The Thesaurus: Review, Renaissance, and Revision: (co‐published simultaneously as Cataloging and Classification Quarterly, Volume 37, Numbers 3/4 2004)

Citation

McCulloch, E. (2005), "The Thesaurus: Review, Renaissance, and Revision: (co‐published simultaneously as Cataloging and Classification Quarterly, Volume 37, Numbers 3/4 2004)", Library Review, Vol. 54 No. 8, pp. 492-493. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530510619200

In the age of digital information, the role of the thesaurus as a reference tool remains as important as within the traditional print environment, and has experienced a significant diversification in functionality due to the interactive nature of the web. Electronic services often incorporate a thesaurus as a navigational aid to assist and improve the effectiveness of user searching. In addition to alerting users to the preferred and adopted terminology within an online service or resource, the thesaurus also serves to guide the user to alternative and related terms. Due to this expanding functionality and usability, it seems an appropriate time to take stock of the thesaurus.

Originally published as a special issue of Cataloging and Classification Quarterly, The Thesaurus: Review, Renaissance and Revision comprises a collection of articles by prolific authors in the field. A range of areas are covered and all levels of ability are catered for, with Aitchison and Dextre Clarke covering the basic notation of a thesaurus – UF, Use, BT and NT – catering for the novice reader, while Johnson handles more complex ideas such as “distributed thesaurus web services”.

It kicks off with Aitchison and Dextre Clarke providing a historical overview of the traditional thesaurus, tracing four decades of development, with the authors noting the requirement for updated standards more suited to the electronic environment. The authors outline the evolution of the thesaurus from the Uniterm system of the 1950s, to the hierarchical display of MeSH in the 1960s, facet analysis and the differences between alphabetical thesauri and indexes. Also highlighted here is the dramatic progress in thesaurus construction methodology, with a reminder to readers that “the alphabetical section was held in a series of twenty or more shoe boxes” during the creation of Thesaurofacet. Aitchison and Dextre Clarke go on to stress the importance of continued thesauri development, emphasising the need for controlled vocabulary as the volume of electronic information rises exponentially, along with the need for interoperability, both between an electronic thesaurus and a search system as well as between different databases and/or websites.

In addition to this well rounded overview of the thesaurus as reference tool, is an article contributed by Shearer who guides the reader through the principles of thesaurus construction, giving practical examples to illustrate key points. Will also considers the process of thesaurus construction, focusing specifically on a consultant's role within this context, with some attention given to costs and legal issues. Supplementing such articles is a selected bibliography by Lykke Nielsen, which offers sources for further reading on many aspects of thesauri construction covered within the text.

Aside the process of creating thesauri, this publication also deals with the evaluation (Owens and Cochrane) of thesauri, and provides an insight to user knowledge of how to conduct an information retrieval exercise employing a thesaurus (Greenberg). The latter is based on results from a study undertaken using the ProQuest Controlled Vocabulary.

Bringing the context of thesauri bang up to date, Riesland considers the nature and use of controlled vocabularies, and looks at various aspects of vocabulary management software such as automated versus manual, bundled versus stand‐alone and single versus multi‐user, before providing the reader with a framework in which to evaluate such applications. Continuing on the theme of electronic thesaurus applications, Patrice Landry offers an informative insight to the MACS project, which aims to develop multilingual access to online catalogues, by making three subject schemes (one German, one French, and one English) interoperable through a process of linking appropriate terms in each. Finally, an interview with Dr Amy J. Warner, Project Leader for NISO's Thesaurus Development Team completes the publication, outlining her perspective on many issues raised throughout the preceding articles.

Before concluding, one negative aspect of the publication which should be noted is the pricing structure imposed by the Haworth Information Press. Although the text is available in “book” format for the price of $19.95 (soft cover; $39.95 for hard cover), the original journal issue (with identical content to the “book”) continues to be offered via the Haworth website at the higher institutional, individual, and agency/library subscription costs imposed on all journal titles offered.

In conclusion, this publication is extremely timely and topical since the BSI standards (both the British standard guide to establishment and development of monolingual thesauri and the British standard guide to establishment and development of multilingual thesauri) are currently being revised in the UK and much research is ongoing into the development of thesaurus interfaces and interoperability on the web. It is likely that the thesaurus will remain a valuable tool within the field of information retrieval for many years to come, especially with the ongoing development of bi and multilingual versions and the continuing increase in the number of online information services. The fact that thesauri as paper based and online tools are applicable to a wide range of sectors and subject disciplines further serves to compound their value.