HILT: HighLevel Thesaurus Project

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HILT High-Level Thesaurus Project

• Susannah Wake
• Centre for Digital Library Research,
• Strathclyde University,
• Glasgow,
• Scotland, UK

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Overview

• Background to the project
• Outline of the proposed approach
• HILT Stakeholder Survey outcomes
• HILT Workshop outcomes
• Next steps

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HILT Brief

• To research and report on the problem of
  cross-searching and browsing by subject across
  web resources, be they
• libraries
• archives
• museums and heritage
• hubs and gateways
• or any other service making information available
  online.
• But why?

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Background

• Increase in online services
• User expectations
• Every piece of information anywhere on a given
  subject is described using exactly the same
  subject term, and the person searching for it
  knows what that subject terms is.

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HILT

• One year desk based project
• Led by Centre for Digital Library Research at
  Strathclyde University, Glasgow
• Funded jointly by
• Research Support Libraries Programme (RSLP)
• Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)

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HILT Partners

• UK Office for Library and Information Networking
  (UKOLN)
• mda (formerly Museums Documentation Association)
• National Council on Archives
• OCLC
• Scottish Library and Information Council
• Scottish University for Industry (SUfI)

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HILT Stakeholders

• Broad range of stakeholders from the following
  communities within UK
• archives
• libraries
• museums
• online Information Services
• government initiatives
• HE/FE
• International stakeholders

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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
• Reaching a consensus on the issue

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HILT charged with

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

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Stakeholder Survey

• Shows
• LCSH most common overall
• Followed by DDC and UNESCO Thesaurus
• Archives UNESCO
• Libraries LCSH and DDC
• Museums LCSH, UDC, subject specific thesauri
  like AAT
• E-services DDC and LCSH
• High proportion of In house schemes used

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Stakeholder Survey

• 64 of stakeholders have adapted the scheme they
  currently use. Reasons include
• weaknesses in subject areas
• represent new concepts
• represent a defined geographic location

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Stakeholder Survey

• Cross-searching
• 83 of stakeholders said their users would find
  it useful to be able to cross-search their
  catalogues with other catalogues
• 79 of stakeholders said their staff would find
  it useful to be able to cross-search their
  catalogues with other catalogues

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Stakeholder Survey

• The majority of stakeholders believe that mapping
  within and between communities is theoretically
  possible.
• However, conditions imposed include
• that it should be flexible
• carried out by domain specialists
• should be agreed by consensus

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HILT Workshop

• Aim
• to reach consensus on a range of possible
  solutions proposed by HILT and devised in
  conjunction with the projects advisory groups.

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HILT Workshop

• Balanced and representative set of 50 delegates.
• Presentations on
• perspectives to the problem
• mapping problems and costs
• thesaurus interface issues
• semantic web

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HILT Workshop

• Breakout session
• 4 balanced groups
• all performing the same task
• asked to chose best option set and sub-option
• reporting and discussion at plenary session

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HILT Workshop

• Option Sets
• Do nothing
• Set up a human process intended to lead to a
  solution in time
• Adopt a base-level, gradual approach, with an eye
  on future developments

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HILT Workshop

• Option sets continued
• 4. Adopt a single scheme
• 5. Mapping service alternatives
• 5.1 mapping service
• 5.2 two year pilot mapping service

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HILT Workshop

• Outcomes
• consensus achieved
• option chosen 5.2 two year pilot mapping
  service
• combined with a terminologies task force or
  agency to enable community involvement and
  control at a practical level.

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HILT Workshop

• Reasons
• best basis for reaching consensus in the wider
  community
• solved a greater part of the problem more quickly
  than any other option
• allow us to put it in place quickly
• allow us to collect more information on costs
  against benefits, user needs, etc,.

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HILT Workshop

• Pilot service should
• have a strong user focus
• look to involve major international players in
  funding and management
• involve a broad range of target services
• use existing machine-readable mappings wherever
  possible

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HILT Workshop

• Pilot service should
• be closely linked to a cross-sectoral and
  cross-domain task force at a practical level
• consider user terminology as the central spine
• define terms such as task force, terminologies
  agency and mapping more closely.

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HILT Workshop

• Also clear from workshop that
• everyone agreed there was a problem
• no one thought that it was acceptable to do
  nothing (OS 1)
• no one had any enthusiasm for the adoption of one
  or other existing schemes as an option, or even a
  fall back option (OS 4).

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Next Steps

• publish the interim report to wider community for
  feedback
• put forward a proposal for a pilot terminologies
  mapping service
• turn consensus into practical progress.

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Further Information

• Website
• http//hilt.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/
• e-mail
• Dennis Nicholson Project Director
  d.m.nicholson_at_strath.ac.uk
• Susannah Wake Researchersusannah.wake_at_strath.a
  c.uk