'Hyper-Thesaurus' of Subject Headings/Descriptors

[Gerry McKiernan]

   In response to my recent posting regarding  Participatory
Development of a WWW database of agricultural Web/Net resources,
Bill Drew wrote:

Most resources, especially in agriculture, need more that one
subject class to adequately describe them.  I am not a cataloger so I
don't really know what a possible solution might be.  Maybe a controlled
vocabulary with allowing as many subject headings be assigned as
necessary.  Also make such heading truly hierarchical so that a resource
about dairy farming is also included under the subject heading of
agriculture.  That is not the present case with LC.

   I fully recognize the limitations of _all_classification schemes
in providing 'absolute' access to the subject content of any 'publication',
electronic or otherwise. Within the paper that I have hypertexted
'behind' the CyberStacks(sm) collection, specifically in the 'Planned
Enhancement' section, I note this and note the fact that there is
a clear need to provide enhanced subject access to those resources
within the CyberStacks(sm) collection through the use of assigned
LC Subject Headings (or AGRICOLA/CAB descriptors). I also note the
importance of creating a hypertexted thesaurus, a 'hyper-thesaurus'
of these assigned headings that would be linked to respective
resources within the CyberStacks(sm) collection. I hope to begin a
preliminary investigation of this issue no later than December/January.

  For more details, interested folk may wish to visit my Position
Paper prepared for the OCLC Internet cataloging Project Colloquium.

The URL for the appropriate part of the paper is:

      http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/OCLC-A.htm

Gerry McKiernan
Curator, CyberStacks(sm) and Native Bronxite
Iowa State University
Ames IA 50011

gerrymck at iastate.edu
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/

P.S. If Web folk know of existing efforts to create the
'hyper-thesaurus' I allude to and describe, I'd much appreciate
the name, URL or e-mail. Thanks!