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Multilingual Thesaurus of Geosciences

Multilingual Thesaurus of Geosciences. Transcultural Knowledge with the help of a Multilingual Thesaurus Joachim Gersemann Bundesanstalt f. Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe Hannover. Communication and language.

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Multilingual Thesaurus of Geosciences

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  1. Multilingual Thesaurus of Geosciences Transcultural Knowledge with the help of a Multilingual Thesaurus Joachim Gersemann Bundesanstalt f. Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe Hannover

  2. Communication and language “Physical distance makes effective communication necessary and cultural distance makes effective global communication essential.” ( Spinky & Wells 1997) Languages and information 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) Information Management Thesaurus development Thesaurus management

  3. Communication and language Is English the most important language in Science? • 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 Languages and information Information Management Thesaurus development More important: Many scientists do not write internal reports in English Many decision makers do not read English reports Thesaurus management

  4. Communication and language • 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 Languages and information Information Management Thesaurus development Thesaurus management

  5. Good news: Scientists often can read scientific documents in a language different from their mother tongue, at least they can understand the essentials Communication and language Languages and information Information Management Thesaurus development Bad news: Scientists often fail in finding accurate documents Scientists are provided with inaccurate documents Thesaurus management

  6. Communication and language Publishers try to add value to their data bases by introducing keywords to references Usually, keywords are “home made“ by authors Languages and information Scientists are trained to become inventive … keywords introduced by authors are exceptional Information Management • 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 Thesaurus development Thesaurus management

  7. decision good fair bad area of excellence false missing poor fair good redundant information

  8. Proper information management considers the difference of: Communication and language Knowledge Information + expertise Languages and information Information Management Information data + context Thesaurus development Data facts, observations Thesaurus management

  9. Communication and language • 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 • A Multilingual Thesaurus will also: • support semantic interoperability between digital information sources • provide an interface that allow machines to discover and digest the content Information Management Thesaurus development • 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 Thesaurus management

  10. A Multilingual Thesaurus for Geosciences is possible First Multilingual Thesaurus of geosciences (GRAVESTEIJN et. al. 1995) by CoGeoInfo. IUGS-CGI: base of a modern web based indexing and searching tool. Communication and language Languages and information IUGS-CGI established a Working Group Multilingual Thesaurus of Geosciences (MTG) Information Management • 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 Thesaurus development Thesaurus management

  11. Communication and language Principles of functional development • To adjust the concepts of descriptors it is necessary • to set up categories • to configure a hierarchy Languages and information • Groups of categories of spatial origin: • Landscape • Administrative units Information Management • 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 Thesaurus development Thesaurus management

  12. Communication and language Facets are then subdivided in categories • Non-transportable/Fixed location objects: • Earth realms and environments • Endogenic structures • Geomorphologic features • … Languages and information Information Management • Transportable objects: • Rocks and sediments • Organisms, parts and casts • Minerals • … Thesaurus development • Natural effects: • Processes and phenomena • Textures and structures • Properties Thesaurus management

  13. Next steps Communication and language • Set up thesaurus data management • Only one central data base • Management via WWW • Free thesaurus management tools Languages and information Information Management • Set up international organisational structure • National agencies • Linguistic managers for languages • Responsibilities and rights • Training • Public relation • Invention as tool for indexing and search Thesaurus development Thesaurus management

  14. Communication and language Languages and information Thank you Information Management Thesaurus development Thesaurus management

  15. Communication and language • 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) Languages and information Information Management Thesaurus development Thesaurus management

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