Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Content
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 What is a thesaurus?
- 3 Tools for subject access and retrieval
- 4 What a thesaurus is used for
- 5 Why use a thesaurus?
- 6 Types of thesaurus
- 7 The format of a thesaurus
- 8 Building a thesaurus 1: vocabulary collection
- 9 Vocabulary control 1: selection of terms
- 10 Vocabulary control 2: form of entry
- 11 Building a thesaurus 2: term extraction from document titles
- 12 Building a thesaurus 3: vocabulary analysis
- 13 The thesaural relationships
- 14 Building a thesaurus 4: introducing internal structure
- 15 Building a thesaurus 5: imposing hierarchy
- 16 Building a thesaurus 6: compound subjects and citation order
- 17 Building a thesaurus 7: conversion of the taxonomy to alphabetical format
- 18 Building a thesaurus 8: creating the thesaurus records
- 19 Managing and maintaining the thesaurus: thesaurus software
- 20 Conclusion
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Appendix 1 Sample titles for thesaurus vocabulary
- Appendix 2 Sample terms for the thesaurus
- Appendix 3 Facets at stage 1 of analysis
- Appendix 4 Facets at stage 2 of analysis
- Appendix 5 Completed systematic display
- Appendix 6 Thesaurus entries for sample page
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Content
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 What is a thesaurus?
- 3 Tools for subject access and retrieval
- 4 What a thesaurus is used for
- 5 Why use a thesaurus?
- 6 Types of thesaurus
- 7 The format of a thesaurus
- 8 Building a thesaurus 1: vocabulary collection
- 9 Vocabulary control 1: selection of terms
- 10 Vocabulary control 2: form of entry
- 11 Building a thesaurus 2: term extraction from document titles
- 12 Building a thesaurus 3: vocabulary analysis
- 13 The thesaural relationships
- 14 Building a thesaurus 4: introducing internal structure
- 15 Building a thesaurus 5: imposing hierarchy
- 16 Building a thesaurus 6: compound subjects and citation order
- 17 Building a thesaurus 7: conversion of the taxonomy to alphabetical format
- 18 Building a thesaurus 8: creating the thesaurus records
- 19 Managing and maintaining the thesaurus: thesaurus software
- 20 Conclusion
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Appendix 1 Sample titles for thesaurus vocabulary
- Appendix 2 Sample terms for the thesaurus
- Appendix 3 Facets at stage 1 of analysis
- Appendix 4 Facets at stage 2 of analysis
- Appendix 5 Completed systematic display
- Appendix 6 Thesaurus entries for sample page
- Index
Summary
We have now covered all the stages in the construction of the thesaurus using facet analysis as the starting point. It should be emphasized that, like any activity involving language, thesaurus construction is not an exact science.
Both the guidelines offered in the standards (which are largely concerned with the form of entry) and the methodology of facet analysis require the thesaurus compiler to exercise personal judgement in the selection and analysis of terms. Often the decisions to be made are not at all easy, because the subtlety and complexity of language does not always permit precise boundaries to be drawn. Don't let this deter you from attempting to construct a thesaurus. The application of method and logic will provide you with a good and efficient tool, even where decisions are necessarily subjective, and a little more experience of working with vocabularies will improve your confidence.
During the time that I was writing this book, the new British standard Structured Vocabularies for Information Retrieval (BS 8723) was in preparation, and the first two parts, Definitions, Symbols and Abbreviations, and the part relating to thesauri, were published shortly before Essential Thesaurus Construction went to press. In the USA, there is also a working party looking at the ANSI/NISO standard and considering many of the same aspects of the modern thesaurus not addressed by the current guidelines.
A workshop held at the end of 1999 set some criteria for the working party. The recommendations of the workshop1 included the following:
• A new standard for ‘thesauri’ is needed, and it should be a single standard.
• However, it should not be a standard for ‘electronic’ thesauri. Essentially
all thesauri are digital today, so ‘electronic’ is superfluous.
• Furthermore, the standard should provide for a broader group of controlled
vocabularies than those that fit the standard definition of ‘thesaurus’. This
includes, for example, ontologies, classifications, taxonomies, and subject
headings, in addition to standard thesauri.
• The primary concern is with shareability (inter-operability), rather
than with construction or display. Therefore this new standard probably
will not supersede Z39.19, but supplement it.
• The standard should focus on concepts, terms and relationships.
The new British standard also addresses these issues, and is notable in that
it replaces what was originally a standard for the construction of thesauri
with one dealing with different forms of retrieval tools.
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- Information
- Essential Thesaurus Construction , pp. 206 - 207Publisher: FacetPrint publication year: 2006