Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September 2008 Multilingualism and subject heading languages: how the MACS project is providing multilingual subject access in Europe Patrice Landry, Head of Indexing and Classification Swiss National Library patrice. landry@nb. admin. ch

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Overwiew of the presentation • New challenges of subject access • Subject access in a networked environment: issues and initiatives • MACS: • Standards to the rescue & linking manual • What was done recently? • Search interface • Other issues under consideration • Conclusion CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 2

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL New Challenges of subject access: traditional approach of libraries • Most libraries are committed to providing controlled vocabulary access to large collections of printed documents • Standard subject indexing tools are still the best means of providing quality access • Most national libraries and research libraries are using current standard indexing tools CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 3

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Coping with extended mandate • Libraries are working hard to integrate a great quantity of electronic documents while maintaining their bibliographic access commitment to printed documents collections • Full-text access to electronic collections represents a new challenge for researchers needing in-depth access to documents in all subjects • Pressure toward a “keyword approach” to subject access CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 4

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL How to cope with the old and the new • Libraries will continue to respond to scholars needing in-depth access to documents in all subjects • Libraries will continue to invest in developing new means of ensuring subject access through computer assisted indexing • Libraries are looking at expanding the use of subject access tools through interoperability projects • Establishing interoperability between subject indexing tools may be one of the solutions to maintain or improve access to expanded collections CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 5

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Subject access issues in networked environments • Many different types of controlled subject vocabularies used for access to resources in various networks (subject headings, thesauri, classification schemes and ontologies) and in different languages • Subject queries across databases or networks limited by heterogeneous language environment • Lack of interoperability between subject indexing tools limits access and use of libraries’ catalogues and databases CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 6

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Interoperability: some basic approaches • • • Merging (Integration) of thesauri: UNESCO, Term. Sciences Co-occurrence: LCSH/CSH = RVM Translation: LCSH RVM Automatic translation: Dandelon Adaptation / Derivation: RVM RAMEAU ; LCSH FAST • Mapping: between similar languages (MACS)(LCSH-ES) or between different type (OCLC’s LCSH/DDC, Criss. Cross) • Switching: using an existing language (DDC): HILT or (UDC): MSAC CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 7

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Categories of subject access interoperability projects and initiatives • Between subject headings: MACS, LCSH-ES, RVM • Between thesauri: Merimee, UMLS Metathesaurus, Term. Sciences • Between subject headings and classification (UDC): MSAC • Between subject headings and classification (DDC): OCLC’s Web. Dewey, Criss. Cross • Between various type of subject indexing tools: HILT CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 8

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Overview of a multilingual interoperability projects that focus only on subject headings • Not many interoperability projects that are using only subject headings • Linking subject headings is challenging: methodological constraints, linguistic resources and long term commitment need to be resolved • The best known are: MACS, LCSH-ES, RVM-LCSH /CSH CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 9

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL LCSH-ES: LCSH → Various Spanish SHs CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 10

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL LCSH/CSH = RVM CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 11

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL MACS CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 12

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 heading 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 CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 13

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 metadata instead of creating new data (value added data) • Linking work and management outside of each library’s authority files • Info at: http: //macs. cenl. org CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 14

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Partners The British Library (Library of Congress) LCSH English 3 SHLs Bibliothèque nationale de France RAMEAU Français Library of Congress Subject Headings Répertoire d’Autorité-Matière Encyclopédique et Alphabétique Unifié Schlagwortnormdatei / Regeln für den Schlagwortkatalog Deutsche Nationalbibliothek SWD/RSWK Deutsch On behalf of CENL Conference of European National Librarians CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 Swiss National Library project leader SWD/RSWK Deutsch 15

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 CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 16

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Subject searching in a MONOLINGUAL environment? Doc. in Italian Doc. in French Doc. in German Doc. in English SH German SH French SH English Indexer German indexer SH assigns Italian headings in German user has to search in German CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 ? ? ? User English 17

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Subject indexing and searching in a MULTILINGUAL environment Doc. in Italian Doc. in French Doc. in German Doc. in English SH Italian SH German SH French SH English Indexer German indexer assigns headings in German user can search in English CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 User English 18

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Milestones • Proposal & Feasibility study (1997 -1999) • Prototype development (2000 -2001) • 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 (2007) (SNL and DNB) • Integration in The European Library : tests in 2007, search interface development in August 2008 CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 19

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL MACS Links database (LMI) CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 20

Display of links (display is according to the partner’s SHL (source language) Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 21

Display of edit function where work on adding or modifying a link is done Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 22

All terms in links are authorised headings from authority records Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 23

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Link strategy • Each partner works from its own SHL (used as source language) • Links to target languages: LCSH or RAMEAU • Already 102’ 300 RAMEAU-LCSH links (from the RAMEAU authority file, mostly derived from the Quebec Répertoire de vedettes-matière) CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 24

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Linking Work Using SWD • Work officially started in March 2007 at the SNL (MACS task is part of the indexing workload with annual individual goals) • 0. 75 FTE of indexing staff resources used for MACS • Production in the first 12 months: 8’ 350 (total in the LMI 13’ 500 – August 2008); production target for 2009: +7’ 000 links with SWD • SNL has approximately 30’ 000 SWD topical headings in its Helveticat database – multilingual access to its collection should be completed by 2010 • DNB – In the process of hiring 6 staff members to work on MACS links (work to start this autumn) CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 25

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL MACS linking manual : a necessary condition • A manual for link creation is required • The only existing methodological considerations available are from the final report of the feasibility studies (1999) • Need to adjust the MACS approach in a networked environment (the MACS approach was initially developed in a closed environment – list of terms selected in a few domains in 3 SHLs) CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 26

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Standards to the rescue • Development of a new standard: BRITISH STANDARD BS 8723 -4: 2007 Structured vocabularies for information retrieval — Guide. Part 4: Interoperability between vocabularies • Part 4 of the BS deals with all subject heading languages (not limited to thesauri as for ISO 5964) • Also: ANSI/NISO Z 39. 19 -2005 Guidelines for the construction, format and management of monolingual controlled vocabularies (Chapter 10) CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 27

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Important elements of the BS 8723 • Recognizes that linking can be done between linguistically different subject heading languages (SHLs), that have different semantic structures and application principles • Deals with pre or post coordination SHLs • Presents several linking scenarios • Gives directives on creating and validating concordances • Methodology based on the notion of linking from a source language to target languages CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 28

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Impact of the BS 8723, Part 4 on MACS • Validates an approach that was developed without relevant standards support (ISO 5954 was the only one available in 1999) • The MACS approach can be further refined, in particular, the work organisation of each partner library (notion of source language) • Support complex links creation, for example « one to many » , « many to one » CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 29

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Example of the MACS Linking Manual (1) Types of links / levels of equivalence • One-to-one: exact equivalence - Exact equivalence at the linguistic level Theology / Théologie / Theologie - Exact equivalence at the semantic level Sprinting / Kurzstreckenlauf / Course de vitesse - Exact equivalence at the subject headings level (indexing) Track -athletics—Coaches / Leichtathletiktrainer /Athlétisme + Entraîneurs CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 30

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Example of the MACS linking manual (2) • One-to-two: partial equivalence (semantic level) - Using UF (use for) Coureurs / Runners(Sports) / Laüfer Coureurs / Long distance runners / Langstrekenläufer - According to scope note Sprinting / Kurzstreckenlauf / Course de vitesse Sprinting / Vierhundertmeterlauf /Course de vitesse - Using BT (Broader term) / NT (Narrower term) Jumping / Sprung / Sauts (athlétisme) Jumping / Hochsprung / Saut en hauteur CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 31

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL MACS linking manual (3) Types of links / levels of equivalences that were not discussed in 1999 • One-to-two: partial equivalences (linguistic level) ? One-to-many: partial equivalences (linguistic level)? The LCSH are generally broader (less specific) than SWD and RAMEAU • One-to-many: partial equivalences (semantic level)? For example in the area of music CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 32

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL What was done recently? • Library of Congress agreement to load the LCSH in the LMI • Loading all of the LCSH, RAMEAU and SWD subject headings in the LMI with monthly updating • Improving some functionalities in the LMI (displaying the SHL in prescribed order, features to improve quality control, LMI maintenance and features for TEL) • Search interface prototype developed by TEL (The European Library) CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 33

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Search Interface (prototype developed by TEL) CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 34

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 35

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Search results from links CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 36

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 37

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Other issues under consideration? Extension to other subject heading languages • Tests conducted using the Italian “Nuovo Soggettario” in 2007 (new SHL standard in Italy) • Contains about 20’ 000 headings • Italian is one of the national languages of Switzerland • Tests conducted using about 500 headings in a few domains CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 38

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Nuovo Soggettario in MACS CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 39

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Nuovo Soggetario Subject headings CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 40

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Future plans? • Extending MACS to other types of subject headings (geographical, corporate and name headings) • Exploring non-manual linking methods (SKOS) • Extending MACS to more than 4 SHLs CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 41

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL Conclusion • MACS has reached the critical phase of production (links creation and maintenance) • MACS can be expanded to other SHLs (no limits) • Search interface is still a critical issue in MACS • MACS will continue to be a CENL project with international partners (i. e. Library of Congress) CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 42

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Swiss Federal Office of Culture FOC Swiss National Library SNL THANK YOU MERCI DANKE Questions? CIG Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 3 -5 September, 2008 43