TMRA Leipzig 2006 Henrik Laursen 1

The Royal Library, Denmark

Topic Maps as a means to subject search across multiple catalogues

Henrik Laursen, research librarianThe University Library Dept.

hhl@kb.dk

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- Copenhagen University Library since 1482- The Kings Library since 1660- National Deposit Library since 1697- Public Library since 1793

- 150 kilometres printed matters- electronic databases and periodicals- electronic Deposit Library since 2005

- 500 employees

The Library

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The incentive• Subject catalogues from many merged libraries• Subject catalogues from many periods• Some subject catalogues are also shelf lists - with 3 sub-catalogues for different formats

• Historical knowledge is a prerequisite

The project deals with 6 catalogues:• Foreign books catalogue from 1486 – 1950 (RL)• Foreign books catalogue from 1950 – 1995 (RL) • Foreign books catalogue from 1995 (RL)• Foreign books catalogue from 1486 -1990 (UL1)• Danish books catalogue 1959 (RL) • Danish books catalogue 1960 (RL) • Science books catalogue 2006 (UL2)

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Why now?

Digitalisation of old catalogues The foreign books catalogue from 1486

– 1950 is under digitalisation. The books are searchable by author, title and shelf number. But not by subject. The catalogue covers 400.000 books.

Merging with yet another library The library has recently been merged

with a science library – and the merging of 3 universities including their libraries will take place in 2007

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The means

Topic maps

Topic is in our case the subject classification. The topics are scoped in Danish, English, alternative name, alternative spelling and classification code .

Occurrence is a search-string in the online library base for books with the specific classification. Other occurrences could be references to online reference works.

Associations are in the project limited to two types:”Super-subclass” and ”Search also”

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The conversion process

- OCR of the typewritten catalogues using FineReader in ”count spaces”-mode

- proofreading, esp. correcting indentation

- running a perlscript that catches the hierarchical structure of the catalogues and prints a XML file

- the resulting topicmap conforms to the ISO standard following the XTM1.dtd, the XML interchange syntax for ISO 13250 Topic Maps

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The 3-format catalogue

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Topic example<topic id="YAC-SK2"><baseName><scope><topicRef xlink:href="#da"/></scope><baseNameString>Hjælpefag, hjælpemidler og metoder</baseNameString>

</baseName><baseName><scope><topicRef xlink:href="#en"/></scope><baseNameString>Methods and aids</baseNameString></baseName><baseName><scope><topicRef xlink:href="#signatur"/></scope><baseNameString>YAC</baseNameString></baseName><occurrence><resourceRef xlink:href="https://rex.kb.dk/F?func=find-c&amp;local_base=kgl01&amp;ccl_term=wkl=YAC"/>

</occurrence></topic>

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Association example 1<association><instanceOf><topicRef xlink:href="#superclass-subclass"/></instanceOf><member><roleSpec><topicRef xlink:href="#superclass"/></roleSpec><topicRef xlink:href="#YA-SK2"/></member><member><roleSpec><topicRef xlink:href="#subclass"/></roleSpec><topicRef xlink:href="#YAC-SK2"/></member></association>

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Association example 2<association id="BCL-IKI-SK2"><instanceOf><topicRef xlink:href="#see-also"></topicRef></instanceOf><member><roleSpec><topicRef xlink:href="#referred-from"></topicRef></roleSpec><topicRef xlink:href="#BCL-SK2"></topicRef></member><member><roleSpec><topicRef xlink:href="#referred-to"></topicRef></roleSpec><topicRef xlink:href="#IKI-SK2"></topicRef></member></association>

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Conclusions 1

•TM creates coherence within the catalogues

•TMs are scalable 1: new catalogues can be included

•TMs are scalable 2: new associations ad libitum

•User friendliness: limit your search to a single subject in one catalogue or extend it to more subjects in more catalogues.

•TMs are scalable 3: subject specific thesauri can be added

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Conclusions 2

Off spin without a topicmaps engine:

•subject hierarchy added to the online database

•subject search through different formats

•searchable catalogues as html-pages

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