SUBCOMMITTEE TO PROMOTE

SUBJECT RELATIONSHIPS/REFERENCE STRUCTURES

Report to the ALCTS CCS Subject Analysis Committee

July 2000

The SAC Subcommittee to Promote Subject Relationships/Reference Structures was commissioned at the 1997 Annual Conference with the following charge:

“To promote the display of currently encoded subject relationships/reference structures to system designers (e.g., opacs, cd-roms, periodical indexes, thesauri). To provide discussion forums and/or programs on currently encoded subject relationships/reference structures. Discussion forums should begin by Annual Conference 1998. The continued need for the subcommittee should be reexamined by SAC no later than 2000.”

The impetus for this subcommittee was a recommendation of the earlier (1995-1997) Subcommittee on Subject Relationships/Reference Structures that one or more new subcommittees be formed to study the issues it had identified in its work. As indicated in the charge, the focus of the current Subcommittee has been on existing reference structures and currently encoded relationships, and on promoting their availability and use in information retrieval.

TO PROMOTE THE DISPLAY OF … TO SYSTEM DESIGNERS

The Subcommittee’s attempts to establish contact with the OPAC vendor community regarding its concerns met with mixed results. After identifying a directory list in Computers in Libraries magazine, the Subcommittee drafted a letter outlining general concerns and inviting a dialogue. This letter failed to receive SAC approval at the 1998 Annual Conference, in part because of concerns that they would not reach the “right” people in the targeted companies. The task of identifying the most appropriate people to direct its concerns to (programmers? marketers? sales representatives?) continued to vex the Subcommittee.

At the 1999 Midwinter and Annual conferences members visited the exhibit booths of OPAC and database vendors, sharing their concerns and in some cases identifying contact people. The Subcommittee also used electronic mail to publicize its Discussion Forums to vendors, each time with significant results.

TO PROVIDE DISCUSSION FORUMS AND/OR PROGRAMS

Beginning with the 1998 Annual Conference, the Subcommittee has hosted either a Discussion Forum or a conference program at every ALA conference. The inaugural forum featured presentations by Greg Wool (“Raising the Issues: Final Report of the SAC Subcommittee on Subject Relationships/Reference Structures”), Heidi Hoerman (“Subject Relationship Structures Within the Library of Congress Subject Headings”) and Gerry McKiernan (“Next-Generation Information Systems and Subject Relationships/Reference Structures”). The Midwinter 1999 discussion forum focused on “Subject References in OPACs” and featured presentations by Greg Wool (“Finding Out Who’s Doing What”), Stephen Hearn (“The Current Situation”—notable features of subject referencing implementations) and Martin Kurth (“A Public Services Perspective”—what reference librarians and users want in subject referencing).

The Subcommittee also developed the proposal for the SAC-sponsored program presented at the 1999 Annual Conference. "Oh Say, Can We See? See Also? Subject Referencing Possibilities in OPAC's" brought in over 250 conference attendees to hear Thomas Mann ("Reference Considerations with OPACs"), Joe Matthews, ("Subject Referencing in Next-Generation OPACs"), Kristin Gerhard, ("The Impact of Subject Cross-References on OPAC Search Results"), and Dee Michel ("Getting What We Want: The Politics of Interface Change") present a varied and provocative program. Heidi Hoerman moderated the program and the extended discussion that followed.

The Midwinter 2000 discussion forum looked at subject referencing outside the OPAC/LCSH environment, with presentations by Stephen Riel on Biological Abstracts, Christi Richardson on the Art and Architecture Thesaurus, and Diana Shonrock on reference librarians’ expectations for structured subject access. There will also be a discussion forum at Annual 2000, looking at OPACs again with an overview of current trends and a discussion of certain interface features.

THE CONTINUED NEED FOR THE SUBCOMMITTEE

There appears to be a consensus among the Subcommittee members that the Subcommittee should have its life extended (even while some members do not wish to be reappointed). While some form of LCSH thesaurus-type display has become a feature of the majority of catalogs, there remain many catalogs that do not offer this browsing aid, and analogous capabilities in index databases are comparatively rare. Moreover, the systems that do offer an online syndetic structure do not present it in a way that makes it attractive and practical to use. Missing references, long lists of references jammed into browse displays, lack of differentiation among types of references, and lack of access to terms with subdivisions are among the problems that plague syndetic-structure displays.

These problems reflect a general misunderstanding of the nature and potential of controlled-term subject referencing, and the unique contribution it has to make to information discovery and retrieval. Even speakers at some of the Subcommittee’s own programs seemed to assume that whatever subject referencing had to offer could be more conveniently or cost-effectively achieved by data-mining techniques such as term co-occurrence analysis, relevance ranking, and visual mapping of keywords. The case remains to be made for being able to browse actual subject categories according to their logical relationships, as distinct from relying on “guilt by association” based on the happenstance of word choice.

Much work remains to be done on communication with the system-vendor community. The approval process required of any official communication is too slow for the sort of dialogue that should be taking place. The developing of informal contacts with a growing number of companies is a slow and arduous process, and is further hampered by the difficulty of identifying the “best” people within a company to share ideas with, as well as a company’s natural concern not to give away competitive strategies. This work should continue, but it may be that building awareness of subject-referencing issues within the library community as a whole will ultimately reach the vendors more efficiently.

At the same time, it is likely that SAC would like to reach some sort of closure on this topic. Therefore, in order to continue the Subcommittee’s work with an appropriate focus and destination, the Subcommittee recommends:

  • That the Subcommittee be re-authorized for an additional three years
  • That it contain a mixture of new and continuing members
  • That its charge be revised to read: “To explore the issues surrounding the use of thesaurus-like subject referencing structures in bibliographic databases, particularly its unique benefits and the obstacles to its greater availability, and produce a position paper on the subject by 2002. To develop a program proposal on these issues for presentation in 2003. To provide discussion forums on currently encoded subject relationships/reference structures. To establish contacts with system vendors for discussion of these issues.”

Currently-encoded subject relationships and their reference structures hold the key to making the tremendous collocating power of controlled-term subject analysis available to catalog and database users. Its story needs to be told, now more than ever.

Subcommittee members:Kristin Gerhard

Stephen Hearn

Claudia Hill

Heidi Lee Hoerman

Gerard McKiernan (1997-1999)

Steven Riel

Arlene Taylor

Gregory Wool, Chair