Book Description

The ASIS Thesaurus covers the fields of information science and librarianship. Related and peripheral fields, such as computer science linguistics, and behavioral and cognitive sciences, are examined as warranted by the strength of their relationship to information science and librarianship. More limited coverage of other peripheral fields, such as education and economics, is also provided. The thesaurus is intended primarily as a resource to aid in indexing and searching within the fields of information science and librarianship. It has also been designed for students and researchers to serve as a guide to the terminology of the field. The scope of the thesaurus is limited mainly to topical subjects. Proper names of organizations, programs, etc., are excluded, and only the names of a few tools which are key to indexing and cataloguing practices are included. The thesaurus includes 1,316 preferred terms (descriptors), 691 nonpreferred terms (user references), and 37 facet indicators. Scope notes provide information about the use of terms in the thesaurus, as well as definitions of ambiguous terms. The thesaurus can be used in three different ways: an alphabetical listing provides the full record for each descriptor, including its BT, NT, RT, and UF references; a hierarchical listing shows each descriptor in its place(s) in thehierarchy of terms based on BT/NT relationships; and a rotated (KWIC) listing shows each descriptor in alphabetical order by every word appearing in the term.