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Hi, David, I am trying to provide some information in order to start this conversation. Hope others will contribute. 1. I have used Data Harmony's software [1] for thesaurus construction projects in the graduate courses I teach. It was offered free to us for educational purposes. (I think other usage of the software have to pay for the price.) The software has more functions towards automatic indexing (rule-based) and can output SKOS and several other formats (ranging from traditional library-oriented to newer formats such as XML, SKOS, etc.). It is also a good tool for thesaurus maintenance if a thesaurus is large and needs to be updated. I believe that lots of government agencies in the U.S. have been using it. You can contact Marjory Halva <[log in to unmask]> to obtain more information, she was also on the NISO Z39.19-2005 Working Group. Data Harmony - Thesaurus Master(tm) allows one to import an existing Z39.19-thesaurus from a database or simply a structured vocabulary carried on a text file. I think this is the feature that other software (see below) do not have. 2. We have been using Protégé frame [2] for ontology construction in my courses too. Protégé is free and have a lot of plug-ins, including visualization. It could easily handle lightweight ontologies if we count good taxonomies and thesaurus in. You may use Protégé Frame's functions partially for your thesaurus management and output. In terms of managing and keep the updating history, I think you can try some other extensions. One problem is that I do not think you can import a Z39.19 thesaurus into it. You have to really build one based on your original thesaurus. 3. The British standard BS8723-5: Structured vocabularies for information retrieval - Guide. Part 5: Exchange formats and protocols for interoperability (DD 8723-5:2008) has a UML model and a XML schema for thesaurus available on the Website.[3] Although it probably has not considered multilingual thesaurus, and may not have included the function of dealing with an array of a thesaurus terms, it is excellent for any Z39.19 thesaurus. If you have any other XML editor you should be able to use this without additional cost for software. 4. In relate to #3, the ISO 25964 "Thesauri and interoperability with other vocabularie" Working Group has already updated the UML and XML schema based on the BS8723-5 model. If you are interested we may be able to further discuss this. Dr. Leonard Will <[log in to unmask]> is the one who deals with this model. 5. I heard of some other professional tools but have no direct experience. SmartLogic [3] could be one to explore. 6. I do not know how many total terms your thesaurus is. Otherwise you can also use the tool developed by the NSDL Registry project.[4] You may need to re-enter the thesaurus entries. It is an open source. I would suggest you to check other functions by playing around it or ask Diane Hillmann <[log in to unmask]> who was the original Co-P.I. of the project. I hope this is helpful. Please let me know off line <[log in to unmask]> if you have any questions I may help to answer. Marcia Zeng http://www.slis.kent.edu/~mzeng/ Kent State University (member of the NISO Z39.19-2005 Working Group and now ISO 25964 Working Group) [1] http://www.dataharmony.com/ [2] http://protege.stanford.edu/ [3] http://schemas.bs8723.org/Home.aspx [4] http://www.smartlogic.com/ [5] http://metadataregistry.org/ On 7/15/10 9:59 PM, "David Bromage" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: UNCLASSIFIED We have an ANSI/NISO Z39.19 thesaurus of over 20,000 terms currently maintained in a very old proprietary database. At the moment the thesaurus is only available as human-readable HTML (a one off dump from the database) or dead trees. The thesaurus is recommended as a vocabulary encoding scheme for AGLS (an application profile of Dublin Core). Can anybody recommend software (preferably open source) which can maintain a Z39.19 thesaurus (preferably in an open format) and export in a machine-readable format and published so individual terms can be a valid value URI? Regards David David Bromage Policy and Strategic Projects Government Information Management Branch National Archives of Australia PO Box 7425 Canberra Business Centre ACT 2610 T (02) 6212 3731 F (02) 6212 3989 M 0418 394 778 [log in to unmask] www.naa.gov.au <http://www.naa.gov.au> UNCLASSIFIED