Cross domain knowledge discovery, complex system theory and semantic web - or - Why Otlet? Aida Slavic, Christophe Gueret, Andrea Scharnhorst Presentation at the First Annual KnowEscape Conference, Nov 18-20, 2013, Aalto University, Espoo Finland

1. Cross domain knowledge
discovery, complex system
theory and semantic web
Aida Slavic, Christophe Gueret, Andrea Scharnhorst
Why Otlet?
Presentation at the First Annual KnowEscape Conference,
Nov 18-20, 2013, Aalto University, Espoo Finland

2. Paul Otlet - Mundaneum
Bibliographical Institute
Ordering the knowledge of the world
Universal Decimal Classification
Palais Mondial
Picture of the Mundaneum. Taken by Andrea Scharnhorst
Paul Otlet. Picture © Mundaneum

3. Classification
All pictures © Mundaneum

4. The scientific process
All pictures © Mundaneum

5. Workplaces - workspaces
All pictures © Mundaneum

6. Encyclopedia Universalis Mundaneum
– a Visual Encyclopedia
All pictures © Mundaneum

7. The What, How and Why together
All pictures © Mundaneum

8. Begreifen & Vermitteln
All pictures © Mundaneum

9. Otlet - Visions
Every information scientist (= We all are IS says Martin
White) should once in her/his life visit the Mundaneum
Without history we are condemned to eternal repetition
(Mircea Eliade, pre-historic societies live in eternal return).
Visual language experiments, exhibitions, objects
Retrieval service (see R. Boyd, Proceedings Classifications &
Visualizations 2013) – entrepreneur
The UDC as part of Otlet’s heritage!

10. Designing interfaces to collections –
visual enhanced browsing
All datasets in EASY - the digital research data archive at DANS at one glance. www.drasticdata.nl

11. Steps towards visual
enhanced/facetted browsing
AH CS
M&P
SoSc

12. Back to UDC – Facts and Figures
Translated in over 40 languages, used in over 130
countries:
bibliographies and bibliographic databases
libraries (also some museums, archives)
digital collections, web portals, alerting services
Annually updated and distributed as a file:
18 versions/‘editions’ since 1992
1992: 60,000 classes - 2011: 69,000 classes
10,000 classes cancelled
19,000 new classes added

13. Understanding the evolution
of Knowledge Organization Systems
More research needed – various KOS
ACM – Veslava Osinska
MESH – Alexander Petersen/Orion Penner
ISI Classifications – Sandor Soos
Wikipedia – Janos Kertesz, Krzysztof Suchecki
….

14. UDC Applications: Scope and
Potentials
Cross-language linking of concepts, i.e. managing link between concepts and
language
=512.16
Jižní skupina turkických jazyků
Южная группа тюркских языков [Russian]
तुकी भाषाओ का दिकणी समूह [Hindi]
Թուրքական լեզուների հարավային խումբ [Armenian]
Νότια ομάδα των Τουρκικών γλωσσών [Greek]
突厥南部语 [Chinese]
দিকণস্থ েশিণর তুিক্ ভাষাসমূহ [Bengali]
্ষ
র্
র
チュルク語南部群 [Japanese]
ಟಕರ ಭಾಷಗಳ ದಕಣ ಭಾಗದ ಸಮೂಹ [Kannada]
Hierarchies: graphic knowledge presentation, browsing knowledge space
(supporting interactive user behaviour)
Linking concepts
‘fish’ in zoology, in sport, in cooking, in food industry, in animal husbandry

15. Linking concepts across knowledge

16. KOS and Libraries in the web of
knowledge
Classifications can be used on the Web to:
Improve and enrich semantics and access points in the
retrieval of information
Enable information discovery across collections and languages
Two requirements:
• publishing classification: open access to classification vocabulary
for m2m processing
• publishing library catalogues: open access to collections and
collections’ metadata for m2m processing

17. Linked Open Data – Big Data

18. What are Linked (Open) Data?
See also: Tutorial Linked Data: stap voor stap. Paul Hermans, http://www.den.nl/nieuws/bericht/3075/

19. What is the clue?
Peter Richmond as chair of MP0801
Peter Richmond publishing with Sorin Solomon
Science+Engineering
Data models + standards,
Web technologies
Algorithms
Peter Richmond using EI/M0HBL
Ah! This is one person!
URI … /this is a person/ this is this person
Designed for machines by humans!
Occupied by machines guided by humans!
Retrievable by (some) humans!
Information/Data in databases live urban
(some say in ghettos)
Information/Data in the semantic web live
in the wild – self-organized, endangered

20. KOS and Libraries stream into the
LOD cloud – what is the problem?
XML/RDF export
XML/RDF export
COLLECTION
CATALOGUES
connecting collections of data by programs (machine-to-machine)
XML/RDF presentation relies on unique identification of resources (URI) pointing to one another
UD
C

21. UDC as LOD
The first stage contains the following UDC data:
UDC number (notation)  skos:notation
class identifier (URI)  skos:Concept
broader class (URI)  skos:broader
caption  skos:prefLabel
including note  skos:note
application note  skos:note
scope note  skos:scopeNote
examples  skos:example
see also reference  skos:related

22. For (machine) eyes only!
Who said machine make life easier?
example of the UDC class
=162.3 Czech
[Common auxiliary of language]

23. Issues - I
Enable automatic redirection on the Web from cancelled UDC numbers.
UDC MRF database holds data as follows:
UDC CLASS NUMBER:
22
DESCRIPTION:
The Bible. Holy scripture
REPLACED BY:
26-23
Judaism – Scriptures
27-23
Christianity - Scriptures
SKOS does not offer solution for presenting this kind of data at the
moment
But in RDF, it is possible to use other models in combination with SKOS…
Dublin Core for versioning links the two classes using properties in the term
namespace : isReplacedby; replaces

24. Issues - 2
 Complex UDC expressions appear in the process of use and may not
appear in the original scheme
37:004
32:37
Application of computers in education
Relationships between politics and education
 Library catalogues or authority data shared on the web contain many
pre-combined number and when published as linked data these
numbers may have their own URI
 How to link representations between notations from the original
schemes and complex subject expressions developed at the point of
indexing?

25. Issues - 3
Versions of UDC
Can be controlled in the editions
But what about the actual use in libraries – here UDC
numbers don’t come with a year when they have been
assigned
Updates of UDC – how to give the web a memory
Provenance
Memento
URI …/last/….

26. Summary
Heritage of Otlet and other Information/Documentation
pioneers -> Mundaneum 2015 Exhibit Knowledge Maps
Self-organized knowledge creation and KOS belong together
– both are an intriguing object for study – best studied
combined
Transition to Big Data in form of Linked (Open) Data
requires careful and inventive preparations
There is a long way from visionary drawings to useful visual
navigation – but to start the journey is worth-while and
needed.

27. References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mircea_Eliade
Eliade, M. (1974). The myth of the eternal return or, Cosmos and history: Trans.
from the French by Willard R. Trask. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
•
Knowledge Space Lab publications on Wikipedia and UDC – see
http://arxiv.org/find/all/1/all:+AND+akdag+udc/0/1/0/all/0/1 and
http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.0788
•
http://scimaps.org/maps/map/design_vs_emergence__127/
•
http://udcc.org/ and http://udcc.org/index.php/site/page?view=bib
•
http://www.mundaneum.org/