Austin Meeting—P2 Thesaurus Proposal
Prepared By Laura Estes and Andy Bray
February 20, 2003
Current Status:
The P2 Thesaurus was created in the mid-1990s as a product of the
P2Librarians and was lead by WMRC. NEWMOA later worked to pare down
the Thesaurus and post it on the NEWMOA website as a word or pdf
document (static list) for anyone to use. It is a useful resource
for catalogers and librarians when describing various types of resources.
Currently, the P2Rx programs database uses the Thesaurus to describe
programs and the Topic Hubs use it to describe resources. The Thesuaurs,
however, has become dated because there has not been a process in
place for how to grow it over time. For the Thesaurus to continue
to be a valuable resource in information product development, it
needs to grow organically over time. National products need tools
like a common thesaurus to keep them standardized and unified.
Recent problems have pointed to a need for a better management
system for the Thesaurus. In the past couple of years, when a Center
wants to use a term that is not in the Thesaurus, they have added
it with the utility provided for that purpose. The Thesaurus has
gone from 2025 to 2800 terms in a completely unsupervised environment
without regard for duplication or how terms are related. It can
does not properly function as a Thesaurus in this manner because
the inter-relatedness of terms are not being captured and redundant
terms are being added to the collection.
There is, in fact, an easier way - a system that helps catalogers
pick the best keyword and suggests new keywords; a tool that will
help clients translate P2 terms into common language or look for
synonyms to get the most from their search. We propose a Smart Thesaurus,
a new national product, that will both address our current problems
and offer added value to our audience. Given current time and budget
constraints we propose this be funded external to our main grant.
How it helps us meet our goals:
Serve as the "first-stop" for pollution prevention information
for environmental service providers. - Using a smart thesaurus in
current and future products makes cataloging easier. This improves
the quality of our products and makes them easier to use. By providing
a standard vocabulary as a tool, a smart thesaurus can assist clients
in all their searches, even when dealing with non-cataloged resources.
Increase the awareness, accessibility, and usability of P2 information.
- A smart thesaurus can help translate P2-speak into the language
our clients know (and can change based on the client).
Facilitate dynamic, regional P2 networks. - Many projects outside
of P2Rx have been delayed or abandoned because of lack of this fundamental
resource. We are in the best position nationally to provide a common
taxonomy for P2 information collections. The Smart Thesaurus will
build a system that allows others to easily access this taxonomy
and eliminate the need for individual agencies to tackle this difficult
issue. It will provide a universal service to our entire audience.
Deliverables:
Option 1 - Smart thesaurus as a stand-alone product - an accessible,
on-line, managed list
Option 2 - Smart thesaurus as a stand-alone product but also integrated
into existing products; this will require some retooling of the
Topic Hub and Programs Database code
Option 3 - Smart thesaurus as stand-alone, but some centers choose
to integrate it with existing products
Estimated Resources:
Work group (3-4 people max) to propose functionality - time required:
6 calls (9 hours) + off-line work. (3 hours each person). Within
3 months of convening and upon P2Rx concept acceptance of concept,
the work group would produce a functional spec - time required:
5-6 hours from each person in the group. Additional time required
during administrative calls or meeting to review and approve functional
spec. The product could be up and running by the end of this grant
year, depending on the scope and timeline agreed upon by the group.
(~ $4,000 total)
Librarian(s) - review non-approved Thesaurus terms - roughly fifteen
minutes spent to review and accept or reject each proposed new term
and to integrate it into the Thesaurus. There are currently about
800 non-approved terms with an expected rate of 300 to 400 new terms
being added each year.
(~$12,000)
Coding - The functional elements of this will be developed by the
workgroup and approved by the web group and administrative group.
However, this scope of work and the development of a functional
specification will need to keep as its upper bound a budget of $15,000
for Option 1 and $30,000 for Option 2; Option 3 would be dependent
on to what extent centers chose to integrate the thesaurus with
existing products. Option 1 would require little to no work on the
part of centers to implement this option. Option 2 would require
centers to implement the retooling coding provided by the lead(s)
programmer. Time estimate for this implementation would be 3 - 5
days
Back to P2Rx Administrative Information
^ Top
|
