July 6, 2010 – What exactly are subject descriptors? They are subject headings that New York Times Open blog defines as keywords related to article content instead of proper nouns. This release includes 498 of the most commonly-used subject headers, which, like the names, are mapped to DBPedia and/or Freebase.

ResearchBuzz shared this news in their post, “New York Times Publishing More Subject Headings“.  The New York Times released 5000 person/place/organization names as subject headings last November and have plans to eventually release all 3,500 of its subject descriptors. You can browse through all the available subject headings and descriptors here. The alphabetical browsing links are in the middle of the page.

A good model for building a strong ontology and thoroughly indexed database for easy access and productive search results.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.