ISO/DIS 25964-1 now available

At last everyone can access a Draft of ISO 25964-1 “Thesauri and 
interoperability with other vocabularies. Thesauri for information 
retrieval” . You can view and comment on it *free of charge* on the BSI 
site (see details below). Comments on the associated draft XML schema 
are best submitted via the NISO site.

Work has been under way since May 2008 to revise and extend the 
international standards for thesauri, ISO 2788 and ISO 5964. The updated 
content of these two standards, plus other material needed to support 
interoperability, will be combined in a new standard ISO 25964, as follows:
ISO 25964. Thesauri and interoperability with other vocabularies
      Part 1: Thesauri for information retrieval
      Part 2: Interoperability with other vocabularies

Part 1, officially numbered ISO/DIS 25964-1, has been released as a 
draft available for public comment until the end of February 2010.

Part 1 covers monolingual and multilingual thesauri. As well as updating 
the entire content of ISO 2788 and ISO 5964, coverage includes:
	guidelines for thesaurus management software;
	a data model for monolingual and multilingual thesauri;
	recommendations for exchange formats and protocols.
An XML schema for data exchange is included as an informative appendix, 
and is available free of charge at http://www.niso.org/schemas/iso25964/ 
. Please click the “comments” link on this web page, to give your 
feedback on the draft schema.

While the data model is not exactly the same as the SKOS model, there is 
a lot of commonality between the two, and some members of the SKOS 
community have proposed extensions to achieve better alignment. Let us 
all hope this effort pays off!

The whole standard may be viewed online at http://drafts.bsigroup.com/. 
You have to register on the site, but there is no charge for 
registration, and it is easy to submit comments on each clause, whether 
you are in the UK or not. Alternatively a hard copy is available from 
BSI at a price of £36 (just £18 for BSI members). Place your order 
online at http://shop.bsigroup.com/  (where the draft is listed under an 
alternative number of 09/30165649 DC).

A copy of the whole draft may also be obtained from any of the national 
standards bodies which are members of ISO, the International 
Organization for Standards.

Development of the standard is based on BS 8723, which was published in 
5 parts during 2005-2008. The work is managed by a Working Group known 
as ISO TC46/SC9/WG8, which has participants from 15 countries and is led 
by Stella Dextre Clarke of the UK. The Secretariat is provided by NISO 
(USA). WG8 is now actively working on Part 2 of the standard, which will 
provide guidance on mapping between vocabularies.

See official website at http://www.niso.org/workrooms/iso25964. Further 
information may be found in the ASIS&T Bulletin, at 
http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Oct-08/OctNov08_DextreClark.pdf, and in an 
article in the Technology Watch Report at 
http://metadaten-twr.org/tag/iso-25964/ .

-- 
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Stella Dextre Clarke
Information Consultant
Luke House, West Hendred, Wantage, OX12 8RR, UK
Tel: 01235-833-298
Fax: 01235-863-298
stella@lukehouse.org
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Received on Tuesday, 1 December 2009 09:18:59 UTC