Formation of macrostructure of
subject-fields: a proposal for the
organization of knowledge in the
digital libraries of theses and
dissertations
UNESP – MARÍLIA / BRAZIL

Flavia Maria Bastos
Master’s Degree in Information Science at
UNESP [Sao Paulo State University] –
Marília Campus. Brazil.
E-mail: flavinha@reitoria.unesp.br
Profa. Dra. Mariângela Spotti Lopes Fujita
Assistant Professor at the Department of
Information Science at UNESP – Marília
Campus - Brazil.
E-mail: goldstar@flash.tv.br

PROBLEM :
The resource used by the digital libraries of
theses and dissertations of the universities of Sao
Paulo state in the creation of subject field
categorization, limits the inclusion of the subjects to
very generic categories wish doesn’t allow the
necessary suitability for specific subjects found in
the theses and dissertations.

PROPOSAL :
It is proposed an investigation of the
principles for a thematic structuring suitable to
the environment of the digital libraries of theses
and dissertations according to the approach of
Knowledge Organization in the context of
Information Science.

OBJECTIVES :
General
Provide theoric subsidies for the creation of
conceptual relationships in thematic structures within
the context of Information Science.
Specific
Identify the theoretical and methodological
aspects of the theories on thematic classification that
can be applied when organizing the contents of theses
and dissertations of the digital libraries of higher
education institutions.

ARGUMENTS:
The growing amount of electronic documents
to organize
Difficulty faced by the information
professional to suit the specific subjects of
theses and dissertations within the areas of
subject established by the search-promotion
agencies;
Generalization of the subdivisions of areas
hides the specificity of subjects of theses and
dissertations.

DEVELOPMENT
Regarding the organization of knowledge in literature,
two theoretical trends were systematized:
The theoretical and methodological aspects of the
macrostructural theory are more appropriate to reach
goals, as they enable the gathering of theories from
disciplines down to more general themes to explain how
concepts are structured.
The microstructural theory, on the contrary, concerns
the theoretical corpus as the minimal unit of knowledge,
and thus enables a study of the relationship between
concepts.

DEVELOPMENT
The theoretical trends within the macrostructural
theory currently study the use of conceptual
mapping, thematic domains, semantic fields, and
terminological theories
Thanks to the evaluation conducted in the four
macrostructural theories, we rejected the use of the
Theory of Conceptual Maps, since it is an educational
tool intended to students when in the learning
process; besides, these require the building of other
maps with various levels of generalities to represent
various ideas focused on an educational use.

Proposed application of macrostructural theories
in the Information organization in digital
libraries of theses and dissertations
For that purpose, the tools viewed as the most important in
each theory are exemplified, and an application in a category
organization is proposed in the field of Physics.
Domain Analysis
It determine at first the principles and rules of each domain,
and then discriminates the way of organizing them internally
Terminology
It has as study object the scientific-technical term integrating in
his researches the terminological definition
Semantic Field
It structures and group concepts stablishing logical-linguists
relations between them.

Proposed application of macrostructural
theories in the Information organization in
digital libraries of theses and dissertations
Terminology
To explain the organization to explain the
organization of knowledge on Photons in the field of
Physics were consulted 3 researchers of the Institute
of Theoretical Physics at the UNESP, where idetified
the following research subfields on Ohotons: Particle
Physics, Field Theory, Quantum Opitcs, Plasma
Physics, Medical Physics, Nuclear Physics, and
Gravitation. In order to define those fields, the
researches informed the dictionaries specific to each
field of research.

Proposed application of macrostructural theories in
the Information organization in digital libraries of
theses and dissertations
Considering the theoretical tools of
Terminology in the representation of
specialty language, the subfields of the field
of physics were defined in the context of the
subject “photons” so as to organize the
concepts involved for the formation of a
Semantic Field.

Proposed application of macrostructural theories
in the Information organization in digital
libraries of theses and dissertations
Semantic field
The field of Physics deals with the structure of
matter and its interactions between the fundamental
constituents of the universe. In this context, the subject
of photons, in other words, the light composed by
particles of electromagnetic radiation is the subject
under study of various Physics subfields. As verified in
the dissertation entitled “Deflection of photons by the
sun in the context of the theory of gravitation ‘R+R
POT.2’” to be found in the Digital Library of UNESP
and which studies the effect of gravitational fields on
photons, the subject of photons is under the subfield
Theory of Gravitation.

Proposed application of macrostructural
theories in the Information organization in
digital libraries of theses and dissertations
Physics
Particle Physics
Field Theory
Quantum Optics
Plasma
Medical Physics
Nuclear Physics
Gravitation
Photos

CONCLUSION
The analysis conducted through the macrostructural
theories defined the use of domain analysis, semantic
field and terminological theories as adequate for the
development of our proposal, since they broaden the
possibility of an expansion of the structure of subject-
field categories in the websites of Sao Paulo State
universities by considering essential elements, as well
as the social and cultural contexts when building the
conceptual relationships of knowledge organization to
develop and treat a given field of knowledge.

CONCLUSION
Also observed possible complementarities when
applying the theoretical aspects of the three
theories, which allowed us to identify the sequence
for the global macrostructure of subject-field
categories.
We also observed possible complementarities
when applying the theoretical aspects of the three
theories, which allowed us to identify the sequence
for the global macrostructure of subject-field
categories.