ASIS&T Thesaurus of Information Science, Technology and Librarianship (3rd ed.)

Citation

Smith, A.G. (2006), "ASIS&T Thesaurus of Information Science, Technology and Librarianship (3rd ed.)", Online Information Review, Vol. 30 No. 5, pp. 596-597. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520610706460

The thesaurus is one of the key tools of information science, and ASIS&T is a premier information science organisation, so one expects the ASIS&T thesaurus to be of a high calibre. Compiling the third edition of this work is a challenge, in an area that is being changed rapidly by digital and online developments. It aims to be functional for indexing the publications of ASIS&T, and also act as a descriptive outline of the information science field. The revision was based on indexing materials in the ASIS&T digital library up to 2004, and has resulted in a growth to 1970 terms in nine hierarchical levels.

The scope of the thesaurus is the broad area of information science and technology, and includes: people and organisations; actions, events and processes; physical objects; theoretical concepts and influences on information; information, information delivery formats and channels; methods of study; and geographic descriptors.

Terms are based on a hierarchy stemming from 18 “node labels” (also known as “facet indicators”) such as “activities and operations” and “sociocultural aspects”. Node labels are not available for indexing but form the basis of the term hierarchy. Terms primarily represent single concepts, with the intention that users combine concepts post‐coordinately. Proper names are not used as terms, with the exception of a selection of country and regional names.

The thesaurus appears in three related sequences: an alphabetic listing, a hierarchical display, and a KWIC permuted display. Relationships in the alphabetic thesaurus sequence are shown with the standard BT, NT, RT, UF nomenclature, based on ANSI/NISO z39.19. These three sequences are well laid out and easy to follow. The thesaurus is also available with a CD‐ROM containing the complete text along with Data Harmony's Thesaurus Master software which was used to compile the third edition. The thesaurus can be viewed online at http://www.dataharmony.com/asist/

How well does the thesaurus handle current information science concepts? An armchair indexing exercise on an issue of OIR (Vol. 30, No. 1) showed generally a good match between concepts in the articles and the ASIS&T terms, with a few exceptions. For the editorial on the international digital divide, there wasn't a good ASIS&T term for globalisation (best is “geopolitical aspects”) but “digital divide” is a term. ASIS&T puts all “students” under that term, making it difficult to distinguish between school students and undergraduates, for example in the article on information use by West Indian undergraduates. The concept of “e‐learning”, which is assuming more importance in both the corporate environment and academic libraries, can only be represented by the broader term “distance learning”, or possibly “off campus education”.

As a user, I might have preferred more scope notes – for example to distinguish between “distance learning” and “off campus education”; and for the rather odd term “temporal currency” – presumably used to distinguish from “money”. This last example could have benefitted from a Use reference from “currency”. Some terms, while up to date, have odd locations. For example “Domain Naming System” (more usually the Domain Name System) doesn't really belong as a second level subfield of information science; it would seem more at home under the fourth level term “World Wide Web”. It seems surprising that “Dublin Core” has not achieved preferred term status, being lumped under “Metadata”, although “MARC formats” and “Anglo American Cataloguing Rules” are available to indexers.

Despite these quibbles, the ASIS&T Thesaurus achieves its aims. It will be a useful model thesaurus for information retrieval courses in both “library schools” and “information science schools” (ASIS&T maintains a conceptual separation between these related institutions). Beyond this, it belongs in any organisation that needs to index information science concepts.