Dear David, I know Wordnet and I have played with it for a while. I also had a look at other "professional" bibliographic thesaurus, such as the CurrentContents Thesaurus. The problem is that people working in different subject areas have different points of view regarding the "correct" hierarchy.
I agree that it would be very elegant to be able to use something like Wordnet as Thesaurus. However personally I would prefer to be able to create "my" thesaurus myself. I think that perhaps the choice of the word "thesaurus" was not a very good one. I think rather that simply the keyword database should be relational, in the way that each keyword has a number and in the database are stored with each keyword the numbers of the keywords that are synonymnous (e.g. 0) and the numbers of the keywords that are one up in the hierarchy (e.g. 1) (subjects / topics ?) (down in the hierarchy is not interesing for searching). 1 plant 2 tree,1,1 3 beech,4,0,2,1 4 Fagus,3,0,2,1 5 Fagus sylvatica,3,0,4,0 etc ... The rudimentary user interface could be simply 2 drop down lists side by side with the keywords and between the two lists two checkboxes, one that says "..is also called..." for synonyms and one that says "... is a ...." for subjects, and a save button. And perhaps one "output" button that shows the list including for each keyword the synonyms and topics. By the way all of this reminds me a little bit of an old sourceforge PalmPilot project that was called ThoughtStream : basically here notes were organised by associations and links. Or also the theory of Semantic networks.I think that there are several projects out there that have already produced code for this. I'm not really a programmer, I mainly do some macro programming, however if the bibliographic project is really interested in having linked/hierarchical keywords I could try to think more about how to realize the input/output/searching in theoretical and UI terms. Should I switch to the developer list ?? Cheers Oliver On 4 Nov 2005 at 7:53, David Wilson wrote: > Oliver, > > Your suggestion sound very usefull. > > Have you considered how thesaurus software might be used to provide support > for this. Wordnet is a thesaurus database which (I think) has been used as > the source for the OOo English thesaurus. > > The OOo English thesaurus gives for "beech" gives "Beech Tree" and "Tree" > > A wordnet query gives as one of its several query type results - > > > > Sense 1 > beech, beech tree -- (any of several large deciduous trees with rounded > spreading crowns and smooth gray bark and small sweet edible triangular nuts > enclosed in burs; north temperate regions) > MEMBER OF: Fagus, genus Fagus -- (beeches) > > So it would seem that wordnet even provides a latin name list. > > Worknet also contains a hierachy of terms - > > beech, beech tree -- (any of several large deciduous trees with rounded > spreading crowns and smooth gray bark and small sweet edible triangular nuts > enclosed in burs; north temperate regions) > => tree -- (a tall perennial woody plant having a main trunk and > branches forming a distinct elevated crown; includes both gymnosperms and > angiosperms) > => woody plant, ligneous plant -- (a plant having hard lignified > tissues or woody parts especially stems) > => vascular plant, tracheophyte -- (green plant having a > vascular system: ferns, gymnosperms, angiosperms) > => plant, flora, plant life -- (a living organism lacking > the power of locomotion) > => organism, being -- (a living thing that has (or can > develop) the ability to act or function independently) > => living thing, animate thing -- (a living (or > once living) entity) > => object, physical object -- (a tangible and > visible entity; an entity that can cast a shadow; "it was full of rackets, > balls and other objects") > => entity -- (that which is perceived or > known or inferred to have its own distinct existence (living or nonliving)) > > Regards > > David > > > On Friday 04 November 2005 12:20 am, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Hello Biblio-Developers, > > > > I'm a researcher in natural sciences and I have been using > > bibliographis software for a several years now, startig with the > > first version of Reference Manager, recently switching to EndNote > > (with some regrets), but I have also been testing several > > share/freeware programs. > > My expectations are rather humble, so most programs would do most > > things I like them to, why I got stuck with EndNote is rather a > > problem of easy compatibility with colleagues databases. > > I have read the basic papers on the web page of the bibliographis > > project and I have not much to add (well, there are always details on > > a which list .... :-), however there is one thing I would find > > immensely useful and have to date not found in any program I tested. > > And this is hierarchical keywords > > Let me explain with some example from my subject : > > - you might have several references in your list that treat > > different tree species : oak, beech, pine, spruce. > > now two of these are deciduous (oak , beech) and two are coniferes > > (pine, spruce), and all of them are forest trees. > > What I would like a bibliographic program able to do is to look up > > the keyword "beech" in a thesaurus (that the user created personally > > for his keywords) and find that its a deciduous and a tree. With the > > effect that I will add to the references the keywords for beech, oak > > etc. and when I search for "deciduous" I will find all articles > > concerning beech and oak and when I search for "tree" I will find all > > references with keywords "oak", "beech", "pine", "spruce". > > Basically this consists in linking keywords unidirectionally with one > > another. > > However also linking bidirectionally is (or even more) important : > > same example : in one reference concerning oaks I type "oak" as > > reference, in another i might type "Quercus", which is the latin name > > for oaks; When I want to search for references concerning oaks, I > > always need to remember that there were two possible ways to code the > > keyword for this reference and search both. With this simple example > > this might seem not a difficult problem, in a conventional program I > > just need to do a search of "oak" OR "quercus". However the problem > > is that in a scientific reference list that is used for bibliographic > > work (that is not only "citing" but mainly searching), there will be > > many keywords as example one of my main reference data bases has > > about 2000 references abd nearly 3000 keywords). Many of these > > keywords will be synonymous and its easy not to remember one of the > > synonyms in a search and thus not finding certain articles. > > Therefore I would appreciate much if the keyword database of the > > bibliographic project could have the ability to be relational so that > > one could easily link uni o bi directionally several keywords. > > > > I would be happy to discuss this more with anybody who has any ideas > > on this subject. > > > > Cheerio > > > > Oliver Brendel > > > > > > _________________________________________________________ > > Oliver Brendel UMR Ecologie et Ecophysiologie Forestiere > > INRA - Centre de Nancy 54280 Champenoux France > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] TEL 0033/383/394041 ext4201 FAX /394069 > > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -- > ------------------- > David N. Wilson > Co-Project Lead for the Bibliographic > OpenOffice Project > http://bibliographic.openoffice.org > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
