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

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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)