9.3. Technical LingoIf you're working with controlled vocabularies and thesauri, it's useful to know the core terminology used by experts in the field to communicate definitions and relationships. This specialized technical language can provide efficiency and specificity when communicating among experts. Just don't expect your users to recognize these terms. In the web environment, you can't require that users take a library science class before they use your information system.
As we've seen, the preferred term is the center of its own semantic universe. Of course, a preferred term in one display is likely to be a broader, narrower, related, or even variant term in another display (see Figure 9-13). Figure 9-13. Semantic relationships in a wine thesaurusDepending upon your experience with the classification of wines, you may already be questioning the selection of preferred terms and semantic relationships in this example. Should sparkling wine really be the preferred term? If so, why? Because it's a more popular term? Because it's the technically correct term? And aren't there better related terms than weddings and mimosas? Why were those chosen? The truth is that there aren't any "right" answers to these questions, and there's no "right" way to design a thesaurus. There will always be a strong element of professional judgment informed by research. We'll come back to these questions and provide some guidelines for constructing "good" answers, but first let's check out a real thesaurus on the Web. |