Overview
Français
ABSTRACT
This article describes the nature, the origins, and the structure of the contemporary documentation thesaurus. It provides details on the successive phases and the diverse tasks and tools related to its construction and management. Finally, it addresses matters relating to the use of the thesaurus in computerized information systems without, however, characterizing specific systems or applications. To conclude this article, the thesaurus’ utilities are specified: aid to indexing, searching, or its use by search engines.
Read this article from a comprehensive knowledge base, updated and supplemented with articles reviewed by scientific committees.
Read the articleAUTHOR
-
Michèle HUDON: Professeur agrégé École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l'information Université de Montréal (Canada)
INTRODUCTION
A thesaurus is a document language, i.e. an artificial language designed to generate a formalized representation of the subjects covered by a document, on the one hand, and the wording of a user's questions, on the other, so that the user can locate the information or documents that are relevant and useful to him or her. The thesaurus is one of a wide variety of knowledge organization systems (KOS) available to facilitate the communication of information.
The thesaurus can now be used in digital form, and is an important component of contemporary information systems, both in traditional databases and on the web. Originally used by specialists trained in indexing and information retrieval, the thesaurus is now available in versions that can be used by anyone seeking information. Its structure also enables it to be used by search engines and natural language processing software, which use it as a knowledge base.
The Ultimate Scientific and Technical Reference
KEYWORDS
thesaurus of descriptor | | | | | information retrieval | | indexing and searching languages | knowledge organization systems KOS
This article is included in
Digital documents and content management
This offer includes:
Knowledge Base
Updated and enriched with articles validated by our scientific committees
Services
A set of exclusive tools to complement the resources
Practical Path
Operational and didactic, to guarantee the acquisition of transversal skills
Doc & Quiz
Interactive articles with quizzes, for constructive reading
Documentary thesaurus
What is a thesaurus?
Bibliography
Software tools(non-exhaustive list)
MTM (free) http://www.icie.com.pl/
The W32 (free) http://publish.uwo.ca/~craven/freeware.htm
Websites
A-Z of Thesauri (HILT High-level thesaurus project) http://hilt.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/Sources/thesauri.html
DALBIN (S.). – Descriptors: Site dedicated to thesauri and other controlled vocabularies for information access. http://www.dossierdoc.typepad.com/descripteurs/
...Events
World Wide Web Consortium. SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System Reference. W3C Recommendation, August 18, 2009 http://www.w3.org/TR/skos-reference
World Wide Web Consortium. SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System Primer. W3C Working Group Note, August 18, 2009
Standards and norms
- Règles d'établissement des thésaurus monolingues - NF Z47-100 - 1981
- Thésaurus et interopérabilité avec les autres vocabulaires. Partie 1 : Thésaurus - ISO 25964 - 2011
- Information and documentation – Guidelines for the creation, structure and presentation of indexes - ISO 999 - 1996
- Codes pour la représentation des noms de langues - ISO 639 - 1998-2010
The Ultimate Scientific and Technical Reference
