Journal of Information and Knowledge (Formerly SRELS Journal of Information Management)

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MeSH versus BibSonomy: A Comparative Study of Index Terms and Social Tags in Nursing Literature


Affiliations
1 Indian Institute of Liver and Digestive Sciences, Kolkata – 700150, West Bengal, India
2 Department of Library and Information Science, Jadavpur University, Kolkata – 700032, West Bengal, India
     

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Present study attempts to examine similarities and differences between the expert generated subject headings and social tags. The study focuses on the comparing BibSonomy social tags and MeSH terms. For this purpose hundred articles in the domain of nursing were collected from BibSonomy as well as PuMed. The results show that 92.72% MeSH terms are not available in social tag vocabulary and almost 15% social tags are likely to be accepted by MeSH terms i.e., experts. Jaccard similarity coefficient shows that users and experts use variant terminology. Users use mostly title-based keywords while experts have used mostly topic-based terminologies. It is suggested that while social tags could improve document retrieval. They cannot substitute controlled vocabulary. OPACs must allow users to describe library documents through user-generated social tags along with expert (librarian) generated terms.

Keywords

BibSonomy, Controlled Vocabulary, Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), Social Tag, Spearman's Correlation.
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About The Authors

Arindam Sarkar
Indian Institute of Liver and Digestive Sciences, Kolkata – 700150, West Bengal
India

Udayan Bhattacharya
Department of Library and Information Science, Jadavpur University, Kolkata – 700032, West Bengal
India


Notifications

  • BibSonomy (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.bibsonomy.org/.

  • Chowdhury, G. G. and Chowdhury, S. (2003). Introduction to Digital Libraries. London: Facet Publishing; p. 182-183.

  • Lee, D. H. (2015). Comparative analysis of index terms and social tags: Medical subject headings vs. BibSonomy and Delicious. Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science, 49(2): 291-311. https://doi.org/10.4275/KSLIS.2015.49.2.291.

  • Lee, D. H. and Schleyer, T. (2010) A Comparison of MeSH Terms and CiteULike Social Tags as Metadata for the same Items. In: IHI ‘10: Proceedings of the 1st ACM International Health Informatics Symposium. New York, NY, USA; p. 445-448.

  • Maalim, A. D. (2006). Participatory rural appraisal techniques in disenfranchised communities: A Kenyan case study. International Nursing Review, 53(3): 178-188. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1466-7657.2006.00489.x.

  • NLM Catalog (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/.

  • PubMed (n.d.). Retrieved from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/.

  • Sarkar, A. and Bhattacharya, U. (2020). Social tags versus controlled vocabularies: A comparative metadata analysis. SRELS Journal of Information Management, 57(5): 259-264.


Abstract Views: 229

PDF Views: 5




  • MeSH versus BibSonomy: A Comparative Study of Index Terms and Social Tags in Nursing Literature

Abstract Views: 229  |  PDF Views: 5

Authors

Arindam Sarkar
Indian Institute of Liver and Digestive Sciences, Kolkata – 700150, West Bengal, India
Udayan Bhattacharya
Department of Library and Information Science, Jadavpur University, Kolkata – 700032, West Bengal, India

Abstract


Present study attempts to examine similarities and differences between the expert generated subject headings and social tags. The study focuses on the comparing BibSonomy social tags and MeSH terms. For this purpose hundred articles in the domain of nursing were collected from BibSonomy as well as PuMed. The results show that 92.72% MeSH terms are not available in social tag vocabulary and almost 15% social tags are likely to be accepted by MeSH terms i.e., experts. Jaccard similarity coefficient shows that users and experts use variant terminology. Users use mostly title-based keywords while experts have used mostly topic-based terminologies. It is suggested that while social tags could improve document retrieval. They cannot substitute controlled vocabulary. OPACs must allow users to describe library documents through user-generated social tags along with expert (librarian) generated terms.

Keywords


BibSonomy, Controlled Vocabulary, Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), Social Tag, Spearman's Correlation.

References