Yes, "typologies" is just that: the BMMT goes into depth about the 
_type_ of material: i.e., "cow bone" instead of just "bone".  The 
problem with the former approach, as you note, is open-ended and often 
subjective, and is precisely the reason (as I understand it) that EH 
does not go into the type of brooch in the object thesaurus, or the type 
of palace in the TMT.

I would argue that all terminologies should be removed from the 
thesaurus: species and other modifiers should be removed entirely, as 
they are not materials.

My earlier reference to terms and concepts was not a commentary on the 
BMMT, but rather a note that, if a new resource is being created, 
perhaps it is a good opportunity to explore the advantages of 
approaching the task using the most recent information structuring 
methodologies?

TB

Leonard Will wrote:
> In message <[log in to unmask]> on Wed, 26 Oct 2005, 
> Tyler Bell <[log in to unmask]> wrote
> 
>> Aren't there some issues with the existing BMMT thesaurus construction 
>> methodology as well, in that there is no clear distinction between 
>> terms and typologies?
> 
> 
> I'm not sure what "typologies" means in the above comment, but I don't 
> think that it really confuses terms and concepts in any way that might 
> cause difficulties.
> 
> An issue that may make the BM materials thesaurus inappropriate for some 
> applications is that in dealing with organic material it has many 
> pre-coordinated concepts of the form "organism + part". This greatly 
> increases the number of entries over what would be required if organisms 
> and parts were listed separately.
> 
> For example, it lists
> 
> acacia fibre
> acacia seed
> acacia wood
> aloe fibre
> aloe leaf
> aloe wood
> baobab fibre
> baobab seed
> . . .
> 
> antelope bone
> antelope hair
> antelope tooth
> bat bone
> bat hair
> bat tooth
> cow bone
> cow hair
> cow tooth
> . . .
> 
> and so on.
> 
> The number of terms is thus potentially the number of possible organisms 
> multiplied by the number of possible parts or materials derived from 
> these organisms. Many possible combinations are left out, though, 
> presumably because they did not occur in the BM collections.
> 
> It would be much more economical to make separate lists such as
> 
> acacia
> aloe
> baobab
> 
> antelopes
> bats
> cows
> 
> fibre
> seed
> wood
> 
> bone
> hair
> tooth
> 
> and provide rules to guide indexers in combining these at the time of 
> use. It would also make the hierarchical lists simpler, with a single 
> list of mammals, for example, rather than repeating incomplete lists 
> under "mammal bone", "mammal skin", "mammal tissue" and so on.
> 
> There are a few inconsistencies, such as
> 
> chestnut
> BT nut
> 
> oak
> BT wood
> 
> where it is not clear whether the entry terms refer to the whole plant 
> or to part of it. This question has been dealt with in the entries for 
> "walnut . . ."
> 
> These are minor criticisms, though, and it would be easy to adapt the 
> thesaurus into the simpler form that I prefer. There is a strong 
> argument for using what we have, enhanced if necessary, rather than 
> developing separate inconsistent vocabularies that will lead to problems 
> in mapping or merging data from different sources.
> 
> Leonard Will
>