I still remember the cover of Hot Rod magazine that announced (from memory) “The 6′s are here!” Don “The Snake” Prudhomme had broken the 200 mph barrier in a drag race. Other memories follow on from that one but I mention it to explain my interest in a recent Subject Authority Cooperative Program decision to not have a cross-reference from dragster (the term I would have used) to more recent terms, drag cars or drag racing cars.
The expected search (in this order) due to this decision is:
Cars (Automobiles) -> redirect to Automobiles -> Automobiles -> narrower term -> Automobiles, racing -> narrower term -> Dragsters
Adam L. Schiff, proposer of drag cars & drag racing cars says below “This just is not likely to happen.”
Question: Is there a relationship between users “work[ing] their way up and down hierarchies” and display of relationships methods? Who chooses which items will be the starting point to lead to other items? How do you integrate a keyword search into such a system?
Question: And what of the full phrase/sentence AI systems where keywords work less well? How does that work with relationship display systems?
Question: I wonder if the relationship display methods are closer to the up and down hierarchies, but with less guidance?
Adam’s Dragster proposal post in full:
Dragsters
Automobiles has a UF Cars (Automobiles). Since the UF already exists on the basic heading, it is not necessary to add it to Dragsters. The proposal was not approved.
Our proposal was to add two additional cross-references to Dragsters: Drag cars, and Drag racing cars. While I understand, in principle, the reasoning behind the rejection of these additional references, I do not see how it serves users. A user coming to a catalog to search for the subject “Drag cars” will now get nothing, no redirection to the established heading. I don’t see how the presence of a reference from Cars (Automobiles) to Automobiles helps any user who starts a search with “Drag cars”. Only if they begin their search with Cars would they get led to Automobiles, and then only if they pursue narrower terms under that heading would they find Automobiles, Racing, which they would then have to follow further down to Dragsters. This just is not likely to happen. Instead they will probably start with a keyword search on “Drag cars” and find nothing, or if lucky, find one or two resources and think they have it all. And if they are astute enough to look at the subject headings on one of the records and see “Dragsters”, perhaps they will then redo their search.
Since the proposed cross-refs do not begin with the word Cars, I do not at all see how a decision like this is in the service of users of our catalogs. I think that LCSH rules for references were developed when it was expected that users would consult the big red books and work their way up and down hierarchies. While some online systems do provide for such navigation, it is doubtful that many users take this approach. Keyword searching is predominant in our catalogs and on the Web. Providing as many cross-refs to established headings as we can would be desirable. If the worry is that the printed red books will grow to too many volumes if we add more variant forms that weren’t made in the card environment, then perhaps there needs to be a way to include some references in authority records but mark them as not suitable for printing in printed products.
PS: According to ODLIS: Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science by Joan M. Reitz, UF, has the following definition:
used for (UF)
A phrase indicating a term (or terms) synonymous with an authorized subject heading or descriptor, not used in cataloging or indexing to avoid scatter. In a subject headings list or thesaurus of controlled vocabulary, synonyms are given immediately following the official heading. In the alphabetical list of indexing terms, they are included as lead-in vocabulary followed by a see or USE cross-reference directing the user to the correct heading. See also: syndetic structure.
I did not attempt to reproduce the extremely rich cross-linking in this entry but commend the entire resource to your attention, particularly if you are a library science student.
Hard-Coding Bias in Google “Algorithmic” Search Results.
Not that I want to get into analysis of hard-coding or not in search results but it is an interesting lead into issues a bit closer to home.
To what extent does subject identification have built-in biases that impact user communities?
Or less abstractly, how would we go about discovering and perhaps countering such bias?
For countering the bias you can guess that I would suggest topic maps. 
The more pressing question is and one that is relevant to topic map design, is how to discover our own biases?
What seems perfectly natural to me, with a background in law, biblical studies, networking technologies, markup technologies, and now semantic technologies, may seem so to other users.
To make matters worse, how do you ask a user about information they did not find?
Questions:
PS: There are biases in algorithms as well but we will cover those separately.
Subject World (Japanese only)
Subject World is a project to visualize heterogeneous terminology, including catalogs, for use with library catalogs. Uses BSH4 subject headings (Basic Subject Headings) and NDC9 index terms (Nippon Decimal Classification) to visualize and retrieve information from the Osaka City University OPAC.
English language resources:
Subject World: A System for Visualizing OPAC (paper)
Slides with the same title (but different publication from the paper):
Subject World: A System for Visualizing OPAC (slides)
See also: Murakami Harumi Laboratory, in particular its research and publication pages.
Leveraging on prior work should be part of any topic map project.
Building topic maps with subject headings? See: Making topic maps from Subject Headings, a slide pack from Motomu Naito, a regular contributor in the topic maps community.
Project is using NDLSH 2008 (National Diet Library Subject Headings, subject headings 17,953), BSH4 (Basic Subject Headings, Japanese Library Association, subject headings, 7847), LCSH (Library of Congress Subject Headings, subject headings, 372,399).
Slides describe organizing Wikipedia using subject headings, merging subjects with subject headings, and, using LSCH subjects as a bridges to map between subject headings in different languages.
Forward to your local library researcher.
The TFM (To Find Me) score for a topic map or other information resource depends upon the subject being identified.
Here is a portion of a record from the Library of Congress:
LC Control No.: 2001376890
Type of Material: Book (Print, Microform, Electronic, etc.)
Main Title: Medieval Slavic manuscripts and SGML : problems and
perspectives = Srednovekovni slavi·a·nski rukopisi i
SGML / [Anisava Miltenova, David Birnbaum, editors].
Parallel Title: Srednovekovni slavi·a·nski rukopisi i SGML
Published/Created: Sofii·a· : A.I. “Prof. Marin Drinov”, 2000.
Related Names: Miltenova, Anisava
Birnbaum, David J.
Description: 371 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
ISBN: 9544307400
Subjects: ***omitted, will cover in another post***
LC Classification: Z115.5.C57 M43 2000
Language Code: eng bul
Other System No.: (OCoLC)ocm45819499
CALL NUMBER: Z115.5.C57 M43 2000
How many ways can you find this book?
TFM score of 4. Four ways to find this book.
But, why the following weren’t included?
Which would have made the TFM score 6.
Depends on what subject you think is being identified.
If the subject is this book, as a publication, the TFM score remains at 4.
If the subject is a particular copy of this book, held by the Library of Congress, the TFM score goes to 6.
Sanford Berman has been a major figure in cataloging for decades. His Prejudices and Antipathies: A tract on the LC Subject Heads Concerning People might sound like a dull tract to be read by bored graduate students, but it’s not!
Published in 1971, this work criticizes Library of Congress subject headings. To give the flavor of Berman’s targets and his recommendations:
I don’t disagree with any of the changes that Berman recommends for current practice, but I do take issue with his recommendations for deletion.
Sanitizing our records will allow us to rest easy that we are beyond such categories as the “JEWISH QUESTION” or “YELLOW PERIL.” Except now we would say without any hesitation, the “MUSLIM QUESTION,” and “BROWN PERIL.” The latter when discussing immigration from Mexico on the Fox news network.
A well constructed topic map for subject headings should not hide our prior ignorance and prejudice from us. Lest we simply choose new victims in place of the old.
One of the underlying (and false) presumptions of the Semantic Web is that users have a uniform understanding of the world. One that matches the understanding of ontology authors.
The failure of that presumption was demonstrated over a decade ago in rather remarkable research conducted by Karen Drabenstott (now Marley) on user understanding of Library of Congress subject headings.
Despite the use of Library of Congress subject headings for almost a century, no one before Drabenstott had asked the fundamental question: Does anyone understand Library of Congress subject headings? The study, Understanding Subject Headings in Library Catalogs found that:
Overall percentages of correct meanings for subject headings in the original order of subdivisions were as follows: children, 32%, adults, 40%, reference 53%, and technical services librarians, 56%.
The conclusions one would draw from such a result are easy to anticipate but I will quote from the report:
The developers of new indexing systems especially systems aimed at organizing the World-Wide Web should include children, adults, librarians, and even subject-matter experts in the establishment of new terms and changes to existing ones. Perhaps there should be separate indexing systems for children, adults, librarians, and subject-matter experts. With a click of a button, users could choose the indexing system that works for them in terms of their understanding of the subject matter and the indexing system’s terminology.
Hmmm, users “…choose the indexing system that works for them…,” what a remarkable concept. Topic maps anyone?
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