say what you mean: how semantic tagging makes content more discoverable, more useful, and more...

Say What You Mean: How Semantic Tagging Makes Content More Discoverable, More Useful, and More Valuable

Stephen Rhind-Tutt, President, May 28, 2008

Alexander Street Press

Performing Arts, Drama, and Film

World Literature

Women’s History

Religion

CounselingMusic

Social and Cultural History

Sociology

Black Studies

American Civil War

Semantic Indexing

• Oriented towards secondary materials• Oriented towards print artifact (book, article, journal)• Some 80% of fields relate to publication • Flat file• Abstract and subject fields • Confusion between primary and secondary materials

Traditional Indexing

Improving access

• Semantic Indexing

• Tim Berners-Lee and James Hendler in Scientific American, May 2001

• “‘an extension of the current web in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation."

• A quantum shift in the way we look at digital objects

• ‘Extracting the science from scientific publications’

• ‘Extracting the history from history publications’

‘Semantic’ Indexing Overview

Collection

Series

Book or Volume

Chapter

Page

Word

Where ?

When ?

What ?

Who ?Traditio

nal indexing >

‘Semantic’ indexing >

Traditional vs. Semantic Indexing

  Traditional Indexing Semantic Indexing

  General  History Drama Religion

What? Article, Book Event Scene Passage

Who? Author ParticipantsCharacter

s Author

Where? Where published Where occurred Where set -

When? When publishedWhen it

happened When set When written

• Give me articles from journal xxx prior to 1990

• Give me documents that discuss battles where more than 100 people were killed?

• Give me all scenes set before 1850 that portray lynching?

• Which authors cite Genesis most frequently?

The ‘real’ world

Play

Author

Production Stills

Playbills

ProductionVenueDirector

Lighting Set Designers

Theater

PerformanceLocation

Production Company

Producer

Texts

Criticism

Cast List

Performers

Posters

Ephemera

Scenes

Acts

Characters

Dramatis Personae

The virtual world…

Author

Birth dateDeath dateBirth PlaceDeath PlaceNationalityOccupationAwards(38 fields)

Theater

DistrictLocationCapacityStyleEtc…(18 fields)

Company

NameProductionsPerformersEtc…(14 fields)

Production

DirectorTheaterCast# of Perfs.LightingCostumesEtc…(47 fields)

Characters

PlaysAgeAuthorPerformerEtc…(30 fields)

Scenes

WhereWhenSettingSubjectEtc…(41 fields)

Resources

PlayDirectorTheaterProduction Co.CharacterSceneEtc…(45 fields)

Texts

KeywordAuthorDate WrittenDate PublishedProduction(67 fields)

The virtual world…

Author

Birth dateDeath dateBirth PlaceDeath PlaceNationalityOccupationAwards(38 fields)

Theater

DistrictLocationCapacityStyleEtc…(18 fields)

Company

NameProductionsPerformersEtc…(14 fields)

Production

DirectorTheaterCast# of Perfs.LightingCostumesEtc…(47 fields)

Characters

PlaysAgeAuthorPerformerEtc…(30 fields)

Scenes

WhereWhenSettingSubjectEtc…(41 fields)

Resources

PlayDirectorTheaterProduction Co.CharacterSceneEtc…(45 fields)

Texts

KeywordAuthorDate WrittenDate PublishedProduction(67 fields)

Give me scenes about AIDS written by South African authors in the past 5 years….

• 150,000 pages of materials pertaining to the ‘discovery’ and exploration of North America

• Published in 2001

Early Encounters in North America

• More than a way to answer questions• A framework by which users can be guided to

understand, explore, discover and learn.• A route-map to guide users through data - saving time and effort.• The intellectual fabric by which information should be

organized…• Delivers answers that cannot be asked elsewhere

• Discipline specific• Oriented towards the user and the content • At the ‘right’ level• Thoroughly controlled

Semantic Indexing…

Semantic Indexing…

Encounter Author Account Source

Where ?When ?Who ?DeathsLeadersEtc…

Birth ?Death ?Where ?When ?OccupationEtc…

DayEventEtc…

SourceEditorPublisherPlaceEtc…

DocumentTextAuthor IDEncounter IDSource IDDateSubjectAge writing

Nine controlled vocabularies reveal previously inaccessible knowledge:

• Compare the English and French relationships with the Huron between 1614 and 1616.• Detail all accounts of flooding on the Mississippi before 1750 • Examine the differences in tribal customs 100 years after first

contact• Examine naming conventions and lists in travel narratives• Give me an image of all North Carolina animals that were extinct by 1850

Early Encounters in North America

Semantic Indexing

Semantic Indexing

Search Functionality

Tagging

Counseling & Psychotherapy

Utility of information

• Interactive Tables• Graph Digitizer• Equation Plotter• Diagram Viewer

• Integrated Periodic Table• Unit Converter• Slide Show Viewer• Browsable Tables of Contents

Social Tagging – our experience…

Example – Dance in Video

Playlists

Playlists

Playlists

What works…

•Playlists on ASP’s music and video products – >20,000 users

•Over 120,000 playlists created so far

• 1,000 created by ASP

• 42,000 user created

• 80,000+ derivative playlists

Issues – user tagging

Tags

Philadelphia? Shirts? Women’s Rights? President?

Issues – granularity

Summary

• Semantic indexing is essential in the electronic world.

• Tagging can help – but it’s not a silver bullet• More on Tagging…

• Session: 1D: Tag, you’re it!• Tomorrow, 10:45 AM to 12:15 PM

www.alexanderstreet.com