Subject Description and Discovery: Access to Archives and Special Collections on the Semantic Web

"Subject Description and Discovery: Access to Archives and Special Collections on the Semantic Web" is the first book on subject cataloging and creating subject-level access to materials in archives and special collections to incorporate recent developments in cataloging theory and standards. As such, it provides up-to-date explanations on how to tackle these challenges in the 21st-century world that will serve practicing librarians and archivists, instructors and students, as well as web and database developers.

The book provides a holistic overview of subject description and access in three sections. The first part addresses abstracting and indexing, the second covers controlled vocabularies, and the last focuses on discovery. Each section begins with a tutorial on basic principles, followed by an in-depth discussion of the issues, trends, and technologies that both challenge and reinvigorate traditional practice. The book provides detailed guidance on important topics like Linked Open Data, folksonomies, user contributions, and web-based discovery. It also includes tutorials with advanced discussion of issues in indexing and abstracting practice, publication and application of controlled vocabularies, and the design and development of front-end interfaces.