SIDALC Agricultural Information and Documentation System for the Americas SIDALC: Ontologies use in the information units Orton Memorial Library (IICA-CATIE) Technical Coordination

What is SIDALC ? It is an initiative to facilitate access to information on agriculture and related subjects produced mainly in Latin America and the Caribbean

National networks Reactivated (8) Brasil Chile Colombia Costa Rica El Salvador Honduras Nicaragua Panamá In Progress (9) Bahamas Belice Ecuador Dominica Guatemala Guyana Haití St. Kitts and Nevis Suriname Created (14) Argentina Barbados Bolivia Cuba Guatemala Jamaica México Perú Rep. Dominicana Santa Lucia St. Vincent Trinidad y Tobago Uruguay Venezuela

The SIDALC like starting point to an agricultural ontological domain, has a rich terminology in Spanish, such a, scientific, technical and geographical names of the Latin America and the Caribbean region, with emphasis in tropical regions and the humid tropic.

Fundamental technical aspects in which SIDALC like agricultural domain is based to facilitate the access to the knowledge:  Structured terminologies  Local terminologies  Institutional-research Knowledge

The bibliographical records included in the AGRI2000 megadata, are basically indexed with AGROVOC Agricultural Multilingual Thesaurus, with the support of other thesaurus, in addition to the introduction of new local terms Structured terminologies

The local terms that come to give complement to an exhaustive and specific indexing, are not contemplated in a controlled vocabulary or even they have not been accepted. Local terminologies

The little structured thesaurus update, require the elaboration of listings of local terms in the information units.

 Definitions  Hierarchical relationships  Ambiguities among terms  Semantic, morphological, and of syntax factors  Translation to other languages, among others The local terms don’t have a formal structure, they lack of:

The terms of indexing of the megadata included in AGRI2000, were taken from structured and/or local thesaurus, they are a source of access to the information

The knowledge developed in the educational, scientific research and technical institutions, is basic in an ontological system Institutional knowledge

Analyzing the structure and systems developed, actually it is possible to incorporate to the SIDALC plattform data bases of objects, photos, collections, expert systems, maps, etc..

In the development of ontologies, it will be useful the existent tools to the organization of information resources in the agricultural domine, available on line

It was made a sampling about the used tools to do indexing with the participant institutions in SIDALC Methodology

Agrovoc of the FAO CAB thesaurus Macrotesauro of the OCDE Microtesauro of the forest of the CONICYT Between the obtained results we observed that the institutions use the following tools:

Tesauro de Administración Pública Descriptores en Ciencias de la Salud (metodología LILACS). Tesauro de la OIT sobre el trabajo Tesauro ICYT (Instituto de Información y Documentación en Ciencia y Tecnología) de Biología Animal Tesauro de Ingeniería Sanitaria y Ambiente - Centro Panamericano de Ingeniería Sanitaria y Ciencias de la Salud

Tesauro sobre Medio Ambiente - Consejería de Medio Ambiente (España) THESAGRO: thesaurus agrícola nacional. Brasília: MA/SDR/CENAGRI, p. Tesauro de Agricultura NAL (National Agricultural Library) - en inglés Vocabulario Controlado sobre Desastres - CRID

Institutions that are using thesaurus specialized in agriculture vs other specialties

Thesaurus used in Latin America and the Caribbean NAL Agricultural Sanidad Amb. / Adm. Pub. y Salud Forestal del CONICYT Medio Ambiente OCDE CAB (español ) Agrovoc Términos locales

- Benefit and update of AGROVOC like AOS platform; terminological control and revision of new terms in Spanish - Retrieval of Literature generated in ALC, like bridge between SIDALC and AGRIS Participation of SIDALC in the AOS Project :

- To promote the use of AOS like dominion of the agricultural knowledge in ALC - Indexing like added value for the documents that feed the megadata - To facilitate the access and information retrieval - Trainning to ALC

Biblioteca Conmemorativa Orton (IICA / CATIE) Turrialba, Costa Rica Tel: (506) Fax: (506) Ariel: For more information