[Asis-standards] Z39.19 Re: Upcoming vote - Part 2

[Thornburg,Gail]

Concepts rather than terms,  that is important

-----Original Message-----
From: Asis-standards [mailto:asis-standards-bounces at asis.org] On Behalf Of ZENG, MARCIA
Sent: Saturday, January 02, 2016 6:47 PM
To: Mark Needleman; ASIST Standards Committee
Subject: [Asis-standards] Z39.19 Re: Upcoming vote - Part 2

Mark,
Z30.19 is an important standard.
I agree with the vote:
YES - Approve the Revision of the standard

As a member of the Z39.19 and ISO 25964, I felt strongly that the revision is needed. Here are a few points in addition to the previous ³notes² came with your message. Margie may have a lot more to add!

1. The ISO 25964 ³Thesauri and interoperability with other vocabularies"
[1] need to be referred and coordinated.
2. Make a complete new section about using W3X¹s ³SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System" with the eXtension for Labels (SKOS-XL)[2] which was released as W3C recommendations in 2009. There is already an alignment of SKOS with ISO25964.
3. There are issues of inappropriate guidelines in the 2005 version (see notes below). They should be modified according to the ISO standard and the current best practices in the digital age.
4. One of the fundamental changes in the newer ISO standard is the notion to center the ³concepts² rather than ³terms² in thesauri.[3] As the Internet of Things are embraced by the world, this ³thing²- (aka ³resource², ³entity², ³res²)-centered vocabulary control approach requires the NISO standard catch up and build on the new notion, like what ISO
25964 did. 

My two centsŠ
Marcia Zeng

[1] http://www.niso.org/schemas/iso25964/
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/skos-reference/
[3] http://www.niso.org/publications/isq/2012/v24no1/clarke/

Notes: (from previous email you sent)
The community has noted the need for general revisions and edits, such as replacing references to AACR2 with references to RDA (Resource Description and Access) and revising references to ISO standards to ensure they are the current versions. There are also a number of the definitions of terms in Section 4 (Definitions, Abbreviations and Acronyms) which could be enhanced or improved, such as the definition of document which is currently too broad and does not correspond to current use. There are also, terms such as ³generic structure² which could be argued to be an obsolete taxonomy approach. The wording in some sections is confusing and should be clarified such as Section 5.3.4 (Facet Analysis). In some cases the guidance in the standard is contrary to common practice, such as Sections 6.2.1 (Homographs) and 6.7.2.1 (Non-Alphabetic Characters ­
Parentheses) which call for the avoidance of the use of parentheses whenever possible when disambiguating terms. Many would argue that they should be avoided completely by adding the parenthetical word as part of the descriptor, but without parentheses by using natural language order.
The call to use adjectives and adverbs to limit the number of compound terms (Section 6.4.2.2; Section 6.4.3) are further examples of guidance which is contrary to standard best practices by suggesting the use of adjectives or adverbs as terms (and not as part of a noun phrase). Naked adjectives and adverbs are inherently ambiguous as indexing terms. This section should be removed. Additional review and revision could and should be done of the sections discussing hierarchical relationships, display types and vocabulary management systems.





>
>5) ANSI/NISO Z39.19-2005 (R2010) Guidelines for the Construction, 
>Format, and Management of Monolingual Controlled Vocabularies
>
>This ballot is for the periodic review of the published standard 
>ANSI/NISO Z39.19-2005 (R2010) Guidelines for the Construction, Format, 
>and Management of Monolingual Controlled Vocabularies. This standard 
>was last reviewed and reaffirmed in 2010. A copy of the Z39.19 standard 
>is available for download from the ballot webpage or the link in the 
>announcement email.
>
>In accordance with NISO procedures, all review ballots are accompanied 
>by a recommendation from the responsible leadership committee. NISO's 
>Content and Collection Management Topic Committee recommends a vote to 
>REVISE the standard. Please see further notes below.
>
>As a member of the voting pool, you are required to vote on this ballot 
>(one vote per organization). Please cast your ballot with one of the 
>following voting options:
>
>YES - Approve the Revision of the standard (comments optional)
>
>NO - Do not approve the Revision of the standard (comments required)
>
>ABSTAIN from voting (comments are required since members of the voting 
>pool volunteered to join, so an abstention vote requires explanation)
>
>Notes:
>The community has noted the need for general revisions and edits, such 
>as replacing references to AACR2 with references to RDA (Resource 
>Description and Access) and revising references to ISO standards to 
>ensure they are the current versions. There are also a number of the 
>definitions of terms in Section 4 (Definitions, Abbreviations and
>Acronyms) which could be enhanced or improved, such as the definition 
>of document which is currently too broad and does not correspond to 
>current use. There are also, terms such as ³generic structure² which 
>could be argued to be an obsolete taxonomy approach. The wording in 
>some sections is confusing and should be clarified such as Section 
>5.3.4 (Facet Analysis). In some cases the guidance in the standard is 
>contrary to common practice, such as Sections 6.2.1 (Homographs) and 
>6.7.2.1 (Non-Alphabetic Characters ­ Parentheses) which call for the 
>avoidance of the use of parentheses whenever possible when 
>disambiguating terms. Many would argue that they should be avoided 
>completely by adding the parenthetical word as part of the descriptor, 
>but without parentheses by using natural language order. The call to 
>use adjectives and adverbs to limit the number of compound terms 
>(Section 6.4.2.2; Section 6.4.3) are further examples of guidance which 
>is contrary to standard best practices by suggesting the use of 
>adjectives or adverbs as terms (and not as part of a noun phrase). 
>Naked adjectives and adverbs are inherently ambiguous as indexing 
>terms. This section should be removed. Additional review and revision 
>could and should be done of the sections discussing hierarchical relationships, display types and vocabulary management systems.
>
>The Content and Collection Management Topic Committee feels these 
>concerns and additional ones not referenced here support a 
>recommendation to review and revise Z39.19.
>
>Comments needed by 1/23/2016 - Hopefully members of the committee who 
>are familiar with this subject can provide comments and a 
>recommendation for a vote
>


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