The report does make interesting reading. Although HILT does not appear to be funded by Re:source it is depressing to see a perpetuation of Re:sources public sector centered view of the world. The survey did not involve any Independent Archives, nor any Independent, Local Authority or University Museums, nor any Local Authority or Independent Libraries which does mean it is of limited applicability.
The AAT is also a single hierarchy thesaurus (possibly because it follows the ANSI thesaurus standard?)
Personally I think that poly-heirarchical thesuari are more likely to be of use to a general user.
Trevor Reynolds
Collections Registrar, English Heritage
Room G01, 23 Savile Row, London, W1S 2ET, UK
tel: +44 (0)20 7973 3482 fax: +44 (0)20 7973 3001 (GTN 3503 3482)
>>> "Lee, Edmund" <[log in to unmask]> 04/20 2:46 pm >>>
Hello again,
This posting (below) from Susannah fell foul of the JISCmail anti-spam
system, but I am happy to pass it on.
The online report makes interesting reading, and is the first UK survey of
controlled terminologies in wide use that I have come across. One point that
we might want to consider is that the most common subject indexing
terminologies (Dewey Decimal, Library of Congress and the UNESCO thesaurus)
are all (as far as I know) single hierarchy thesauri (ie they do not allow a
term to have more than one broad term, contrary to recommendations in the
British Standard for thesaurus construction).
This may have implications for user perception of the value of thesauri. If
the most common thesauri only have this limited functionality, there is a
risk that people see thesauri generally as not meeting their needs for
indexing.
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