Reusing lexical resources in the construction of a social science multilingual thesaurus

Abstract

We describe how existing lexical resources were used in the development of the social science multilingual thesaurus European Language Social Science Thesaurus (ELSST) which was designed to be used for indexing and finding research data and metadata. The lexical resources of particular interest are classifications, terminologies, thesauri, and controlled vocabularies, collectively known as Knowledge Organisation Systems (KOS). We first describe the properties of these different kinds of resources, which were designed for different purposes and audiences, and then discuss specific examples of classifications, terminologies and thesauri that were used in the development of ELSST. We propose possible solutions to problems we encountered that could enhance the reusability of these resources.