   
Newsletter of the Section on Classification and Indexing
No. 21
June 2000
To all members of the Section
The programme that has been organised for Jerusalem is a very full one. There will be three papers presented at the Section's open meeting and a workshop has also been organized this year. We look forward to the usual good attendance from members at both.
The Section will also participate in the Open Forum of the Division of Bibliographic Control. As last year, this will be a series of short presentations, but these will be fewer in number. The Chair of each section will speak about the activities and projects that are currently in progress, there will be a report on the activities of the IFLA Office for UBCIM and there will also be a local contribution on activities especially relevant to the Middle East and on what IFLA can do for those who are working in the area. We have deliberately arranged a reduced programme in order to encourage more participation from the audience. We hope that there will be contributions from the floor and a more interactive session than is frequently the case. Following the Division's Open Forum a social "get-together" is again being arranged for all the committee members of the three sections who are present, to provide an opportunity for committee members to meet each other and for a social gathering of the whole Division. This will be held in the Division's room, Room 316, on Monday August 14th from 10.30 to11.30.
We would also like to give notice of the preconference satellite meeting "Subject retrieval in a networked world" that we are planning prior to the Boston Conference in 2001. This will be held from August 14th to 16th and will be hosted by OCLC at Dublin Ohio. Hopefully, by giving notice in good time, members will be able to make arrangements to attend this prior to going to Boston.
The Chair, Secretary/Treasurer and Standing Committee members wish to express their appreciation of your support for the furthering of subject access to information in all its forms and for all the work that you undertake for the Section. I look forward to seeing you all in Jerusalem.
Ia McIlwaine
Chair
IFLA Section on Classification and Indexing
Standing Committee and Open Programme meetings for the Jerusalem Conference
These times are provisional. Please check IFLANET and your programme for more up-to-date information.
Saturday, August 12th 2000, 8.30-11.20, Standing Committee I
Monday, August 14th 2000, 8.30-10.30, Division of Bibliographic Control Open Forum
Tuesday, August 15th, 2000, 15.30-18.00, Section Open Programme
Thursday, August 17th, 2000, 13.00-17.00, Workshop
Friday, August 18th, 2000, 10.30-12.15, Standing Committee II
Standing Committee of the Section on Classification and Indexing
The Standing Committee at present has 19 members. The present membership is: Marje Aasmets (Estonian Academic Library, Tallinn, Estonia), Jon Anjer (Faculty of Journalism, Library and Information Science, Oslo College, Oslo, Norway), Lois Mai Chan (School of Library and Information Science, Lexington, Kentucky), Michel Fournier (Université Laval, Québec, Canada), Friedrich Geisselmann (Universitätsbibliothek Regensburg, Germany), Magda Heiner-Freiling (Die Deutsche Bibliothek, Frankfurt am Main, Germany), Adriana Király (Biblioteca Judeteana "Octavian Goga" Cluj, Romania), Pia Leth (Kungl. Biblioteket, Stockholm, Sweden), Elisabet Lindkvist Michailaki (The Swedish Parliament, Stockholm, Sweden), Ia McIlwaine (University College London, UK), Max Naudi (Bibliothèque nationale de France), Jesus Jimenez Pelayo (Biblioteca de Andalucia, Granada, Spain), Gerhard Riesthuis (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands), Edward Swanson (Library Consultant, Saint Paul, USA), Marie-Martine Tomich (Bibliothèque de l'Université René Descartes, Paris, France), Irina Tsvetkova (National Library of Russia, St Petersburg, Russia), Júlio Vaz dos Santos Rodrigues, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal), Pisayada Vidanapathirana (University of Sri Jayawardenepura, Negeguda, Sri Lanka) , Marcia Zeng (Kent State University, USA).
The Standing Committee has one observer: Marie-France Plassard (IFLA UBCIM Programme, Die Deutsche Bibliothek, Frankfurt am Main, Germany).
Abstracts of papers for the open programme of the Section at Jerusalem
(Tuesday August 15th, 15.30-18.00)
"Current issues in subject retrieval"
A Draft Version of a Consolidated Thesaurus for the Rapidly Growing Field of Alternative Medicine
Moshe Yitzhaki * and Tzipi Shahar
Bar-Ilan University, ISRAEL
The field of alternative medicine has undergone a significant transformation in recent decades, emerging into a large and widely recognized field, and undergoing a process of growing consolidation with the conventional scientific-medical establishment. Consequently, a growing number of articles, dealing with various aspects of alternative medicine, have appeared in scientific and professional journals. An on-line search limited to the 1975-1994 period, that was conducted on eighteen databases specializing in medical and scientific fields, and used by the medical profession, retrieved close to 4000 articles, most of which appeared quite recently, between 1985 and 1994. A draft of a consolidated thesaurus was constructed, based on keywords found in titles and in descriptors of the aforementioned articles. The principles and rules of the thesaurus' construction are described, and illustrative samples of descriptors and lead-in references are displayed.
A new classification for the literature of religion
Vanda Broughton
University College London
The paper examines general problems in the classification of religious literature, such as the evident Christian bias of existing systems, the proliferation of specialized vocabulary, and the variation in understanding of the meaning of terms between different religions and cultures. The capacity of a facet-structured classification to deal with some of these problems is considered, and the newly revised Class 2 of the UDC is presented, with examples of schedules, and practical implementation.
Multilingual and Multiscript Subject Access: the Case of Israel
Elhanan Adler
Israel Center for Digital Information Services, Hebrew University and Bar-Ilan University
Israel is an extreme case of a multilanguage and multiscript environment. Several different library approaches have evolved to enable subject access to materials in different languages and scripts. The use of subject headings and word searching, primarily in English, seems to be the prevalent trend in academic libraries while public libraries are just beginning to evolve from classified catalogues to Hebrew language subject headings.
Workshop
(Thursday August 17th, 13.00-1700)
"Crosswalks between languages, cultures, religions in classification and indexing".
Speakers will include:
Friedrich GEISSELMANN (Universitätsbibliothek Regensburg) . "Cross concordances: classification and thesauri".
Jolande GOLDBERG (Library of Congress). "Research at the intersection of terminology and classification: Crossroads for retrieval of religious legal data at Library of Congress".
Abstract
In an integrated electronic environment, a multilingual or multi-vocabulary index to classification schemes will provide the user with enhanced access to classification, while the classification provides powerful options for accessing large bibliographic data bases governed by the same classification. From this perspective, the classification schedule for religious legal systems KB-KBZ, in particular the subclasses for Canon law, Islamic law and Jewish law, currently under development as part of the Library of Congress Classification (LCC), provide an interesting case study. The captions of these classes are bilingual, following in the footsteps of earlier bilingual law classifications. The legal terminus is presented:
(1) in original (romanized) language or Latin;
(2) by Library of Congress Subject Heading (LCSH) in English; and
(3) "uncontrolled" vocabulary (translations; phrases; terms of the scholarly literature) which is fluid in nuances of historico-legal tradition and socio-ethnic provenance. All terms stemming from three different "vocabularies" are cast into one index to the classification. The class numbers assigned to captions are linked to the records which reside under this number in the bibliographic database.
The MACS Project: Multilingual Access to Subjects (LCSH, RAMEAU, and SWD)
Patrice Landry
Schweizerische Landesbibliothek
Bern, Switzerland
Patrice Landry is a professional librarian (MLS, McGill University, M.A. Philosophy, University of Ottawa) who is currently employed by the Swiss National Library as Head of the Subject Indexing Service. He previous worked at National Library of Canada and the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions.
Abstract
This presentation will focus on showing the results achieved in the MACS Project (Multilingual Access to Subjects) since last year, when the project was presented at IFLA Bangkok. Started in 1997, this project explored the issue of multilingual subject access to bibliographic databases. A pilot study was conducted to evaluate the feasibility of establishing equivalents between three subject heading languages (RAMEAU, SWD/RSWK and LCSH). On the basis of the positive results obtained in this study, a prototype was created in 2000 to manage the links between the different languages. This prototype also has a search interface to allow users to conduct searches in the language of their choice.
The workshop presentation will demonstrate different features of the prototype. It will show how the prototype has addressed the issues of various types of linking problems and the maintenance of the links in a decentralized management structure. A demonstration of the search interface will demonstrate how browsing and searching will permit users to navigate using search terms in the language of their choice.
Hebrew Subject Headings in the Bar-Ilan University Library
David Wilk
Bar-Ilan University Library, Israel
David Wilk was born in New York City and obtained his B.A. degree from Yeshiva College in 1964. He came to Israel as a volunteer in the wake of the Six-Day War of 1967 and in 1970 received a diploma from the Hebrew University's Graduate School of Library Science. Over the years he worked in various libraries in England, Israel and the United States. Since 1988, he has been a member of the team at the Hebrew Classification and Cataloguing Department in the Wurzweiler Central Library of Bar-Ilan University. He also received an M.A. degree from the University's Department of Information Science and Librarianship.
Abstract
In 1983, the Hebrew Classification and Cataloging Department of Bar-Ilan University's Central Library embarked upon a project to make the library more user-friendly to its Hebrew-speaking student population by assigning subject headings in that language to its collection of books in Hebrew letters.
It was decided to base these subject headings on those of the Library of Congress (LCSH), since the latter were readily available and provided an excellent source for use and translation. LCSH was an internationally accepted system and was already being employed in cataloguing the library's non-Hebrew works.
But there were disadvantages as well. LC subject headings had been designed for LC's own collection and sometimes displayed either a political or Christian bias. Additionally, in certain instances, LC subject headings were not specific enough for a large and varied Judaica and Israeli collection.
The current paper describes how the department's staff attempted to deal with these and other problems which have arisen during the ongoing work of assigning Hebrew subject headings.
Developments since the Bangkok Conference
Newsletter
Following the decision made at the Amsterdam Conference, a second issue of the Newsletter was again circulated in December 1999. This was largely compiled from the very detailed and useful reports given in Bangkok on local initiatives related to our interests. This practice can be repeated this year, if committee members once again come to the Jerusalem meeting with written reports, or send a report to the Chair or Secretary prior to the Conference, if they are unable to attend.
Working Group on Principles Underlying Subject Heading Language (SHLs)
The Report of the Working Group on Principles Underlying Subject Heading Languages (SHLs) chaired by Maria Inês Lopes (Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal) was published in 1999.
Requirements for a Format for Classification Data
The Section has monitored and supported implementation of the recommendations of the Joint Working Group on a Classification Format of the IFLA Sections on Classification and Indexing and Information Technology. The Chair is a member of the Working Group and has also attended meetings of the Permanent UNIMARC Committee by invitation. Implementation involves modification of the USMARC Format for Classification Data and development of a UNIMARC format for classification data. It is hoped that work will be completed by August 2000.
Division project on OPAC displays
Representatives of the Committee attended meetings of the Working Group at the Bangkok IFLA and the Section has maintained this involvement throughout the past year.
Working Group on Subject Access of Web Sites and Digital Libraries
A Working Group on Subject Access of Web Sites and Digital Libraries was set up at Bangkok, under the chairmanship of Marcia Zeng. It has established a mailing list as a forum for discussion.
Guidelines for the construction of multi-lingual thesauri
The Committee initiated a project to draft new guidelines for the construction of Multi-lingual thesauri, to replace the current standard, which is now over 25 years old. A Working Group has been set up, chaired by Gerhard Riesthuis (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) and an e-mail bulletin board has been set up for discussion. The Working Group will meet at Jerusalem to discuss progress.
Dewey Decimal Classification news
Report from Joan Mitchell
WebDewey in CORC
WebDewey in CORC, the first Web version of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system, will be introduced as part of the OCLC CORC (Cooperative Online Resource Catalog) service in July 2000. Annual subscriptions to WebDewey in CORC will be available to OCLC full cataloging members and partial users. The WebDewey database (updated quarterly) includes every update to the DDC that has been made since the publication of Edition 21 in 1996, plus thousands of Relative Index terms and built numbers not available in the print DDC. WebDewey in CORC incorporates an easy-to-use browser-based interface that allows users to search the DDC (and related terminology) efficiently and navigate intuitively. It also contains an automatic classification tool to generate candidate DDC numbers during record creation. A special feature of WebDewey in CORC is its inclusion of selected Library of Congress subject headings linked to the LC authority files. A stand-alone version of WebDewey is planned for introduction sometime in 2001.
Period Tables
On 3 January 2000, the Decimal Classification Division of the Library of Congress began applying standard literary periods for affiliated literatures-that is, for literature in English by authors not from the U.S., Canada, or Europe, and for literature in French, Spanish, and Portuguese by authors not from Europe. For example, poetry by Chileans Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda will be classed in 861.62, with notation "62" meaning 1900-1945 from the standard period table for Spanish at 860.1-868. For authors not previously given literary periods because of the earlier prohibition against using literary periods for affiliated literatures, the Division will begin assigning period notation, but will not go back and reclassify old works.
The Division also begin applying, as appropriate, the new literary period subdivisions for authors who begin to flourish in 2000, following the rules found in the Manual note at the start of Table 3A: "Only one literary period is used for an author and all of the author's works, including works that may have been published earlier or later than the literary period. The literary period is determined in accordance with scholarly consensus about when an author flourished. Thus an author commonly regarded as an early 19th-century writer is classed as such, even if the author published literary works at the end of the 18th century. If the period when an author flourished cannot be determined, use the date of the author's earliest known
separate literary publication, disregarding magazine contributions, isolated student works, and juvenilia."
New Assistant Editor
In October 1999, Giles Martin joined OCLC Forest Press as assistant editor of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC). He is the first member of the Dewey editorial staff from outside the United States. He was a member of the Decimal Classification Editorial Policy Committee from 1993 to 1999, and has served on the Australian Bibliographic Network (ABN) Standards
Committee, the ABN Subject Headings Review Panel and the Australian Committee on Cataloguing. Mr. Martin has a comprehensive background in nine subject areas, with a focus on English, mathematics and legal studies. He has published articles in several library journals, and his work on the ABN Standards Committee includes several papers on form/genre headings. Two papers presented by Mr. Martin at the 1996 IFLA Conference in Beijing appear in the OCLC Forest Press publication Dewey Decimal Classification: Edition 21 and International Perspectives.
Russian Translation of DDC 21
The Russian translation of DDC 21 will be published in conjunction with the Crimea 2000 Conference in Sudak, Crimea, Ukraine, 4-10 June 2000. This is the first Russian translation of the DDC, and was prepared by the Russian National Public Library for Science and Technology.
Discussion Papers
In early July 2000, three discussion papers on proposed changes to the DDC will be available on the Forest Press Web site http://www.oclc.org/fp/:004-006
Computer science, 305-306 Social groups and institutions, and 340 Law. A special meeting will be held at IFLA 2000 to discuss proposed changes to 340 Law. If you are interested in attending, please contact Joan S. Mitchell (joan_mitchell@oclc.org).
Universal Decimal Classification news
Report from Ia McIlwaine
Staff
From October 1st 1999 Vanda Broughton, previously part-time Research Assistant to the UDC Consortium was appointed to a full-time Lectureship at University College London. Her post as Research Assistant was filled by Julia Fletcher. Mrs Broughton continues to assist with revision work, and Aida Slavic continues as a part-time Research Assistant. Regular monthly meetings between the editor and Research Assistants and the staff of the British Standards Institution have continued. This team will do the preparation of Extensions and corrections for 2000. There will be an opportunity during the IFLA Conference for interested people to meet the Editor to discuss the scheme and hear up to date news on Monday, August 14th, from 13.00-14.00 in Division IV Room 316. Printed updates will also be available at the Division of Bibliographic Control meeting on Monday, August 14th, at 8.30.
Revisions in progress
Work continues on revising Physics and parts of Chemistry, and it is hoped that a substantial part of this revision will be completed this year. The new class for Medicine should be completed within the current year, but it is not anticipated that it will be part of this year's amendments, as it is unlikely to meet the deadline of August 31st as it has yet to be approved by subject specialists. A revision for Management, Social Welfare and Theatre will be issued, as well as a revised and expanded Area Table for the USA and parts of South America, together with the usual number of corrections to update concepts or terminology throughout all sections of the scheme.
Extensions and corrections 2000
In addition to the revisions described above, this year's issue of Extensions and corrections will contain reports from the Editor in chief, the Chairman of the Consortium and users of the classification, together with a selection of articles on the scheme and a section of Notes and Queries.
Guide to the UDC
A new and greatly expanded edition of the Guide, paying particular attention to the needs of an automated environment, will be published before the end of 2000.
Published editions of the classification
At the end of 1999 BSI/DISC published a very attractive Pocket Edition of the classification. This cheaply priced edition is in a handy format designed specifically to appeal to the novice user and the individual wishing to organise his or her own files, either computer or in hard copy. A flier describing these editions and specimen copies will be available in Jerusalem.
BSI is also in the process of developing a Web-based version of the classification, which should be available before the end of the year. It will also issue this updated version of the classification on CD-ROM at the same time, and it should be noted that the 1994 Medium Edition in English is now out of print and will not be reissued. A multi-lingual edition of the classification on CD-ROM is also presently under consideration by the Consortium.
Broad System of Ordering News
Members of the Section who are familiar with this classification scheme, originally devised in the 1970s as part of Unesco's UNISIST programme may be interested to know that it has now passed into the hands of the School of Library, Archive and Information Studies, University College London. Further information may be gained from its Web site:
http://www.classbso.demon.co.uk
Bliss Bibliographic Classification News
Report from Vanda Broughton
Work on the revision of the Bliss Bibliographic Classification (BC2) continues steadily. The first of the scientific classes AY/B, General Science and Physics was published in November 1999, and work on Class C, Chemistry is nearing completion. Other areas currently under development by members of the Classification Research Group include Technology and the Fine Arts.
BC2 continues to flourish in the University of Cambridge and is now used in a number of College and departmental libraries. The development of the University Library's Web -based catalogue now enables access, through the Cambridge Union List, to a considerable database of BC2 classed records contributed by these libraries. Revision of the Archaeology schedules is being carried out at the Haddon Library of Archaeology and Anthropology, and a draft schedule for this class was published in the 1999 edition of the Bliss Bulletin. Preparation of a machine readable form of the earlier schedules is also in process, and the possibilities for publication of an integrated machine file are being investigated.
Information about BC2 and the Bliss Classification Association is now available on the BCA Web site http://www.sid.cam.ac.uk/bca/bcahome.htm It is hoped to make this the primary site for publication of minor revisions and amendments in the future.
News from members
Report on Electronic Thesaurus Standard activities in the United States
May 24, 2000
The National Information Standards Organization), the American Psychological Association, the American Society of Indexers and the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services) sponsored an invitational workshop on November 4-5, 1999, in Washington, DC, to investigate the desirability and feasibility of developing a standard for electronic thesauri. The review of ANSI/NISO Z39.19-1993 (R1998) standard (Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of Monolingual Thesauri) recommended such an investigation. Approximately 65 participants, representing primary and secondary publishers, information services, an online retailer, and libraries attended the meeting.
The definition of "thesaurus" for purposes of this meeting was broader than that of the present standard for thesauri ANSI/NISO Z39.19-1993 (R1998). The meeting considered vocabularies that meet two basic criteria:
use to facilitate analysis of texts and their subsequent retrieval (or retrieval of the information which they contain); and inclusion of a rich set of semantic relationships among their constituent terms.
The scope included (among others): standard thesauri, subject heading lists, semantic networks, and taxonomies (Internet directories). It excluded: simple term lists, with or without equivalence relationships; lists of terms whose only relationship is that of co-occurrence in documents; and lists of terms whose primary purpose is to provide definitions (e.g., dictionaries and glossaries)
The Recommendations:
The following recommendations were developed by consensus of the group at the end of the workshop.
- A new standard for "thesauri" is needed, and it should be a single standard.
- However, it should not be a standard for "electronic" thesauri. Essentially all thesauri are digital today, so "electronic" is superfluous.
- Furthermore, the standard should provide for a broader group of controlled vocabularies than those that fit the standard definition of "thesaurus." This includes, for example, ontologies, classifications, taxonomies, and subject headings, in addition to standard thesauri.
- The primary concern is with shareability (interoperability), rather than with construction or display. Therefore this new standard probably will not supersede Z39.19, but supplement it.
- The standard should focus on concepts, terms and relationships.
- The structure of the vocabulary has two aspects: structure of terms and relationships, and structure of the vocabulary as a whole.
- Displays illustrate and aid in testing adequacy of a standard, but have nothing to do with the standard per se. Examples may be included in an appendix.
The Workshop Web site is at: http://www.niso.org/thesau99.html
Marcia Lei Zeng
Kent State University
U.S.A.
Recent developments in classification and indexing in Germany
Verbal indexing on the basis of RSWK/SWD in the German-speaking countries is generally accepted, but cannot fill the gap between subject headings in German and foreign-language systems. Besides, indexing with very narrow descriptors does not always lead to satisfactory results whereas retrieval with a broader systematic approach might sometimes offer additional possibilities. So two projects have made considerable progress during the last year. The MACS project (Multilingual ACcess to Subject) between Swiss, German, French and British national libraries has come to a crucial stage. A prototype is under development, which should be used to link the three subject authority files, Schlagwortnormdatei (SWD), RAMEAU and the Library of Congress Subject Headings. The question of a generally used classification in the German-speaking countries has been discussed for several years. An expert group with specialists from university, national and public libraries published a feasibility study in March 2000 which examines the chances and short-comings of DDC in a German-speaking environment and proposes a model for translation, administration and application of DDC in the German university libraries and the national bibliography. Die Deutsche Bibliothek will try to form a consortium together with Switzerland and Austria and the regional library networks to promote the translation work and is willing to host a working group and an office for the development and maintenance of DDC in German.
Magda Heiner-Freiling
Die Deutsche Bibliothek
Frankfurt
Miscellaneous
Committee members mailing lists
A mailing list for the Committee has been set up and may used via CLASS@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA
The email address for the Working Group on Subject Access of Websites and Digital Libraries is WEB-DL@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA and for the Multilingual Thesaurus Guidelines Working Group is THESAURI@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA
Contributions to the next issue of this newsletter would be greatly appreciated. A warm welcome is also extended to anyone interested in attending as an observer either or both of the Standing Committee meetings in Jerusalem. One of the useful features of this meeting is the reporting by national representatives of classification news in their own country. Similar information from other countries would make an interesting addition to the newsletter and any such contributions may be sent to the Chair for inclusion at any time, prior to May 15th or November 15th of the year in question.
The present officers of the Section are:
Chair: Ia McIlwaine, Director, School of Library, Archive and Information Studies, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK. (Tel: +44 171 380 7205; Fax: +44 171 383 0557; email: i.mcilwaine@ucl.ac.uk)
Secretary/Treasurer: Edward Swanson 1065 Portland Ave., Saint Paul, MN 55104-7011 USA (Tel + Fax: +1 651 291 1261; e-mail: eswanson@uswest.net)
At the Bangkok meeting Ia McIlwaine was elected chair and Edward Swanson was re-
elected as Secretary to the Co-ordinating Board of the Division of Bibliographic Control.
It should be noted that 2001 is an election year and nominations for the committee should be submitted to the appropriate national body early in the new year. Both the current chairman and secretary will have served their full four years in their present offices in 2001 and may not stand again for the same office. Both have, however, two further years to serve as members of the Standing Committee.
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