the national library of finland – library network services finna and ontologies erkki tolonen and...
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THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
Finna and Ontologies
Erkki Tolonen and Ere Maijala
Nordlod 2014
23 Oct 2014
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
The Finna search service brings together the collections of Finnish archives, libraries and museums.
It is part of the National Digital Library, NDL, key electronic research and culture infrastructures in Finland. Finna = NDL user interface
Finna and NDL
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
Finna - Background
2009 Requirements for NDL user interface 2010 ExLibris Primo 2012 Open source 2013 Finna 1.0 Based on open source products Also our own code is open source Agile development. New version every three weeks.
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
Finna
Two services: National view (portal service) and local views (platform service)
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
National view
Finna.fi 9.1 million descriptive
metadata entries from libraries, museums and archives
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
Local views At the moment around 10 hkm.finna.fi, museot.finna.fi, jyu.finna.fi, kansalliskirjasto.finna.fi, ..
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
DC
Finna – Shared Index
Diverse metadata is harvested into Finna from multiple sources
Even though metadata is indexed as is, it is also normalized for search. Normalization also happens at the user interface layer when records are displayed. A lot of work has been put into this, and it’s
being worked on in continuous collaboration Makes it possible to have common filters and
facets Overarching decisions are made in e.g. Finna
workgroups Collaboration between organisations and
sectorsMARC 21
LIDO
MetadataEAD
Record ManagerMetadata harvesting and
manipulation
VuFind
SolrMetadata index
and search engine
Finna.fi
User interface
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
”Google-like Search”
By default Finna provides a single search box Not really a service for browsing
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
Preparing for Changes in Cataloguing
Different sectors have already presented time tables for migrating to new cataloguing rules
It is expected that the new ways will facilitate smarter search services Discussions about linked metadata with the National Archive and
FINTO Project (http://finto.fi/en/about) already under way Collaboration and discussion with client organisations will
continue. Services are planned together. Examples of metadata cataloguing according to the new
guidelines will be available in 2015
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
Challenges in the New Cataloguing Standards
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
Challenges in the New Cataloguing Standards
There will still be data sources where linked vocabularies are not used Maybe some of them can be ”ontologized” on the fly if they use a well-defined
vocabulary, at least for non-ambiguous terms.. A lot of work will be required for the standards to be able to ”talk” to each
other. All the different metadata needs to be normalized for a single search and
display in a common user interface Usability may suffer if some functions only work with a subset of metadata
available in the index (easier in organisational views and the national view)
MARC 21, DC, ..
Finna
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
Possibilities in the New Cataloguing Standards
Linked data, finally! Common vocabularies and linked data make it possible to
improve the search and recommendations Research and planning of how to take advantage of
ontologies and vocabularies begins in 2015 Limited scope: each ontology and linked vocabulary needs to be
checked individually Aim is to improve the search service Will research more demanding browse-style features
Co-operation with the AHAA project
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
Some Ideas for Further Testing
On-the-fly ontologization For unambiguous terms when the vocabulary is known
Search suggestions Refinement Expansion Spelling check
Similar records Lateral linking Geographic enrichment (points, but also polygons if available)
Tested not to work without identifiers (there’s Finland in Norway…)
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
Something Concrete Already
We have discussed at least two ways even before further examination and co-operation with clients
1. Real-time enrichment of search results with linked ontologies or vocabularies
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
Something Concrete Already
2. Enrichment of the search index Must be done at least when Finna starts to receive metadata
that contains only URIs instead of the actual terms. So far few people se URIs for searching.
Metadata needs to be enriched before indexing so that the actual terms are searchable.
Enrichment is an easy way to improve the usability of the search…
Problems How do we know to update the index if a linked vocabulary is
updated? An error in linked data may wreak havoc
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
Something Concrete Already
Enrichment has been tested with a set of records that have URIs for subject terms
Enrichment is already in use in Finna, and it does not cause performance problems
Index size and thus hardware requirements may be affected, though
> DEMO
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
General Ontology – A Practical Impossibility?
Ontology of a specific subject is viable, but is a general ontology bound to result in (some) insanity?
How do you model the world in a way that at least most people can understand and feel familiar with?
Would you relate a cemetery to a landfill? How does the machine choose sensible relations e.g. when
providing similar results?
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
Depending on an Ontology
Who’s in charge and what happens if a mad scientist decides to “fix” the taxonomy? a system failure brings an ontology service down? an entity decides to stop maintaining the ontology? the Internet ceases to exist as we know it?
Need to maintain searchable stuff locally anyway Maybe it’s a good idea to also record the source/authority
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
Technical limitations
No hierarchical relationships between records in the index E.g. EAD records need to be split, and their relationships
indicated with linking fields On the UI level it is still possible to e.g. provide a hierarchy tree
that can be used to browse archival series and their units Ontology data merged into other record metadata
Updates are more complicated Any denormalization affects relevance ranking
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND – Library Network Services
Any Questions?