Applications of Thesaurus in Digital Libraries

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a systematic literature review carried out to investigate the applications and potential roles of thesaurus in digital libraries. It also describes the process of systematic literature review (SLR) followed to carry out this study. 321 unique publications from Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA) and Scopus had been subjected to SLR, and 29 papers have been analysed. Various possible applications of thesaurus in digital libraries have been identified and described. Also different approaches followed by researchers in choice of the thesaurus have been identified. Search and browse functionalities offered by thesaurus to the users of digital libraries are described. The discussion presented in this paper can play as cues for the digital library administrators in decision making towards implementing thesaurus for enhanced information retrieval. This study would allow researchers of information retrieval systems, including that of digital libraries, to proceed from more informed standpoints. Also, the discussion can be used to evaluate and improve education in library and information science.

Vocabulary Integration Reexamined

“…UNESCO thesaurus, Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT), ERIC Thesaurus, and AGROVOC have been used in digital libraries (Sunny & Angadi, 2017). The examples of thesauri with traditional knowledge include Library of Congress Name Authority file for personal and corporate names and Getty's Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN) for place names (Sunny & Angadi, 2017). This heterogeneity caused the significant incompatibility of transferring or sharing data among different systems and databases.…”