The use of controlled and structured vocabularies in a digitally joined-up world

CONNECTING COLLECTIONS

03-12-2014

Kepa J. Rodriguez (Gottingen State and University Library) Yael Gherman (Yad Vashem)

Outline

What is a vocabulary?

Interlinking collections

Sharing vocabularies

What is a vocabulary?

Some questions...

Do you use vocabularies in your institution?

What kind of vocabularies?

Who manages the vocabularies?

Are there linked to other vocabularies?

Some types of vocabularies

Keyword lists: non structured list of lexical items.

Structured vocabularies as thesauri:

They give information about the structure of the knowledge in a institution or project.

Authority files:

Mostly named entities used as access points

Persons, coorporative bodies, places, organizations, etc.

Interlinking data (1)

Interlinking data (2)

Interlinking data (3)

Interlinking data (4)

An example in EHRI (1)

An example in EHRI (2)

Sharing vocabularies

Requirements: Vocabularies should be visible

Vocabularies should be understandable

Format should be machine readable

Reuse of shared vocabularies: Give more precission to the definition

Enrich the vocabulary itself adding (new content, new languages)

Use for cataloging

Strategy at the EHRI project (1)

EHRI has a central vocabulary: the EHRI thesaurus

Terms, places, personalities, etc.

Function of the thesaurus: interlink the collections in the EHRI portal

EHRI didn't take in account the necessity of agreements with the collection holders.

Vocabularies not interlinked

Strategy at the EHRI project (2)

Experiments: addition of (validated) access points before the import.

– NIOD: we linked terms used in the image collection with thesaurus terms.

– ARA Book: we linked around 30% of terms to the EHRI Thesaurus

• Access points to all selected fonds.

– Yad Vashem: work in progress for terms and personalities.

• Good coverage.

Experiment

exactMatch

exactMatch

EHRI-terms/?term-195

“collaboration”@en

EHRI-terms/ara-terms/term-53

“collaboration”@en

Sharing vocabularies: alternative approach

Connect federated vocabularies

Benefits

Researchers:

– Browse holdings across institutional boundaries

– Find unknown relationships among records

Content holders:

– Enhance meaning and findability

In general

Meaning should be transparent and easy to understand

Add scope notes, if possible with English translation

Use standard formats: SKOS, RDF

If the concept or term exists in other vocabularies, add the link. That helps to understand the meaning

Examples of linkable vocabularies

NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (NL)

 CEGES-SOMA Centre for Historical Research

and Documentation on War and Contemporary Society (BE)

 Jewish Museum in Prague (CZ)

 Institute of Contemporary History Munich – Berlin

(DE) 

YAD VASHEM The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority (IL)

 The Wiener Library – Institute of Contemporary

History (UK) 

Holocaust Memorial Center (HU) 

HL-senteret Center for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities (NO)

 NAF National Archives of Finland (FI)

 

The Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute (PL)

King’s College London (UK) Georg-August-Universität Göttingen – Göttingen State and University Library (DE) Athena RC/IMIS (GR) DANS Data Archiving and Networked Services (NL) Shoah Memorial, Museum, Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation (FR) ITS International Tracing Service (DE) Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (DE) Terezín Memorial (CZ) Beit Theresienstadt (IL) VWI Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (AT)

CONNECTING KNOWLEDGE

CONNECTING COLLECTIONS

The use of controlled and structured vocabularies in a digitally joined-up world

03-12-2014