Indexação de mapas geológicos do brasil: estudo da especificidade de termos de indexação usados nos catálogos de bibliotecas europeias

Abstract

Maps generally, and geological maps specifically, are featured by a combination of graphical elements, such as various symbols, lines and colours - that express the cartographical situation or geological setting of specific regions. Maps as such are used by interested general public, but mostly by experts from geological institutions, mining companies, civil engineers or by academia for teaching purposes, or any other environmentally oriented enterprises. The primary function of maps is to graphically represent a defined area - if the necessary amount of information cannot be depicted by verbal description. Maps together with the atlases and other visual forms that represent physiogeographical, or geological phenomena, elements of topical environments and socioeconomic aspects are edited usually as set of maps and are generally called cartographical or geological maps. Thepresented study of the level specificity of the indexing terms used to express the content of the geological maps of Brazil was carried out in six catalogues of National Libraries or Library Networks in Europe, including Spain, Portugal, France, Great Britain, Russia and Switzerland. Regarding the level of specificity, it was observed that most of the surveyed catalogues have adopted more specific subject descriptors to represent the diversity of subjects present in the maps. Likewise, it was perceived that the specificity was extracted form the map content and not from the information indicated in the map title. In this study, we emphasize the NEBIS catalogue metadata that presented more specific indexing pointing to the good use of the analytic-synthetic UDC subject facets to represent the content of the geological maps.