NISO Invites Comments on New Standard for Vocabulary Control

Goal of NISO Z39.19: A Better Path to Content Management

BETHESDA, MD - April 18, 2005 - The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has released the final draft of a controlled vocabularies standard for balloting and comment. Interested parties may comment through May 25, 2005 on NISO Z39.19 Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of Monolingual Controlled Vocabularies, available free at http://www.niso.org/standards/balloting.html.
Vocabulary control is used to improve the effectiveness of information storage and retrieval systems, web navigation systems, and other environments that aim to identify and locate content via some sort of description using language. Z39.19 shows how to formulate descriptors, establish relationships among terms, and present the information in print and on a screen.

"Controlled vocabularies--lists, synonym rings, and taxonomies--are essential to manage large volumes of information," explained Pat Harris, Executive Director of NISO. "With our growing dependence on information databases in business and commerce, government, and education, there are thousands of controlled vocabularies in use."

The draft just released is a revision of NISO's thesaurus standard (ANSI/NISO Z39.19) currently the primary source for guidance on the construction of controlled vocabularies. When Z39.19 was first conceived, thesaurus terms were generally applied when indexing collections of printed documents such as articles and reports. The concept of "document" has since expanded to include patents, chemical structures, maps, music videos, and much more. This revision of the Z39.19 standard reflects the more inclusive notion of document. Features include:

  • User-friendly language and straightforward explanations of important concepts and principles.
  • Current uses of information technology, the various ways that people search or browse, and the many types of content they find.
  • Responses to needs presented by a variety of information producing organizations and different types of content; examples throughout the document are relevant to business and industry.

About NISO

NISO, a non-profit association accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), identifies, develops, maintains, and publishes technical standards to manage information in our changing and ever-more digital environment. NISO standards apply both traditional and new technologies to the full range of information-related needs, including retrieval, re-purposing, storage, metadata, and preservation. NISO Standards, information about NISO's activities and membership are featured on the NISO website http://www.niso.org.

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