EuroVoc, Eurlex, EU Bookshop Danica Maleková, Publications Office Danica.malekova @publications.europa.eu STS Bratislava, 22 October 2010.

EuroVoc, Eurlex, EU Bookshop

Danica Maleková,Publications Office

[email protected]

STS Bratislava, 22 October 2010

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Contents

The role of Publications Office with regard to terminology work Information retrieval What is a controlled vocabulary

Different types of vocabularies Understand a thesaurus (in general) and EuroVoc

Structure, components, relations, EuroVoc

Coverage, limitations, maintenance, use Eurlex EU Bookshop Questions & Answers

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The role of Publications Office with regard to terminology work

Publications Office manages:

Eurlex – electronic access to EU law http://eur-lex.europa.eu

EU Bookshop – electronic access to EU general, scientific and legal publications including archives http://bookshop.europa.eu

EuroVoc – a controlled vocabulary tool http://eurovoc.europa.eu

Interinstitutional Style Guide http://publications.europa.eu/code

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INFORMATION RETRIEVAL

Content indexation Describes the concepts represented in a

document Indexers assign indexing terms (descriptors,

preferred terms) to the document Identify the concept to retrieve the most relevant

information

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Search results - Principles

Relevance Relationship between a document and a request The document is relevant to a topic or replies to

the user request.

Pertinence Relationship between a document and an

information need Relevant and useful for a user Relevant but the user does not find it useful

(language, level of comprehensibility, document type)

Search failure Not relevant results (noise) Non-retrieved results (silence)

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Why do we need a controlled vocabulary?

A controlled vocabulary is a consistent set of terms/expressions, along with rules of usage to be followed when indexing or searching.

Guide both the indexer and the searcher to select the same term or combination of terms to represent a given subject.

Nature of the indexing language A list of terms acceptable to users Mechanisms for structuring and using those

terms Minimize the ambiguity of isolated terms that

may be out of context

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Controlled Vocabulary – Thesauri examples

Multi-domains: Eurovoc Eclas (EC Library) Unesco, UNBIB (United Nations)

Specialized : Cedefop (Vocational Training) Gemet (EEA - environment) Agrovoc (FAO - agriculture) EINIRAS (International affairs)

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Controlled Vocabulary – Thesauri examples

EuroVoc UNESCO Thesaurus

UNBIB

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Thesaurus - Principles

A controlled vocabulary In which concepts are represented

Formally organized by relationships between concepts Concepts are made explicit and unambiguous Limited to one meaning

Preferred terms (PT) Descriptors Indexing terms

Non Preferred terms (NPT) Non descriptors Never used for indexing Lead-in entries for term equivalents (synonyms, quasi-

synonyms) to the Preferred Terms

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EuroVoc - Categories

Microthesauri

21 domains2-digit notation + heading

127 microthesauri4-digit notation + heading

Not used for indexing

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Microthesaurus (MT)

RELATIONS

CONCEPTS TOP

TERM

TOP TERM

TOP TERM

NARROWER – SPECIFIC TERMS (NT)

LEVELS 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

EuroVoc - Microthesaurus – View the hierarchy

BROADER – GENERIC TERMS (BT)

LEVELS 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

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EuroVoc - Associative relationship (RT)

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EuroVoc - Term equivalence (USE/UF)

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EuroVoc - Vocabulary control - Qualifiers

Qualifier symbol: ()Role: term disambiguation

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EuroVoc - Coverage

General and multidisciplinary 21 fields 127 microthesaurus

Set of 6797 indexing terms (concepts)

Built-up for EU institutions and national parliaments

Covers both Community and national point of view, with emphasis on parliamentary activities

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EuroVoc - Multilingual content

Multilingual controlled vocabulary 22 official languages

Irish not available

2 other languages: Croatian and Serbian

Links to Eurovoc “hosted” versions A regional language (Basque) The Russian version (Douma web site)

Exact equivalence between indexing terms (Preferred Terms)

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EuroVoc – Limitations

Not specialized

Specific national situations are not covered

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EuroVoc – Permuted entries

One entry on each significant word of an expressionregion dependent on fishing

Fishing, region dependent onperipheral region

Region, periperalCommunity regional policy

regional policy, Communityregional disparity

disparity, regionalRegionalstatistik (DE)

statistik, Regional~

No stop words EN: and, the, a, or, … DE: für, an, von, vom, der, die, das, ein, … FR: à, le, la, les, et, pour, vers, …

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EuroVoc – Maintenance

1 Maintenance Team (Publications Office) EuroVoc maintenance Coordinate the work of the Maintenance

Committee Responsible for IT developments

• Thesaurus Management System• Website

Manage translation of terms Help-Desk

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EuroVoc - Maintenance

2 inter-institutional Committees

The Maintenance Committee Examines and votes on the proposals for

updating Eurovoc Decides on the amendments to be made Meet twice a year – Chair by the Publications

Office.The Steering Committee

Supervises the EuroVoc projects (objectives, priorities, resources and budgetary issues)

Officially adopts each new version Chair by a representative of an EU institution.

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