RE: Compound concepts in a thesaurus structure

Maybe I am missing the point here, but we seem to have jumped from
talking about exchanging vocabulary data to the exchange of catalogue
data. I thought SKOS was addressing the former, but not the latter. The
relationships in a thesaurus are supposed to be paradigmatic, not
syntagmatic. But a catalogue or index typically sets up syntagmatic
relationships ( i.e. the sort to be found in the context of one
particular document), which leads us into the difficulty outlined by
Leonard. 

Sorry if this comment is incomplete. I should perhaps say much more, but
am having great difficulty keeping up with the quantity of interesting
correspondence on this list.
Stella

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Stella Dextre Clarke
Information Consultant
Luke House, West Hendred, Wantage, Oxon, OX12 8RR, UK
Tel: 01235-833-298
Fax: 01235-863-298
SDClarke@LukeHouse.demon.co.uk
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-----Original Message-----
From: public-esw-thes-request@w3.org
[mailto:public-esw-thes-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Houghton,Andrew
Sent: 11 May 2004 23:54
To: public-esw-thes@w3.org
Subject: 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 Wednesday, 12 May 2004 04:35:04 UTC