH links
  against data from British Library and
  Bibliothèque nationale de France
• Test large-scale linking (Sports and Theater
  1000 terms)
• Load MSAC data in to the European Library portal
• Incorporate more languages into the EL
  cross-language interface
• Use the MACS Link Management system (replicated
  as required) central source (clearinghouse) of
  mapping results between subject headings used in
  European national libraries (classifications and
  subject headings)

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Testing automated mapping

• Investigate HILT, TermSciences and WebDewey as
  tools to speed up link creation
• In TELplus, plans to test Stitch
• Contact OCLC to investigate theirproject
  exploring new web-based services for dynamic
  mapping between subject authority lists
  http//www.oclc.org/research/projects/termservices
  /
• Contact the MULIR project
• Our current Multi-Lingual Information Retrieval
  (MULIR) entry vocabulary index maps from English
  Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) to
  words and phrases in over 100 languages and vice
  versa. This prototype was created from over ten
  million records of the University of California
  MELVYL online library catalog.

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Task 5

• Investigate approaches currently available to
  manage multiple authorities and the feasibility
  of incorporating one or more systems into The
  European Library and to produce a report
• Led by NUK (Maja Žumer), report available

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Recommendations for improving interoperability
across authorities

• In EDL
• Extending the theoretical analysis of D3.5 of
  TEL-ME-MOR and building on projects such as LEAF,
  VIAF and ONESAC, design and test the feasibility
  of a name authority control tool, implemented by
  (automatically) clustering existing variant
  headings, thus enabling searching on any of
  possible names for a person, persona, corporate
  body or geographic name. Result A prototype of
  common (name) authority tool.

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Recommendations for improving interoperability
across authorities

• Additionally
• In co-operation with Die Deutsche
  Nationalbibliothek (data provider), draft a
  proposal for extension, cooperation and
  incorporation of the VIAF data into the European
  Library service.
• Send the authority questionnaire and the subject
  tools questionnaire to all European library
  partners with the goal to develop and maintain an
  overview of name authority and subject control
  across The European Library
• Contact CERL to enable testing of the
  applicability of their data - depending on the
  results, determine how and under what technical
  and financial conditions this data may be used in
  the European Library.

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Recommendations for improving interoperability
across authorities

• And Reinforce contacts with search engines
• The importance of authority control is now being
  recognised also outside the library community.
• Developers of search engines have expressed
  interest in the existing developments in order to
  improve the quality of searching by names, which,
  as proven by research, is a widespread query
  type.
• So, it is recommended that the European Library
  office maintains and strengthens the contacts it
  has already initiated in this area with a view to
  promoting merged authority to developers and
  investigating revenue.

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Workshop discussion/recommendations

• Set up a TEL subject access discussion list
• Continue tests in TEL /active participation of
  all partners
• Follow developments (standards, papers)
• Publicise our efforts
• Investigate links to MACS SHs
• Maintain mappings in autonomous files