SIDALCAgricultural Information and Documentation System

for the Americas

SIDALC: Ontologies use in the information units

Orton Memorial Library (IICA-CATIE)Technical Coordination

What is SIDALC ?

It is an initiative to facilitate access

to information on agriculture and

related subjects produced mainly

in Latin America and the Caribbean

National networksReactivated (8)

BrasilChileColombiaCosta RicaEl SalvadorHonduras NicaraguaPanamáIn Progress (9)Bahamas

Belice

Ecuador

Dominica

Guatemala

Guyana

Haití

St. Kitts and Nevis

Suriname

Created (14)

ArgentinaBarbados Bolivia CubaGuatemalaJamaicaMéxicoPerú Rep. Dominicana

Santa Lucia

St. VincentTrinidad y Tobago UruguayVenezuela

The SIDALC like starting point to an agricultural ontological domain, hasa rich terminology in Spanish, such a, scientific, technical and geographical names of the Latin America and the Caribbean region, with emphasis in tropical regions and the humid tropic.

Fundamental technical aspects in which SIDALC like agricultural domain is based

to facilitate the access to the knowledge:

Structured terminologies

Local terminologies

Institutional-research Knowledge

The bibliographical records included in the AGRI2000 megadata, are basically

indexed with AGROVOC Agricultural Multilingual Thesaurus, with the support

of other thesaurus, in addition to the introduction of new local terms

Structured terminologies

The local terms that come to give complement to an exhaustive and

specific indexing, are not contemplated in a controlled vocabulary or even they

have not been accepted.

Local terminologies

The little structured thesaurus update, require the elaboration of listings of local terms in the information units.

Definitions Hierarchical relationships Ambiguities among terms Semantic, morphological, and of syntax

factors Translation to other languages, among

others

The local terms don’t have a formal structure, they lack of:

The terms of indexing of the megadata included in AGRI2000, were taken from structured and/or local thesaurus, they are a source of access to the information

The knowledge developed in the educational, scientific

research and technical institutions, is basic in an

ontological system

Institutional knowledge

Analyzing the structure and systems developed, actually it is possible toincorporate to the SIDALC plattform data bases of objects, photos, collections, expert systems, maps, etc..

In the development of ontologies, it will be useful the existent tools to the organization of information resources in the agricultural domine, available on line

It was made a sampling about the used tools to do indexing

with the participant institutions in SIDALC

Methodology

Agrovoc of the FAOhttp://www.fao.org/scripts/agrovoc/frame.htm

CAB thesaurus

Macrotesauro of the OCDEhttp://info.uibk.ac.at/info/oecd-macroth/es/2452.html

Microtesauro of the forest of the CONICYT

Between the obtained results we observed that the institutions use the following tools:

Tesauro de Administración Pública

Descriptores en Ciencias de la Salud (metodología LILACS).

Tesauro de la OIT sobre el trabajo

Tesauro ICYT (Instituto de Información y Documentación en Ciencia y Tecnología) de

Biología Animal

Tesauro de Ingeniería Sanitaria y Ambiente - Centro Panamericano de Ingeniería Sanitaria

y Ciencias de la Salud

Tesauro sobre Medio Ambiente - Consejería de Medio Ambiente (España)

THESAGRO: thesaurus agrícola nacional. Brasília: MA/SDR/CENAGRI, 1999. 242p.

Tesauro de Agricultura NAL (National Agricultural Library) - en inglés

Vocabulario Controlado sobre Desastres - CRID

Institutions that are using thesaurus specialized in agriculture vs other

specialties

Other specialties

19%

Agriculture81%

Thesaurus used in Latin America and the Caribbean

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

NAL Agricultural

Sanidad Amb. / Adm. Pub. y Salud

Forestal del CONICYT

Medio Ambiente

OCDE

CAB (español)

Agrovoc

Términos locales

- Benefit and update of AGROVOC like AOS platform; terminological control and revision of new terms in Spanish

- Retrieval of Literature generated in ALC, like bridge between SIDALC and AGRIS

Participation of SIDALC in the AOS Project :

- To promote the use of AOS like dominion of the agricultural knowledge in ALC

- Indexing like added value for the documents that feed the megadata

- To facilitate the access and information retrieval

- Trainning to ALC

Biblioteca Conmemorativa Orton(IICA / CATIE)

Turrialba, Costa RicaTel: (506) 556 0501Fax: (506) 556 0858Email: lcotor@catie.ac.cr

http://www.sidalc.net http://www.catie.ac.cr/biblioteca/Ariel: ariel@catie.ac.cr

For more information