Subject description on nautical charts cataloging

Abstract

A nautical chart is a cartographic document specifically designed to meet the requirements of safe maritime navigation. Nautical charts are not only important for navigation but are used for environmental studies, economic aspects, urban and tourist developments among others. The objective of this text was to analyze and evaluate the relevance of four documentary languages for the indexing of nautical charts. A sample of different nautical charts was taken, the keywords in this sample representing each document were extracted. Four documentary languages were selected identifying the relevance of each vocabulary in relation to each keyword. No selected vocabulary could represent at least 50 % of the selected key words, nor do they represent all the typologies of nautical charts. It allows to infer that the controlled vocabularies surveyed do not offer enough specific terms for the exhaustive thematic description of nautical charts.