Many information professionals working in small units today fail to find the published tools for subject based organization that are appropriate to their local needs, whether they are archivists, special librarians, information officers, or knowledge or content managers. Large established standards for document description and organization are too unwieldy, unnecessarily detailed, or too expensive to install and maintain. In other cases the available systems are insufficient for a specialist environment, or don't bring things together in a helpful way. A purpose built, in-house system would seem to be the answer, but too often the skills necessary to create one are lacking.

This practical text examines the criteria relevant to the selection of a subject management system, describes the characteristics of some common types of subject tool, and takes the novice step-by-step through the process of creating a system for a specialist environment. The methodology employed is a standard technique for the building of a thesaurus that incidentally creates a compatible classification or taxonomy, both of which may be used in a variety of ways for document or information management. Key areas covered are:

What is a thesaurus?

Tools for subject access and retrieval

What a thesaurus is used for

Why use a thesaurus?

Examples of thesauri

The structure of a thesaurus

Thesaural relations

Practical thesaurus construction

The vocabulary of the thesaurus

Building the systematic structure

Conversion to alphabetic format

Forms of entry in the thesaurus

Maintaining the thesaurus

Thesaurus software

The wider environment.

Readership: Although primarily aimed at the practising information professional, the book is also suitable for students of library and information science.

About the Author

Vanda Broughton MA DipLib is a Lecturer in Library and Information Studies at the School of Library, Archive and Information Studies, University College London. She has taught, written and led training courses on thesauri for many years. She is joint editor of the new edition of the Bliss Bibliographic Classification scheme, is a member of the UDC revision working group, and also of the UK Classification Research Group.

Reviews

"...Essential Thesaurus Construction will surely be of great value to the community of present and future information professionals."

-- Library Review



Book Information
ISBN 9781856045650
Author Vanda Broughton
Format Paperback
Page Count 304
Imprint Facet Publishing
Publisher Facet Publishing