Leonard Will writes:

>A further argument for sticking to the standards and using plurals is
>that the convergence of resources and "cross-searching" between
>monuments, archives, museums, libraries and related Web resources means
>that it is desirable that all should use the same terms. It is of course
>possible to provide for both singulars and plurals as alternative terms,
>as AAT (Art and architecture thesaurus) does, but that means doubling
>the size of the vocabulary and complicating systems for no good reason.

Whilst agreeing with everything that Leonard says, it is perhaps worth
noting that this particular argument has been lost as far as museums are
concerned, at least for the time being.

Many years ago, he and I were in a minority of two when we served on an
MDA Terminology Working Group and tried to argue for adherence to
BSI/ISO thesaurus standards.  As Leonard points out earlier in his
posting, the use of the singular reflects "the point of view of the
cataloguer describing an item" and is inappropriate for fields that will
be used as 'access points'.  Unfortunately, this 'curatorcentric' view
of life still prevails.  I was comprehensively outvoted recently when I
raised the issue amongst a group of specialist curators with whom I am
developing an object name thesaurus for a particular subject area.

Because of that fateful decision made by the MDA Terminology Working
Group, it is now very hard to argue convincingly for plural forms within
the museum sector.  We did compromise for the current project and are
providing plural alternative terms as in the AAT model (with which our
thesaurus is intended to be compatible) but as Leonard points out, this
is an unnecessary complication.

Even if one doesn't accept the (to me) compelling logic of plurals as
access points, one must accept that if there is to be effective
"convergence of resources and 'cross-searching'" then the single object
oriented view of life typically found in the museum and heritage sector
will surely have to yield in the face of standards set by the much
larger library and information sectors, particularly as we are
increasingly urged to focus on public access.  In the museum world this
will doubtless cause much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I strongly urge FISH to take on board Leonard's reasoning and comply
with international thesaurus standards - although you won't hear that
point of view from many curators!

Best wishes for the New Year

Stuart
------
Stuart Holm, Heritage Documentation Projects            Tel: 01603 870772
2 New Road, Reepham, Norwich NR10 4LP                   Fax: 0870 055 3623
                      E-mail: [log in to unmask]
-------------   World Wide Web - http://www.holm.demon.co.uk   -------------