User Interfaces for Browsing the Online Catalogues of Museums and Cultural Heritage Institutions: Preliminary Research on Mapping of Subject Access Points

Browsing through topics in online catalogues is often the first step in the information-seeking process. Therefore, subject analysis and indexing are vitally important and also closely connected to the subject access to information. The aim of this paper is to analyse and compare the subject terms from different knowledge organization systems, used for subject retrieval in online catalogues of museums and cultural heritage institutions, in order to better understand and improve browsing interfaces. Preliminary research and mapping will be conducted on subject terms collected from three sources: (1) the Art UK platform, (2) the Tate's website, and (3) the Art & Architecture Thesaurus. The mapping between the previously mentioned subject vocabularies resulted in the identification of various levels of matching. Based on the analysis and interpretation of mapping results, a few suggestions, aimed at ensuring the functionality and convenience of browsing in the context of online catalogues of collections held in museums and heritage institutions, are offered.