How are events and event series classified in terms of their academic fields?
Events and event series must be classified with terms that researchers are familiar with and with which they can identify themselves and their scientific community. The smaller and more specialised a field is, the less likely it is that these terms will be found in a general classification system. However, in order to organise large amounts of scientific resources, such classification systems with standardised vocabularies are necessary. The use of standardised vocabularies also enables interoperability, i.e. integration with metadata from other information sources. ConfIDent therefore uses a hybrid approach: a group of curators - usually members of the scientific communities - can enter new keywords that may or may not match terms of a classification system. These are then matched by librarians to the terms of different classification systems. We use the OECD's Fields of Science (FOS) classification for this. The use of other vocabularies is being investigated.
