Comments on: Nokia, Ontology, and Legal Research http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/2007/09/03/nokia-ontology-and-legal-research/ Recommendations, Resources, and Reform Mon, 14 Feb 2011 15:53:58 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Legal and Academic Open Access | The Open House Project http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/2007/09/03/nokia-ontology-and-legal-research/comment-page-1/#comment-4982 Legal and Academic Open Access | The Open House Project Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:29:17 +0000 http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/2007/09/03/nokia-ontology-and-legal-research/#comment-4982 [...] I’m hoping that his work with creating broad public access to legal research materials and historical national documents leads to a better relationship between citizens and legal and legislative information. [...] [...] I’m hoping that his work with creating broad public access to legal research materials and historical national documents leads to a better relationship between citizens and legal and legislative information. [...]

]]> By: Video: Mobile Design and Access | The Open House Project http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/2007/09/03/nokia-ontology-and-legal-research/comment-page-1/#comment-1539 Video: Mobile Design and Access | The Open House Project Thu, 25 Oct 2007 06:08:35 +0000 http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/2007/09/03/nokia-ontology-and-legal-research/#comment-1539 [...] The following video is a TED talk by Nokia researcher Jan Chipchase, whose blog I read regularly. He discusses mobile phone research and design in a broader context of international culture. While he doesn’t explicitly discuss politics, the ideas he introduces about the rapid evolution in the ways in which we experience technology have big implications for the ways in which we’ll experience information and government. [...] [...] The following video is a TED talk by Nokia researcher Jan Chipchase, whose blog I read regularly. He discusses mobile phone research and design in a broader context of international culture. While he doesn’t explicitly discuss politics, the ideas he introduces about the rapid evolution in the ways in which we experience technology have big implications for the ways in which we’ll experience information and government. [...]

]]> By: Scott Matheson http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/2007/09/03/nokia-ontology-and-legal-research/comment-page-1/#comment-593 Scott Matheson Tue, 04 Sep 2007 16:35:42 +0000 http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/2007/09/03/nokia-ontology-and-legal-research/#comment-593 Quick note on the U.S. Government Manual (long a favorite of librarians) - it's actually a special edition of the Federal Register, published by the NARA's Office of Federal Register, printed and distributed by GPO. (And available as PDF from GPO Access, along with the other librarian favorite, Statistical Abstract of the United States, from our friends at Census (Commerce)). For more on legal research, there are several podcasts - good Metro/MARC/VRE listening? - on legal research. A quick search on iTunes podcast directory should turn up a few options (mine included). Librarians have other words for ontology: toxonomy and thesaurus. (Though generally taxonomy as understood by computer folks is a strange blurring of description and classification, two distinct concepts for library catalogers.) The Library of Congress Subject Headings is the "universal" thesaurus for subjects, though there are specialized thesauri, like LC's Legislative Indexing Vocabulary (used in THOMAS and mentioned in these pages before). For legal concepts generally, there isn't really a comparable thesaurus (though there are extensions to LCSH) in the way that medical libraries have an entire system of MEdical Subject Headings (MESH from the National Library of Medicine). However - and here's the kicker - legal concepts do have a strong classification system, the West Key Number Digest System. This system divides 400 or so topics into thousands of key numbers (subtopics). The resulting system is used to classify legal concepts extracted from court opinions. The system is so pervasive in legal research and the law generally that is has been called the "Universe of Thinkable Thoughts" by Prof. Bob Berring. That's as good a definition of "ontology" as I've ever heard. (Oh, and note the first three systems mentioned are government produced while the Key Number system is the very proprietary system of Thomson West.) Quick note on the U.S. Government Manual (long a favorite of librarians) – it’s actually a special edition of the Federal Register, published by the NARA’s Office of Federal Register, printed and distributed by GPO. (And available as PDF from GPO Access, along with the other librarian favorite, Statistical Abstract of the United States, from our friends at Census (Commerce)).

For more on legal research, there are several podcasts – good Metro/MARC/VRE listening? – on legal research. A quick search on iTunes podcast directory should turn up a few options (mine included).

Librarians have other words for ontology: toxonomy and thesaurus. (Though generally taxonomy as understood by computer folks is a strange blurring of description and classification, two distinct concepts for library catalogers.) The Library of Congress Subject Headings is the “universal” thesaurus for subjects, though there are specialized thesauri, like LC’s Legislative Indexing Vocabulary (used in THOMAS and mentioned in these pages before).

For legal concepts generally, there isn’t really a comparable thesaurus (though there are extensions to LCSH) in the way that medical libraries have an entire system of MEdical Subject Headings (MESH from the National Library of Medicine).

However – and here’s the kicker – legal concepts do have a strong classification system, the West Key Number Digest System. This system divides 400 or so topics into thousands of key numbers (subtopics). The resulting system is used to classify legal concepts extracted from court opinions.

The system is so pervasive in legal research and the law generally that is has been called the “Universe of Thinkable Thoughts” by Prof. Bob Berring. That’s as good a definition of “ontology” as I’ve ever heard.

(Oh, and note the first three systems mentioned are government produced while the Key Number system is the very proprietary system of Thomson West.)

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