[Sigia-l] Thesaurus standards on the move

[Leonard Will]

Work is under way to revise the British (and International) Standards
for thesauri, with a view to interoperability in the era of networks and
maybe even the Semantic Web. A new standard called BS 8723, "Structured
vocabularies for information retrieval - Guide" is planned, to be in
five parts, published separately. The Parts will be as follows:

Part 1 - Definitions, symbols and abbreviations;
Part 2 - Thesauri;
Part 3 - Vocabularies other than thesauri;
Part 4 - Interoperation between multiple vocabularies;
Part 5 - Interoperation between vocabularies and other components of
information storage and retrieval systems

Drafts have now been issued by BSI for Parts 1 and 2, numbered
04/30086620 DC  and 04/30094113 DC respectively. The documents may be 
ordered from BSI Customer Services (tel +44(0)208-996-9001 or email
orders at bsi-global.com).  BSI will make a charge in the order of 10 or 20
pounds, for members and non-members respectively. It is important to get
hold of the documents promptly, as the end of December 2004 is the
deadline for comments.

The revision is long overdue. The existing standard for monolingual
thesauri (the whole scope of which is revised in Parts 1 and 2) is dated
1986! Your comments will help us all evolve to meet the needs of the
21st century.

Stella Dextre Clarke
Convenor, Working Group for BS 8723

*****************************************************
Stella Dextre Clarke
Information Consultant
Luke House, West Hendred, Wantage, Oxon, OX12 8RR, UK
Tel: 01235-833-298
Fax: 01235-863-298
SDClarke at LukeHouse.demon.co.uk
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Forwarded to sigia-l by Leonard Will
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Willpower Information       (Partners: Dr Leonard D Will, Sheena E Will)
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L.Will at Willpowerinfo.co.uk               Sheena.Will at Willpowerinfo.co.uk
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