Project ISO 25964
Thesauri and Interoperability with other Vocabularies
Scope
This project will revise and extend two existing international standards:
- ISO 2788 Guidelines for the establishment and development of monolingual thesauri
- ISO 5964 Guidelines for the establishment and development of multilingual thesauri
These two intimately linked standards will be updated to reflect the needs of the 21st century, bearing in mind the demand for interoperability in a networked society. All of their existing scope will be retained and refreshed, and the following additional subjects will be added:
- Guidance on electronic functions and displays
- Functional specification for software to manage thesauri
- Interoperability (mapping) between thesauri and other types of vocabulary
- Date modeling and formats for exchange of thesaurus data
Work
The work will be based on BS 8723 Structured vocabularies for Information Retrieval, a standard in five parts as follows:
- Part 1: Definitions, symbols and abbreviations;
- Part 2: Thesauri;
- Part 3: Vocabularies other than thesauri;
- Part 4: Interoperability between vocabularies;
- Part 5: Exchange formats and protocols for interoperability
ISO 25964 will draw on BS 8723, but reorganize the content to fit into two-parts.
Part 1 will cover all aspects of thesauri, monolingual and multilingual, including a data model and formats/protocols for data exchange.
Part 2 will cover interoperability between thesauri and other vocabularies such as classification schemes, taxonomies and ontologies. It will provide guidance on mapping practice and architecture.
Working Group
A Working Group has been established, with members from 12 countries: Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, UK, Ukraine, USA. The project is led by Stella Dextre Clarke of the UK.
