Marcia Lei Zeng

Trends and issues in establishing interoperability among knowledge organization systems

This report analyzes the methodologies used in establishing interoperability among knowledge organization systems (KOS) such as controlled vocabularies and classification schemes that present the organized interpretation of knowledge structures. The development and trends of KOS are discussed with reference to the online era and the Internet era. Selected current projects and activities addressing KOS interoperability issues are reviewed in terms of the languages and structures involved. The methodological analysis encompasses both conventional and new methods that have proven to be widely accepted, including derivation/modeling, translation/adaptation, satellite and leaf node linking, direct mapping, co-occurrence mapping, switching, linking through a temporary union list, and linking through a thesaurus server protocol. Methods used in link storage and management, as well as common issues regarding mapping and methodological options, are also presented. It is concluded that interoperability of KOS is an unavoidable issue and process in todays networked environment. There have been and will be many multilingual products and services, with many involving various structured systems. Results from recent efforts are encouraging.

Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS)

Knowledge organization systems (KOS) can be described based on their structures (from flat to multidimensional) and main functions. The latter include eliminating ambiguity, controlling synonyms or equivalents, establishing explicit semantic relationships such as hierarchical and associative relationships, and presenting both relationships and properties of concepts in the knowledge models. Examples of KOS include lists, authority files, gazetteers, synonym rings, taxonomies and classification schemes, thesauri, and ontologies. These systems model the underlying semantic structure of a domain and provide semantics, navigation, and translation through labels, definitions, typing, relationships, and properties for concepts. The term knowledge organization systems (KOS) is intended to encompass all types of schemes for organizing information and promoting knowledge management, such as classification schemes, gazetteers, lexical databases, taxonomies, thesauri, and ontologies (Hodge 2000). These systems model the underlying semantic structure of a domain and provide semantics, navigation, and translation through labels, definitions, typing, relationships, and properties for concepts (Hill et al. 2002, Koch and Tudhope 2004). Embodied as (Web) services, they facilitate resource discovery and retrieval by acting as semantic road maps, thereby making possible a common orientation for indexers and future users, either human or machine (Koch and Tudhope 2003, 2004).

Metadata Interoperability and Standardization - A Study of Methodology Part I Achieving Interoperability at the Schema Level

The rapid growth of Internet resources and digital collections has been accompanied by a proliferation of metadata schemas, each of which has been designed based on the requirements of particular user communities, intended users, types of materials, subject domains, project needs, etc. Problems arise when building large digital libraries or repositories with metadata records that were prepared according to diverse schemas. This article (published in two parts) contains an analysis of the methods that have been used to achieve or improve interoperability among metadata schemas and applications, for the purposes of facilitating conversion and exchange of metadata and enabling cross-domain metadata harvesting and federated searches. From a methodological point of view, implementing interoperability may be considered at different levels of operation: schema level, record level, and repository level. Part I of the article intends to explain possible situations in which metadata schemas may be created or implemented, whether in individual projects or in integrated repositories. It also discusses approaches used at the schema level. Part II of the article will discuss metadata interoperability efforts at the record and repository

Metadata elements for object description and representation: a case report from a digitized historical fashion collection project

This projects goal is to develop a catalog for a digitized collection of historical fashion objects held at the Kent State University Museum and to analyze and evaluate how well existing metadata formats can be applied to a fashion collection. The project considered the known and anticipated uses of the collection and the identification of the metadata elements that would be needed to support these uses. From a set of 90 museum accession records, 42 fashion objects were selected for cataloging. Three metadata treatments were created for these 42 items using (a) the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR) in use with the United States MAchine-Readable Cataloging (USMARC) formats, (b) the Dublin Core set of elements designed for minimal level cataloging, and (c) the Visual Resources Association (VRA) Core Categories for Visual Resources created for developing local databases and cataloging records for visual resources collections. Comparison and analysis of the formats resulted in the adoption of a modified VRA metadata format to catalog the entire digitized historical fashion collection.

Metadata Interoperability and Standardization - A Study of Methodology Part II: Achieving Interoperability at the Record and Repository Levels

This is the second part of an analysis of the methods that have been used to achieve or improve interoperability among metadata schemas and their applications in order to facilitate the conversion and exchange of metadata and to enable cross-domain metadata harvesting and federated searches. From a methodological point of view, implementing interoperability may be considered at different levels of operation: schema level (discussed in Part I of the article), record level (discussed in Part II of the article), and repository level (also discussed in Part II). The results of efforts to improve interoperability may be observed from different perspectives as well, including element-based and value-based approaches.

Functional requirements for subject authority data (FRSAD) : a conceptual model

The purpose of authority control is to ensure consistency in representing a value - a name of a person, a place name, or a term or code representing a subject - in the elements used as access points in information retrieval. The primary purpose of this study is to produce a framework that will provide a clearly stated and commonly shared understanding of what the subject authority data/record/file aims to provide information about, and the expectation of what such data should achieve in terms of answering user needs.

Ensuring Interoperability among Subject Vocabularies and Knowledge Organization Schemes: a Methodological Analysis

Lois Mai Chan, Professor, School of Library and Information Science, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, is the author of numerous articles and books on cataloging, classification, subject indexing, and online retrieval, including: Library of Congress Subject Headings: Principles and Application; Cataloging and Classification: An Introduction, and A Guide to the Library of Congress Classification. She co-authored Dewey Decimal Classification : A Practical Guide and Thesauri

A Comprehensive Information Resource on Traditional, Complementary, and Alternative Medicine: Toward an International Collaboration

OBJECTIVES A prototype for a comprehensive information resource for traditional complementary and alternative medicine (TCAM) has been developed to fill the considerable needs of a broad audience for worldwide access to TCAM information. The proposed resource is to be a comprehensive, vocabulary-controlled, integrated, standardized, multimedia information resource for TCAM. It will facilitate international cooperation, promote synergistic development of individual resources, promote dissemination of TCAM knowledge, and map the interrelationships among the TCAM traditions. METHODS We organized two workshops for representatives of international databases that contain significant information on various aspects of alternative medicine. For the first workshop, we prepared and demonstrated a prototype named Complementary and Alternative Medicine Digital Library (CAMed) to illustrate the anticipated structure, content, and functionality of the comprehensive resource. We then constructed a second prototype to demonstrate the possibilities of searching across the collaborating databases and presented it to the representatives at the second workshop. OUTCOMES Representatives of nine international databases attended the two workshops, in Bangalore, India (1998), and in Seoul, Korea (1999). We presented the prototypes at the workshops. Prototype I uses a Web interface, and supports browsing and searching from a variety of access points. Prototype II demonstrates a functional system that provides simultaneous access to selected represented databases by searching thesauri of these databases through our system. The group formalized itself as the International Collaboration for Information on Complementary and Traditional Medicine (IC2TM) with a goal of fully realizing the potential of the project.

Recent applications of Knowledge Organization Systems: introduction to a special issue

This special issue of the International Journal of Digital Libraries evolved from the 13th Networked Knowledge Organization Systems (NKOSs) workshop held at the joint Digital Libraries conference 2014 in London. The focus of the workshop was ‘Mapping between Linked Data vocabularies of KOS’ and ‘Meaningful Concept Display and Meaningful Visualization of KOS’. The issue presents six papers on the general theme on both conceptual aspects and technical implementation of NKOS. We dedicate this special issue to our long-term colleague and friend Johan De Smedt who died in June 2015 while we were editing the special issue.

Exploring methods to improve access to Music resources by aligning library Data with Linked Data: A report of methodologies and preliminary findings

As a part of a research project aiming to connect library data to the unfamiliar data sets available in the Linked Data (LD) communitys CKAN Data Hub (thedatahub.org), this project collected, analyzed, and mapped properties used in describing and accessing music recordings, scores, and music-related information used by selected music LD data sets, library catalogs, and various digital collections created by libraries and other cultural institutions. This article reviews current efforts to connect music data through the Semantic Web, with an emphasis on the Music Ontology (MO) and ontology alignment approaches; it also presents a framework for understanding the life cycle of a musical work, focusing on the central activities of composition, performance, and use. The project studied metadata structures and properties of 11 music-related LD data sets and mapped them to the descriptions commonly used in the library cataloging records for sound recordings and musical scores (including MARC records and their extended schema.org markup), and records from 20 collections of digitized music recordings and scores (featuring a variety of metadata structures). The analysis resulted in a set of crosswalks and a unified crosswalk that aligns these properties. The paper reports on detailed methodologies used and discusses research findings and issues. Topics of particular concern include (a) the challenges of mapping between the overgeneralized descriptions found in library data and the specialized, music-oriented properties present in the LD data sets; (b) the hidden information and access points in library data; and (c) the potential benefits of enriching library data through the mapping of properties found in library catalogs to similar properties used by LD data sets.