Electronic Resources

Blog post #4
Please note that I was sick when this was due, and a new due date for me was set at Sunday, 7 March 2010.

1. LISA

2. I used the topic “controlled vocabulary.” Doing a search using this complete term yielded 464 published works. The results seemed to cover the scope of the topic (including social tagging, metadata, and terminology mapping) as well as lexicographical variations such as “controlled vocabularies.”

3. Thesaurus

a. The thesaurus for LISA was extremely easy to find and use. There was a link at thebottom of the search page that took me straight to a page that allowed me to search the thesaurus. Results could be viewed in their place alphabetically in the thesaurus, or else as a hierarchy or rotated index. One can check boxes next to the terms and use those to either narrow or broaden their search. Additionally, terms can be exploded to include all narrower terms within an entry. Finally, related terms are included in each entry. The only real drawback I could find to the interface was that the thesaurus couldn’t be browsed, if, for example, a user didn’t have a specific search term in mind. There was also no help feature for using the thesaurus that I could find, but this was not a real drawback for me, as the interface was so intuitive.

b. Controlled Vocabulary was in the thesaurus when I searched for the term. It had an alternate term (UF), vocabulary control, as well as three related terms. There were no narrower or broader terms; however, after digging in the thesaurus for a bit, I did find terms that used those signifiers, so the thesaurus does employ them.

c. The thesaurus is extremely easy to use. All one need do is navigate through the thesaurus, marking terms that should be included in the new search. Additionally, how the terms should be used in this new search needs to be chosen (either an AND, OR, or EXPLODE command). A fairly large downside to this method is that each new term cannot be given its own command. Therefore, I cannot search for [[controlled vocabulary AND taxonomies] OR thesauri] directly from the thesaurus. However, searches like this can be done through the advanced search pane, though it seems somewhat of an annoyance to the user to have to first search for the preferred terms and then have to navigate to another pane to do the actual search.

d. Other functionalies offered through the thesaurus search pane include selecting a thesaurus for a different database in the bundle, and links to the previous and next terms in the list. As stated earlier, a nice function to add would be delimiting search commands for individual terms rather than for the marked terms as a whole.

e. For the most part, the LISA thesaurus abides by the recommendations set forth by the Craven guide. In particular, the LISA thesaurus standardizes the forms of the entries (pluralizing when appropriate), following the rules for making multi-word terms the preferred terms, indicating syndetic relationships in a consistent manner, and though I did not encounter any homographs in the terms that I looked through, the adherence to other standards would lead me to believe that they appropriately label homographs. The only real deviation from Craven’s guidelines that I could find was the lack of thesaurus guide. There was no introduction, no scope statement, and no real indication of what the thesaurus was about or how it was structured. Though scope notes were included where appropriate for terms, they did not aid in determining scope, structure, or intent. There are of course, assumptions that can be made – it is a thesaurus for library materials, so the scope should be the library and information science discipline; however, I think that Crane’s guide makes clear that it is important for this type of information to be stated explicitly: for the LISA thesaurus, it is not.

f. LISA’s thesaurus is an extremely helpful tool for database users at all levels of expertise. I think it more effective for those users at the novice or intermediate level, due to the fact that searching directly from the thesaurus is limited to one search command (AND, OR, or EXPLODE). Due to this, compound searches are more complicated to execute, and seem to demand more familiarity with the system. The thesaurus is intuitive enough for a novice user to gain some value, and more importantly, the thesaurus term search feature allows a user who is unfamiliar with the thesaurus vocabulary to search (without having to browse through hundreds of terms) for terms until they hit on one that can serve as a starting point. For intermediate users, features such as the explode command allow search ranges to be expanded. In total, the LISA thesaurus is an effective, if incomplete tool that allows basic and intermediate users access to a resource that adds value to their search. Expert users may have a harder time due to the limitations of the “search directly from the thesaurus” features, but nonetheless, they can still use it for its intended function: to provide a controlled vocabulary with which to search the database more effectively.

4. After my explorations, I would certainly modify my search; use the thesaurus in the future; and tell both friends and patrons to use the thesaurus in their searches.

5. The new search results, after having used the thesaurus to broaden my search, brought back 1366 hits, on subjects relating to controlled vocabularies. Topics included ontologies, thesauri, social tagging, taxonomies, and terminology mapping. Overall, the hits were related to what I wanted to retrieve, so the new search was a success.

6. Craven states in “Thesaurus Construction,” that “a thesaurus is a tool for vocabulary control. By guiding indexers and searchers about which terms to use, it can help to improve the quality of retrieval.” I think that this assignment effectively taught me that databases that I use weekly can be aided by controlled vocabulary, which is an odd realization because I use MeSH constantly at my position at the Health Sciences Library. There seems to be a divide when it comes to the scientific community and the rest of the academic community in terms of how databases are used. I have taught people all about MeSH, but I have never explored thesauri in other databases. That trend seems to be reflected in the academic community’s electronic resources – MeSH is more commonly known and accepted across the medical discipline, but to my knowledge there is no unified or commonly known vocabulary for other fields. Of course, they do exist, but I could not name any besides those in scientific fields, and therein lies the disparity. Perhaps this is because hard science and medical fields are grounded in facts and figures (rather than interpretive disciplines) that can be pinned down with great accuracy by language, and thusly are the easiest to quantify in a controlled vocabulary. Maybe as electronic resources become even more integrated into all academic communities, other controlled vocabularies will rise to the surface and become fully integrated into their respective communities.