Consolidation

You can start a consolidation project when you find problems involving several languages or entries from different institutions, entries covering more than one concept or where the concept is badly defined, or duplicates.

Where only one or two languages or entries are concerned:

  • Contact directly the language units or institutions involved with your suggestions;

Where more than two languages or entries are concerned:

  • Suggest a consolidation project to the terminology coordination service of your institution.
Before suggesting merges or deletions, make sure your language section on the primary entry for each concept involved is ‘clean’ and that the entries refer to the same concept. Be aware that terms in different languages may represent concepts differently (e.g. ‘one term/one concept’ in one language may be split in ‘two terms/two concepts’ in other languages).
HOW TO SELECT A PRIMARY ENTRY

In the framework of a consolidation project, when you find two or more entries for the same concept, you will have to:

  • Select one as the ‘primary’ entry (to be retained and improved),
  • All the others will be ‘secondary’ or ‘duplicate’ entries. They will be merged or deleted and will disappear eventually.
Primary entries are marked with a star at LIL.

To select a primary entry, start by identifying the best candidates. Follow these steps:

  • Look for entries which cover the same concept and examine their quality. Run a search with all spelling variants of all terms which might be used to denote the concept (e.g. synonyms, ideally in all languages found on the entry, but at least in FR and EN).
  • Confirm whether potential duplicates really refer to the same concept by checking the domain code(s) and the information contained in the entry (definition, note, context, reference).
  • Check other languages that you understand in the entries selected to see if there are errors (different concepts in the same entry).
  • Bear in mind that domain codes are not always reliable and a lack of definition/context may also mean the concept is unclear.

After having identified the ‘best candidates’, select the primary entry to be completed based on the following criteria (in order of importance):

  1. Overall coherence (one and the same concept for all languages).
  2. Overall quality (amount of relevant information contained). Consider: collections, especially project collections, management field, definition, references and their reliability, reliability codes, context, usage notes, etc.
  3. Number of languages present.
  4. Ownership (if there are two equally good candidates belonging to different institutions, prefer your institution’s entry, as you can validate the changes you make).
  5. Minimum content: the entry must have a correct domain code. If the domain code is missing or incorrect, correct it.
  6. EN must be present. If it is not, add an EN term with as much information as possible, or send a message to the functional mailbox of your institution’s terminology coordination team and/or the mailbox of your institution’s EN Terminology team before marking the entry as primary.
  7. The entry should have an anchor language indicated and updated. This is usually EN (or FR), but could be LA (e.g. for animals, plants and other life forms) or another language (for country-specific concepts). If no language has been selected as anchor language, select one. If there is no reason for selecting another language, select EN. If in doubt, contact your institution’s terminology coordination team.
  8. There must be relevant references for at least the anchor language.

If none of the entries fulfil the criteria, choose the one which you consider to be the best, and complete it as much as possible.

If all entries are corrupt (i.e., mixing different concepts), it may be necessary to create a new entry. This applies particularly where there is a small group of closely related concepts (near synonyms) which have been confused. However, creating a new entry should be the last option; always try to improve an existing entry if possible.

There can be multiple primary entries for the same term if it represents different concepts, even if they are closely related. However, there cannot be multiple primary entries for the same concept.

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