The Thesaurus: A Historical Viewpoint, with a Look to the Future

SUMMARY After a period of experiment and evolution in the 1950s and 1960s, a fairly standard format for thesauri was established with the publication of the influential Thesaurus of Engineering and Scientific Terms (TEST) in 1967. This and other early thesauri relied primarily on the presentation of terms in alphabetical order. The value of a classified presentation was subsequently realised, and in particular, the technique of facet analysis has profoundly influenced thesaurus evolution. Thesaurofacet and the Art & Architecture Thesaurus have acted as models for two distinct breeds of thesaurus using faceted displays of terms. As of the 1990s, the expansion of end-user access to vast networked resources is imposing further requirements on the style and structure of controlled vocabularies. The international standards for thesauri, first conceived in a print-based era, are badly in need of updating. Work is in hand in the UK and the USA to revise and develop standards in support of electronic thesauri.