Renardus: Cross-browsing European subject gateways via a common classification system (DDC)

Abstract

This paper presents the approach and first results of the classification mapping process in the EU project Renardus. The outcome in Renardus is a cross-browsing feature based on the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) and improved subject searching across distributed and heterogeneous European subject gateways. The paper presents the project's initial experiences and decisions, e.g. an investigation of the use of classification systems by Renardus partners' gateways, general mapping approaches and issues, the definition of mapping relationships and some information on technical solutions and the mapping tool. There is also a demonstration of the use of the mapping information in Renardus and the presentation of several features that have been implemented to aid end-user navigation in a large and deep browsing structure like the DDC. Classification mapping for crossbrowsing is a labour intensive and complex effort which at the moment raises many open questions and leaves many more future potential work tasks than completed useful solutions.

Computing minimal mappings between lightweight ontologies

“…We found just 24 equivalences, and only one in a minimal mapping. This phenomenon has been observed also in other projects, for instance in Renardus [23] and CARMEN 6 . Yet it is clear that, even if faster, automatic approaches require manual validation and augmentation of computed mappings (see for instance [27], which also describes a tool that supports this task).…”

“…Any such pair of nodes, along with the semantic relationship holding between the two, is what we call a mapping element. In the last few years a lot of work has been done on this topic both in the digital libraries [15,16,17,21,23,24,25,26,29] and the computer science [2,3,4,5,6,8,9] communities.…”

Metadata for semantic and social applications<br />DC- 2008 Berlin

“…In other words, either the systems must contain the same classification system or their classification or subject headings systems must be mappable to the same system. Thus, CACAO's experience with cross-language access so far strongly supports Koch, Neuroth, and Day (2001); NKOS (2001); Chan and Zeng (2002); ; and many others in the library community who have discussed the importance of the interoperability of subject vocabularies and of classification systems for information retrieval in cross-domain environments. CACAO will rely on already existing mappings such as those provided by the MACS project (Landry (2004(Landry ( , 2006), which has worked on mappings for RAMEAU (Bibliothèque nationale de France), Library of Congress Subject Headings (British Library), and Schlagwortnormdatei (Deutsche Nationalbibliothek and Bibliothèque nationale suisse).…”

Integration of distributed terminology resources to facilitate subject cross‐browsing for library portal systems

“…• structural models for mapping (BS8723-Part4) • the direction of the mapping (BS8723-Part4) • methods to distribute a huge amount of mapping work to different participants (Koch et al 2001a) • how compound concepts are handled (BS8723-Part4) • automatic mapping solutions (Issac et al 2007) • the top-level metadata schemes to describe different KOS (Zeng 2008, andGolub and.…”