Essential Thesaurus Construction (Facet Publications

by Vanda Broughton

Many information professionals working in small units today fail to find the published tools for subject based organization that are appropriate to their local needs, whether they are archivists, special librarians, information officers, or knowledge or content managers. Large established standards for document description and organization are too unwieldy, unnecessarily detailed, or too expensive to install and maintain. In other cases the available systems are insufficient for a specialist environment, or don't bring things together in a helpful way. A purpose built, in-house system would seem to be the answer, but too often the skills necessary to create one are lacking. This practical text examines the criteria relevant to the selection of a subject management system, describes the characteristics of some common types of subject tool, and takes the novice step-by-step through the process of creating a system for a specialist environment. The methodology employed is a standard technique for the building of a thesaurus that incidentally creates a compatible classification or taxonomy, both of which may be used in a variety of ways for document or information management. Key areas covered What is a thesaurus? Tools for subject access and retrieval What a thesaurus is used for Why use a thesaurus? Examples of thesauri The structure of a thesaurus Thesaural relations Practical thesaurus construction The vocabulary of the thesaurus Building the systematic structure Conversion to alphabetic format Forms of entry in the thesaurus Maintaining the thesaurus Thesaurus software The wider environment. Although primarily aimed at the practising information professional, the book is also suitable for students of library and information science.

Genres: Nonfiction

304 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2006

Reviews

[Christian Brumm · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is probably the easiest read you can find about manual thesaurus construction. There is not much on the topic, so I was happy to get this book into my hands.

It has a hands-on approach, all concepts are introduced referring to one case-study thesaurus. It also has a small but sufficient number of exercises including solutions.
The book is tailored to someone who actually wants to build a thesaurus using facet analysis. It mentions thesaurus software, but all it covers can be done with pen and paper.

I think the book does what the titles states, providing you with the essentials of thesaurus construction in an accessible manner. The author repeats herself on some concepts and the organization of the material could be a little better. But I guess this is OK for a tutorial-style book.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent basic primer/review

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Straight forward language + funny examples made this a good read.