Unified Astronomy
Thesaurus
Bringing Together People, Terms, and
Organizations to Classify Infinity
...and Beyond!
Justin Soles, McGill University
Katie Frey, John G. Wolbach Library
Data Harmony User Group Meeting
February 20, 2013
Agenda
● Context and History
● Unified Astronomy Thesaurus (UAT)
● Update Process
● User Feedback and Interest
● Thesaurus Tools
Context & History
● Scientific controlled vocabularies are
nothing new
● Each discipline has its own vocabulary:
○ MeSH (Medicine)
○ IEEE Thesaurus (Engineering)
○ PACS (R.I.P.)
Context & History
Major vocabularies for Astronomy &
Astrophysics:
○ Astronomical Subject Keyword list
○ Physics and Astronomy Classification Scheme
(PACS)
○ International Astronomical Union (IAU) Thesaurus
● So if scientific & astronomical vocabularies
are so common, why is UAT special?
Context & History
Summary of astronomy/astrophysics vocabs:
Astronomical
Subject Keywords
Term Count: 374
Top-level concepts: 13
Vocabulary type: List w/a loose
hierarchy
Main use: Indexing
Update Frequency: biannually (approx.)
Notes: last updated Oct.
2009 (AAS website)
PACS (Astro.
sections)
IAU-93
Thesaurus
589
2,551
6
274
4-level hierarchy
Thesaurus
Indexing
Reference
biannually
1993, 1995
retired in 2010
(AIP website)
officially adopted by
IAU in 1993
Context & History
Q: IAU-93 thesaurus is much bigger and
more structured than PACS or Astronomy
Journal keyword list, so why isn't it used for
article indexing?
Context & History
Q: IAU-93 thesaurus is much bigger and
more structured than PACS or Astronomy
Journal keyword list, so why isn't it used for
article indexing?
Let's find out!
Dark Energy, Exoplanets, & Higgs Boson
IAU93:
http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/library/thesaurus/
AIP PACS: http://www.aip.
org/pacs/pacs2010/individuals/pacs2010_reg
ular_edition/reg90.htm#95
Astronomy Subject Keywords:
http://aas.org/authors/astronomical-subjectkeywords-update-october-2009
Context & History
● Current state of IAU-93 Thesaurus:
○ Hasn't been updated since 1995
○ Missing terms important in modern astronomy
○ No mechanism to keep thesaurus updated with
new terms and relationships
● Current state of Astronomical Journal
Keywords/PACS vocabulary:
○ Updated biannually
○ Astronomy terms added from literature
○ Established mechanism to keep vocabulary
Context & History
● UAT prompted by the 'retirement' of PACS
and desire to provide better tools for users
● Each publisher had started project to
develop a PACS replacement vocabulary
... but ...
decided to work together once they found
out about each other's projects
UAT Introduction
UAT vision/mission statement:
“…an open, interoperable and community-supported
thesaurus which unifies the existing divergent and
isolated Astronomy & Astrophysics thesauri into a
single high-quality, freely-available open thesaurus
formalizing astronomical concepts and their interrelationships.”
(http://astrothesaurus.org, 2012)
UAT Introduction
UAT is different from prior vocabularies in
terms of:
○
○
○
○
Update process and frequency
Management/Governance
Level of community engagement
Intended uses
Update Process
Overview:
Update Process
UAT's update process leverages expertise of
astro. community in several ways:
○ Suggest new terms, concepts from the current
scientific literature/work
○ Identify structural problems with the thesaurus
and recommend solutions
○ Review suggestions and recommendations and
decide whether to implement or not
Update Process
Update Process
● Community involvement does not mean
UAT is an 'Astronomy folksonomy'!
● Librarian(s) have key roles in UAT as:
○
○
○
○
Gardeners
Facilitators
Liaison Officers
User Advocates
Update Process
Potential Benefits:
● Identification of new terms and issues
● Subject-matter expertise
● Intellectual rigor during review
● Virtuous cycle of community engagement
Possible Risks:
● Volume overwhelms available resources
● Collective community yawn and disengagement
Management & Governance
UAT management and governance structure
comprises 2 groups:
● Stewardship group
○ responsible for UAT's overall direction and sets
long-term goals
● Operations and Outreach (O&O) group
○ responsible for UAT's day-to-day operations and
for implementing goals set by Stewardship group
● Librarian acts as liaison between groups
Standard Terminology
Standard Terminology
Standard Terminology
Standard Terminology
Standard Terminology
Standard Terminology
Terrestrial Planets?
Standard Terminology
Terrestrial Planets?
Inner Planets
Increase Findability
Increase Findability
Increase Findability
Increase Findability
Initial Interest
http://ioppublishing.org/newsDetails/new-thesaurus-created-for-the-astronomy-community
Results from our Initial Surveys
Categorize terms into three buckets:
1. Astronomical Objects
○ such as Mars, black holes, neutron stars
2. Astronomical & Astrophysical Concepts
○ such as the Big Bang, stellar evolution, mass
transfer
3. Observational Methods & Instrumentation
○ such as telescopes, CCD cameras, statistical
analysis
Tools
● Process vs. Tools has been a major
debate within UAT community
○ Q: Do you focus first on process and then tools,
or define tools and then process?
● Result: toolset is still in flux although some
parts of toolset have been established
(suggestions are welcome)
Tools
Toolset:
HIVE
Google
WordPress Groups
Request
Tracker
Thesaurus
Master
Primary
Purpose
Main browser
for UAT
Platform for
UAT website,
blog & news
Host discussion
forums
Manage user
suggestions
Manage UAT
structure and
generate files
Public or
Private?
Public only
Public only
Public and
Private
Public and
private
Private only
Open
Source?
Yes
No
No
Preferred
No
hive.nescent.org:
9090/ConceptBr
owser.html
wordpress.com
groups.google.
com/forum/#!
forum/uat-users
N/A
www.
dataharmony.
com/products/th
esaurus_master.
html
URL
Tools
Request
Tracker
Questions?
Contact Us:
http://astrothesaurus.org
Justin Soles
[email protected]
Katie Frey
[email protected]