RE: Compound concepts in a thesaurus structure

> From: Leonard Will [mailto:L.Will@willpowerinfo.co.uk] 
> Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2004 6:44 PM
> Subject: Compound concepts in a thesaurus structure
> 
> 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. 

But that's exactly what happens when librarians create a composed
LCSH in their local catalog.  They evaluate the new concept against
the existing LCSH and add the appropriate BT/NT/RT relationships
to the record they created.  No one said it was easy... that's why
copy cataloging is used so frequently.  Nobody really wants to do
the intellectual effort and many would prefer to wait until LC does
it.  It's expensive to create metadata...


Andy.

Andrew Houghton, OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.
http://www.oclc.org/about/
http://www.oclc.org/research/staff/houghton.htm

Received on Tuesday, 11 May 2004 18:53:34 UTC