Thesaurus standards now published

The first two Parts of BS 8723 have now been published and full
reference details are at the foot of this message.

Taken together, these two Parts revise and supersede BS 5723:1987, the
Guide to Establishment and development of monolingual thesauri. Since
this British Standard is identical to ISO 2788, it is hoped that in due
course, with the input of collaborators in other countries, BS 8723 will
pave the way towards a corresponding revision of the international
standard. 

The differences between BS 5723 (now withdrawn) and BS 8723 Parts 1 and
2 are very substantial, even though the basic principles of thesaurus
construction are preserved. The whole text has been rewritten in today's
idiom, and some additional aspects are now covered:
- facet analysis  
- presentation via electronic (as well as printed) media;
- thesaurus functions in electronic systems  
- requirements for thesaurus management software  

Meantime, work continues on the three other parts planned for BS 8723.
These will cover, respectively: 
- Vocabularies other than thesauri; 
- Interoperation between multiple vocabularies (with multilingual
thesauri as a special case); 
- Interoperation between vocabularies and other components of
information storage and retrieval systems.

If you are in the UK, you can get Parts 1 and 2 (at a price) from BSI at
Telephone: +44(0)20 8996-9001
Website: www.bsi-global.com/bsonline
Email: orders@bsi-global.com
Email (enquiries): info@bsi-global.com
Fax: +44(0)20 8996-7001
Post: BSI Customer Services, 389 Chiswick High Road, London W4 4AL

If you are overseas, you may find it easier to contact your national
standards body, for example AFNOR in France or DIN in Germany. All of
these bodies have agreements to sell each other's publications.

Now here are the reference details:

BS 8723-1:2005  
*Title: Structured vocabularies for information retrieval. Guide.
Definitions, symbols and abbreviations 
*Publication date: 1 November 2005
*ISBN: 0 580 46798 8
*Pages: 10
*Price: 26 pounds sterling for BSI members; 52 pounds for non-members

BS 8723-2:2005  
*Title: Structured vocabularies for information retrieval. Guide.
Thesauri *Publication date: 1 November 2005
*ISBN: 0 580 46799 6
*Pages: 60
*Price: 64 pounds sterling for BSI members; 128 pounds for non-members 

*****************************************************
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
*****************************************************

Received on Wednesday, 14 December 2005 17:19:43 UTC