Update proposal of Geodesc: Geosciencies controlled vocabulary: initial activities

Abstract

Knowledge organization systems (KOS), of which controlled vocabularies are an example, help control synonyms and ambiguous terms, favouring information retrieval. GEODESC - Controlled Vocabulary in Geosciences is an indexing tool developed by the Divisão de Documentação Técnica (DIDOTE), published in 2005 by the Geological Survey of Brazil - CPRM. This paper presents the initial activities towards to GEODESC update, improving its use by the CPRM Amethyst Library Network. To support the upgrade process of this instrument information about the use were gathered through a questionnaire application. The main conclusions after analyzing the results of this questionnaire were: 1) librarians considered GEODESC a useful tool for their work and think it should be updated, reaffirming the importance of controlled vocabulary in subject indexing; and 2) most respondents support and want to help with GEODESC update, being also in favor of taking an improvement course on how to use this tool. The development of indexing instruments is extremely important for the advancement of Brazilian Science and Technology. Therefore, actions towards standardization are primordial to supply information needs, improve research and for the generation of knowledge in Geosciences.