Hi all,
If (big if) the Heritage Lottery Fund or some other generous soul funds
the plans to make a single web access portal for Surrey's heritage, then
HER-like resources and museum-like resources and archive-like resources
will all be found and presented. So while Surrey's HER doesn't have
bird of paradise feathers, one of the museums does have a Kiwi-feather
mantle.
A Really Useful Thesaurus (RUT - tm) would not only encompass all the
materials in the world (well, Surrey) but also permit web linkages in to
it (in a way that the EH thesauri at present do not). With a RUT, a
member of the public, coming across bird of paradise feathers (or Parian
ware, or Code stone, or one of the other number of things which this
happy world is so full of) will be able to click through to explanatory
information. Conversely, the RUT terms (including non-standard,
dialect, etc. etc.) would be available through menus to facilitate
searching.
Greater detail is normally no problem for the user-of-outputs: it's the
imputters who get hung up on choosing an appropriate level of
terminology for each thing - usually due to a lack of clarity in those
who are managing the programme.
Just my cupro-nickel-alloy tuppence,
Pat
(Surrey Museums Development Officer)
--
Pat Reynolds
[log in to unmask]
"It might look a bit messy now,
but just you come back in 500 years time"
(T. Pratchett)
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