Plant, Animal & Microbe Genomes X Conference Plant, Animal & Microbe Genomes X ConferenceJanuary 12-16, 2002
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA
Workshop: Controlled Vocabulary/Ontology
Through the Cornell Genomics Initiative, departments from biology, chemical engineering, computer science, geology, law, medicine, plant breeding, and veterinary sciences address scientific challenges spanning basic and applied sciences. Mann Library is developing an integrated thesaurus for a genomics digital library to support discovery and retrieval of a wide range of resources from Cornell and beyond including genomics-related services, research databases, teaching materials, and the full contents of our online catalog. With curatorial assistance from the Gramene Database Project and other researchers, we are integrating terms relevant to genomics and the life sciences with facilities for bridging from terms in broader subject indices such as the National Library of Medicine Medical Subject Headings and the National Agriculture Library Agricultural Thesaurus to more discipline-specific ontologies developed by the Gene Ontology Consortium, the Gramene Database Project, and others. Resources submitted for the genomics digital library will be coded by self-selection of identifying terms by individual resource creators (at Cornell and elsewhere) and harvested using Open Archives Initiative metadata protocols.
While the more comprehensive National Library of Medicine Metathesaurus automates re-mapping of queries from one domain to another for integration of retrieved results, we focus on the human user’s need to move from non-preferred entry terms to the appropriate controlled vocabulary, follow consistent navigation pathways to broader, narrower, or related terms, and link directly to available resources. More advanced users may broaden their scope of inquiry by crossing from one source thesaurus to another via shared nodes in the common controlled vocabulary.