Compound concepts in a thesaurus structure

In message 
<B56ABE145BEB0C40A265238FCAA420DF026F52BE@oa2-server.oa.oclc.org> on 
Tue, 11 May 2004, "Houghton,Andrew" <houghtoa@oclc.org> wrote

>If someone builds a class number, based upon the instructions in the 
>classification, then they can merely create an skos:Concept element and 
>within that element use the skos:inScheme to point to the "official" 
>base scheme which defines the list of predefined concepts.  Any built 
>concept in LCC, DDC, LCSH, or MeSH participate in same BT/NT 
>relationship established for the vocabulary.  So I seem to be missing 
>something with your analogy.
>
>You don't need to incorporate the rules for creating the compound 
>strings. The "whole" compound string *is* the concept and there isn't 
>necessarily a BT/NT relationship between the predefined part and what 
>was composed.  The whole term should be taken as the concept and its 
>BT/NT relationship is to be taken in the context of all the other 
>predefined or compound strings in the vocabulary.

Well you could, but I think that you would run into difficulties if you 
tried to combine pre-coordinated strings like this into a thesaurus 
structure. The following block of LCSH strings is taken from the LC 
catalogue; certainly you could say that each of these represents a 
single compound concept, but I would have difficulty in giving these 
terms a useful set of  BT/NT relationships, and I don't think it 
realistic for someone to do that for every such string that they create. 
Thesaural relationships are normally between the simple concepts of 
which such strings are composed..


Automobile dealers.
Automobile dealers -- Arizona -- Biography.
Automobile dealers -- Brazil.
Automobile dealers -- China -- Handbooks, manuals, etc.
Automobile dealers -- Colorado Denver Metropolitan Area -- Supply and 
demand -- Statistics -- Periodicals.
Automobile dealers -- Colorado History.
Automobile dealers -- Denmark Biography.
Automobile dealers -- Drama.
Automobile dealers -- Employees -- Fiction.
Automobile dealers -- Employees -- Juvenile literature.
Automobile dealers -- Employees -- Salaries, etc. -- California -- 
Statistics -- Periodicals.
Automobile dealers -- Employees, Training of -- Germany -- Case studies.


Leonard

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Received on Tuesday, 11 May 2004 18:43:53 UTC