Multilingual Thesaurus of Geosciences
Transcultural Knowledge with the help of a Multilingual Thesaurus
Joachim GersemannBundesanstalt f. Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe
Hannover
“Physical distance makes effective communication necessary and cultural distance makes effective global communication essential.” ( SPINKY & WELLS 1997)
Managers, engineers, and scientists “will be required to evolve concepts and resolve design problems in both spoken and written form without language being a barrier.” (FEELY & HARZING 2003)
Communication and language
Languages and information
InformationManagement
Thesaurusdevelopment
Thesaurusmanagement
Is English the most important language in Science?
More important:Many scientists do not write internal reports in English Many decision makers do not read English reports
Yes, but … 25% of scientific information is not published in
English English did not dominate scholarly communication
until the 1950s English speaking people still offline: 209 Million Non-English population still offline: >5,000 Million
Communication and language
Languages and information
InformationManagement
Thesaurusdevelopment
Thesaurusmanagement
Using English resources only means:
Overlooking classic documents
Ignoring the trend of Linguistic Nationalism in Asia, South America and the Middle East
Missing the rapid growth of non-English online population
Wasting knowledge
Communication and language
Languages and information
InformationManagement
Thesaurusdevelopment
Thesaurusmanagement
Good news:Scientists often can read scientific documents in a language different from their mother tongue, at least they can understand the essentials
Bad news:Scientists often fail in finding accurate documentsScientists are provided with inaccurate documents
Languages and information
Communication and language
InformationManagement
Thesaurusdevelopment
Thesaurusmanagement
Scientists are trained to become inventive… keywords introduced by authors are exceptional
Publishers try to add value to their data bases by introducing keywords to references
Usually, keywords are “home made“ by authors
Problems: No semantic control Keywords in different languages Exceptional keywords are useless and misleading Inaccurate information cause bad decisions Poor information is worse than missing
information
Languages and information
Communication and language
InformationManagement
Thesaurusdevelopment
Thesaurusmanagement
decision
information
good
fair
bad
false missing poor fair good redundant
area of excellence
InformationManagement
Communication and language
Languages and information
Thesaurusdevelopment
Thesaurusmanagement
Data
facts, observations
Information
data + context
Knowledge
Information + expertise
Proper information management considers the difference of:
Scientific communication needs indexing standards Indexing only with controlled vocabulary Controlled vocabulary means descriptors Descriptors represent concepts Only a hierarchy of descriptors is a Thesaurus
Languages and information
InformationManagement
Communication and language
Thesaurusdevelopment
Thesaurusmanagement
A Multilingual Thesaurus will also: support semantic interoperability between digital
information sources provide an interface that allow machines to
discover and digest the content
Multilingual information management has to consider: Not every translation is a transfer of concepts Some terms do not exist in other languages Terms are of different value in different languages
Fundamental declaration of the IUGS-CGI: The Multilingual Thesaurus of Geosciences (MTG)
has to be: easily accessible (incl. on the Web) available free of charge
IUGS-CGI established a Working GroupMultilingual Thesaurus of Geosciences (MTG)Information
Management
Thesaurusdevelopment
Communication and language
Languages and information
Thesaurusmanagement
A Multilingual Thesaurus for Geosciences is possibleFirst Multilingual Thesaurus of geosciences (GRAVESTEIJN et. al. 1995) by CoGeoInfo.IUGS-CGI: base of a modern web based indexing and searching tool.
To adjust the concepts of descriptors it is necessary to set up categories to configure a hierarchy
Non-spatial groups of categories (facets);examples could be: Non-transportable/Fixed location objects Transportable objects Natural effects Anthropogenic materials, products and effects Theoretical issues
Groups of categories of spatial origin: Landscape Administrative units
InformationManagement
Thesaurusdevelopment
Communication and language
Languages and information
Thesaurusmanagement
Principles of functional development
Non-transportable/Fixed location objects: Earth realms and environments Endogenic structures Geomorphologic features …
Facets are then subdivided in categories
Transportable objects: Rocks and sediments Organisms, parts and casts Minerals …
InformationManagement
Thesaurusdevelopment
Communication and language
Languages and information
Thesaurusmanagement
Natural effects: Processes and phenomena Textures and structures Properties
Thesaurusmanagement
Thesaurusdevelopment
Communication and language
Languages and information
InformationManagement
Set up international organisational structure National agencies Linguistic managers for languages Responsibilities and rights Training Public relation Invention as tool for indexing and search
Set up thesaurus data management Only one central data base Management via WWW Free thesaurus management tools
Next steps
Thesaurusmanagement
Thesaurusdevelopment
Communication and language
Languages and information
InformationManagement
Thank you
Thesaurusmanagement
Thesaurusdevelopment
Communication and language
Languages and information
InformationManagement
Actual members of the MTG working group(funded by their agencies) Finland (GTK) France (BRGM) Germany (BGR) Italy (APAT) Netherlands (TNO) Poland (PGI) Sweden(SGU) United Kingdom (BGS) USA (AGI)Joining soon Russia (VSEGEI)
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