As You See It: Visualization of Thesauri Structure, Term Associations, and Relationships

[Gerry McKiernan]

                   _As You See It:
  Visualization of Thesauri Structure, Term Associations,
                 and Relationships_

     In considering alternatives to the current syndetic relationship
provided within conventional thesauri (including the LCSH), it
has occurred to me that visualization of both the conventional
structure of the thesauri as well as its 'neo-conventional' structure
would greatly enhance the understanding and use of the thesauri
in either mode.

     For my never-ending review [Yes, it' still never-ending],
I'd very much appreciate learning about effort that have applied
either conventional visualization techniques [whatever they may
be?] to thesauri as well as one's ideas about the potential
value of applying the Information Visualization technologies
profiled in _The Big Picture_ to either or both conventional
or 'neo-conventional' thesauri structures. _The Big Picture_
is accessible at:

      http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/BigPic.htm

    By 'neo-conventional' here I mean the non-explicit
relationships that exist between thesauri descriptors/
terms that are _not_ offered by the thesauri itself. Harter's
and Cheng's (Indiana) work on co-linked descriptors is a good
example of what I would consider 'neo-conventional. For details,
see their  article in JASIS 47 (1996):311-325 and/or an
abstract at

        http://ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu/~harter/colinked.html

    IMHO This is quite an important work for two reasons:

    1) It confirms my feeling (how scientific [:->]
       and belief [how non-scientific [:->]
       that users don't make use of the syndetic as
       much as they could/should.might. The study
       documents user preference for 'associated' terms
       or phrases that in some way relate to their
       worldview of Information Space.
       [This is very good because it supports my belief
       in neo-conventional structured browsing [:->]

    and

    2) It provides a good general critique of the
       highly-subjective and (shall we say it [Yes
       Gerry say it!] highly-idiosyncratic and highly-
       inconsistent nature of what defines the scope
       of a Broader Term, A Narrower Terms and the
       ever-mysterious [:->] Related Term structure, in
       many (but certainly not all) widely-used and/or
       applied thesauri.

       [I'd very much appreciate learning about other
        critiques of thesauri structure; any and all
        relevant citations (particularly review articles)
        are most welcome]

   In my first phase literature review I've identified
one (perhaps three) key articles on visualization of thesauri.
It's:

      Arents, Hans C. and Bogaerts, Walter F.L.
    Concept-based retrieval of hypermedia information: from term
    indexing to semantic hyperindexing. _Information Processing
    and Management_ 29(3) (1993): 373-86 .

   As always, any leads, citations, suggestions, comments,
critiques, criticisms, campaign contributions (oops! [:->]!)
would be very much appreciated.  Certainly, any work relating
to the visualization of LCSH in OPACs would be of great interest!

  Regards,

Gerry McKiernan
Curator, CyberStacks(sm)
Iowa State University
Ames IA 50011

gerrymck at iastate.edu
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/

                   "Show Me the System!"