Feature Article
Controlled Vocabularies: A Primer
eter Mark Roget published
P
the Thesaurus of English
Words and Phrases in 1852,
but not until 1957 was the
term “thesaurus” used in the
context of information
retrieval by Peter Luhn of IBM1. As the impact
of computers and the Internet on information
retrieval has increased, printed thesauri have
evolved to include other types of controlled
vocabularies.
This article is meant to be used as a start-
ing point toward further study of controlled
vocabularies.
Defining the Vocabulary
When you plan a controlled vocabulary, you
need to begin gathering information on the
client to determine the best solution for their
information retrieval needs. You need to ask a
lot of questions, which will generally fall into
four main categories.
1) What is the material being searched?
2) Who is doing the searching?
3) How will the controlled vocabulary be
implemented?
4) How will the controlled vocabulary be
maintained?
The first question concerns content. Is
the content mostly text, or will pictures or
even sound bites be involved? Is the content
already online or is it in print format? Con-
sider also the specificity and the stability of
the terms. How many fine distinctions will you
need to make among your terms?
Fast, Leise, and Steckel use the example of
camping gear. An outdoor company that has
100 types of tents is going to need more spe-
cific terms than a company that sells only 7-
102 styles. You could have terms for
“three-season tents,” “expedition tents,” and
“screen house tents.” You could have terms
for the number of people that will fit in a tent,
from “bivy-sack tents” to “family tents.”
Designs of tents include “A-frame,” “umbrella
hub,” and “hoop tents.” Tents can also be
120 . VOL. 13/NO. 4 OCTOBER – DECEMBER 2005
“steel-framed,” “aluminum-framed,” and
“fiberglass-framed.” And this list does not
include the tents used for commercial or mil-
itary purposes3. To think I used to sleep in a
plain old “pup tent” in the backyard when I
was a kid!
Stability refers to how often vocabularies
change. When I hiked as a youngster, we car-
ried plastic jugs of water with us. Now people
carry “hydration systems.” If you had a term
for “drinking water,” would you change that
term to “hydration systems,” or would you
make “hydration systems” a synonym for
“drinking water?” If you added “hydration
systems” to a hierarchy, where would it fit
and how would it affect other terms like
“water purification systems” or “giardiasis”?
The second question addresses the end
user or target audience. Sometimes this is
an easy one.
The end users for a company intranet are
the employees of that company. But how web-
savvy are the company employees? Are new
employees trained on the intricacies of the
intranet, or are they left to fend for them-
selves? What documents are company employ-
ees most likely to be searching? If your target
audience is the general public, answering
these questions can be quite daunting. Ask
the marketing department for information on
customer profiles. If a department routinely
handles queries from the public, interview
staff about what kinds of questions people
ask. Rosenfeld and Morville have some excel-
lent information on user research in the 2002
edition of Information Architecture4.
If the controlled vocabulary will be used in
an online environment, you will need to ask
how the vocabulary will be accessed. Who
will be responsible for “plugging” the con-
trolled vocabulary into the site? Is he or she a
willing participant in the process of creating a
controlled vocabulary? Cooperation from the
person responsible for the implementa-
tion of the controlled vocabulary is crucial
in an online environment.
by Julia Marshall
Julia Marshall has a Master’s Degree in Library
Science from Catholic University and has been
indexing since 1998. While working part-time at
the American Institutes for Research and
working with online indexes for the National
Center for Education Statistics, she became
interested in controlled vocabularies. A past
chair of the Washington DC chapter of ASI, she is
expanding her skills to include information
architecture as well as indexing. She would like
to thank Bonnie Jo Dopp, Sue Nedrow, and Pilar
Wyman for their help in editing this article..
Will the controlled vocabulary be used as a
browsing list with hyperlinks or will it be hid-
den within the search function? If it is in the
search function, will your client be using a
database program such as SQL Server or MS
Access? Or will they be using XML or CGI
scripts? Will they be using a third-party search
engine such as Inktomi or a custom-made
search function? All of these can significantly
affect how a controlled vocabulary works
within a site. Since this is such a complicated
area, I will be writing more about this in the
next installment of this series.
Finally, consider how the controlled vocab-
ulary will be used by the staff to maintain
and add records to the database. Will the staff
be trained information specialists who are
full-time employees, or interns who change
every three to six months? Trained employees
will be much more capable of working with
complex hierarchies and relationships.
Interns might be better off with a simpler syn-
onym ring. If the staff finds a new term that
they want to add to the controlled vocabulary,
what will be the procedure? Will anyone be
able to add terms, or only designated staff?
Milstead writes, “A thesaurus is never ‘fin-
ished,’ unless it is no longer being used for
indexing or its database is no longer being
updated. Plan for maintenance before you
even begin developing your thesaurus. A
KEY WORDS
thesaurus which is not well-maintained
quickly becomes a liability rather than an
asset.”5
Browsing versus
Searching
As I mentioned above, controlled vocabu-
laries can be used for browsing or searching.
A browsing list is great for users who want to
scan through the topics, in much the same
way that they would with a back-of-the-book
index. Hidden controlled vocabularies are
tucked away under the “hoods” of search
functions by various linking methods.6 A user
types in a term, the search function finds the
term in the controlled vocabulary, and then
displays documents linked to the term the
user typed in. The user never actually sees the
controlled vocabulary, just the results.
Jakob Nielsen states,
Slightly more than half of all users are search-
dominant, about a fifth of the users are link-dom-
inant, and the rest exhibit mixed behavior. The
search-dominant users will usually go straight
for the search button when they enter a website…
In contrast, the link-dominant users prefer to
follow the links around a site… Mixed-behavior
users switch between search and link-following,
depending on what seems most promising to
them.7
Keeping the above in mind, I would recom-
mend providing both a browsing list and
search capabilities. People have been trained
to expect a “search” box at a website, but 20
percent of clients is a significant number.
Even without a browsing list, I would add an
interactive component to the search function.
This would let users in on the logic behind
the search function, showing that documents
retrieved are not arbitrary, and it would allow
them to revise their query if necessary.8
Annie Dillard once wrote, “A work in
progress quickly becomes feral. It reverts to a
wild state overnight.”9
Controlled vocabularies can get even wilder
with all of the input you are trying to coordi-
nate. Documenting all the decisions you make
on a project as they come up keeps the
project, if not tame, then manageable. This
documentation will help maintain consistency
as the controlled vocabulary changes and
grows.10 Make an extra copy so that you can
leave it with the client once you have finished
the project.
KEY WORDS
Creating the Vocabulary
Remember question #1, about what materi-
als will be searched? That is a good starting
place for gathering terms. If the
documents/materials are already indexed, you
can begin with the index terms. If not, index a
sample yourself to come up with a “starter
list.” Jessica Milstead calls this the “bottom-
up” method.11
Alternatively, Milstead suggests you examine
existing dictionaries and thesauri to create
the vocabulary (the “top-down” method12). As
proven authorities on the subject at hand,
these works do some of the intellectual work
for you, but keep in mind that some of the
terms or structures will not suit your client’s
needs. Remember too, material from diction-
aries and thesauri might be under copyright
protection.
When gathering terms, keep your target
audience in mind. Milstead suggests you con-
vene a group of subject experts to serve as
advisors.13 If these people will be users of the
controlled vocabulary, so much the better.
Aitchison, Gilchrist, and Bawden suggest
scanning user queries from public service
logs.14 A website’s log files are useful places to
gather this information. If a log shows that
“hydration systems” is searched over and
over again, consider adding “hydration sys-
tems” to the vocabulary. You cannot accom-
modate every single search, but frequent
searches should be given careful considera-
tion.
Fast, Leise, and Steckel also advise checking
out the competition.15 What kind of catch
phrases are your client’s competitors using?
Journals or magazines where your client
advertises can give you an idea of current
buzzwords. E-mail discussion lists and blogs
are also possible sources of vocabulary terms.
By now you have a growing pile of terms.
Do you really need to include “three-season
tents” as a term, or would “tents” do just
fine? If you include “china” as a term, should
you include the qualifier of “ceramics” to dis-
ambiguate it from the country? If you include
“Early Girl” tomatoes as a term, will you then
include all varieties of tomatoes? Keep in
mind that the “disadvantage of a highly spe-
cific vocabulary is that the number of index-
ing terms is increased….and it is
consequently more expensive to compile,
maintain, and operate.”16 In one of her work-
shops, Bella Weinberg commented that as a
VOL. 13/NO. 4 OCTOBER – DECEMBER 2005 . 121
thesaurus becomes more complex it also
becomes less consistent.17
Leonard Will maintains that the job of the
thesaurus is to provide useful access points
by which material can be retrieved. A detailed
description of the material is what the cata-
log record is for.18 Back-of-the-book indexers
are familiar with this concept as the “do not
duplicate the book in the index” rule.
Now that you have a list of terms to work
with, you will need to clarify a few issues.
Homographs
“Homographs are words having the same
spelling but different meanings.”19
As noted above, “china” can refer to
ceramics, as well as to the country. “Firing” is
a process that can be used to mature ceram-
ics, a scorching of plants in poor soil, or a
process that propels ammunition. “Cranes”
can refer to birds as well as lifting equipment.
If you are working on a website devoted to
pottery and ceramics, “china” might well
need to have qualifiers to distinguish between
domestic objects made from vitreous porce-
lain and objects made out of clay that origi-
nated in China:
china (ceramics)
China (country)
The ANSI/NISO Z39.19-200x (2005 draft)
has an excellent section on homographs20 and
advises, the “use of qualifiers should be
avoided whenever possible because of prob-
lems that parentheticals can cause in filing
and in retrieval.”21
Take into consideration the context of the
vocabulary. If your client is an international
trade association, “China” will probably be
understood to mean the country. “Cranes”
will probably not need a qualifier if your
client is a construction-equipment dealer.
Compound Terms
Compound terms consist of more than
one word that represents a single concept.22
Also known as “bound terms” or “lexemes,”
compound terms need to be considered
carefully, particularly in an online retrieval
environment.
For example, a search on “topic map” in
Google brings up the Enchanted Learning
website (http://www.enchantedlearning.
com/Home.html), which includes “Short
printable books on many topics – from early
to fluent readers” as well as “Maps, flag, and
 Feature Article
information on many areas” in the Geography
section.23
A search environment depends a great deal
on post-coordination. In other words, the
user is responsible for putting together the
terms, such as “topic” and “map,” that will
retrieve useful documents.
A pre-coordinated controlled vocabulary is
much more suited to browsing. (A back-of-
the-book index, for example is a pre-coordi-
nated list of terms that the indexer has
created to access a book.)
According to the ANSI/NISO 2005 draft,
compound terms should have both a focus,
or a head noun, and a modifier, which nar-
rows the concept of the noun. In the term
“topic maps,” “maps” is the noun and
“topic” is the modifier.
Following are situations where the
ANSI/NISO 2005 draft encourages compound
terms:24
• Ambiguity of single terms is clarified by
having modifiers: “educational attain-
ment” and “price indexes.”
• The compound terms have non-distinct
elements: “first aid” and “cut glass.”
• The modifier is a metaphor from an
unrelated thing: “tree structures” and
“blood oranges.”
• The modifier has lost its original mean-
ing so that the meaning of the compound
term has become more than the sum of
its parts: “teddy bears” and “trade
winds.”
• The compound term is a proper name or
includes proper names: “Oedipus com-
plex” and “United Nations.”
• The compound term is in common usage
and understood to represent a single
concept: “gross domestic product” and
“high school.”
Synonyms
Start by grouping synonyms together. As
you think of other synonymous terms, add
those to the list. Following are types of syn-
onyms to be included:
• The obvious: “cars” and “automobiles”
or “pants” and “trousers.”
• Popular names and scientific names:
“tomatoes” and “Lycopersicon esculen-
122 . VOL. 13/NO. 4 OCTOBER – DECEMBER 2005
tum” or “aspirin” and “acetylsalicylic
acid.”
• Generic names versus trade names:
“photocopies” and “Xeroxes” or “tis-
sues” and “Kleenex.”
• Spelling variants: “theater” and “theatre,”
“e-mail and “email,” or “gypsies” and
“gipsies.”
• Dialect variants: “elevators” and “lifts” or
“soda,” “pop,” and “soft drink.”
• And of course, acronyms: “FBI” and
“Federal Bureau of Investigation” or
“ASI” and “American Society of Index-
ers.”
Near-synonyms, defined by the ANSI/NISO
2005 draft as “terms whose meanings are
generally regarded as different, but which are
treated as equivalents for the purposes of a
controlled vocabulary”25 should be consid-
ered as well. Near-synonyms (also called
“quasi-synonyms” by Aitchison et al.26) can
include:
• Terms with significant overlap: “urban
areas” and “cities” or “sea water” and
“salt water.”
• Terms on a continuum: “meteors,”
“meteorites,” and “meteoroids.”
• Antonyms that express opposite sides of
the same concept: “equality” and
“inequality” or “heat” and “cold” (tem-
perature being the concept).
Once you have divided your list into piles of
equivalent terms, you have created a syn-
onym ring or synonym equivalence list. Syn-
onym rings are a good choice if the client has
a decentralized, search-dominant site with lit-
tle centralized control over content.27 If you
take a term in one of the groupings of syn-
onyms and make that the “preferred term” to
which all the other terms will refer back, then
you have created an authority file.
For example, if you enter “Black Ameri-
cans,” “Negroes,” “Afro-Americans,” or “Col-
ored people,” you are told, “Use: African
Americans.”28
(“See” cross-references in back-of-the-
book indexes function in a similar way:
“Black Americans. See African Americans.”)
Defining Relationships
within the Vocabulary
If you add a hierarchical structure to
your vocabulary list, you will create a taxon-
omy. A hierarchical structure can add more
precision29 to an information retrieval system,
but it is also more complex to organize and
maintain.
Ask if your client is willing to make
the commitment to provide the upkeep neces-
sary for the controlled vocabulary to be
effective. Will there be staff available for
maintenance and additions to the database?
A hierarchical controlled vocabulary that is
not maintained on a routine basis will quickly
become obsolete.
Hierarchical relationships are based on
the concepts of “broader” and “narrower” in
a logically progressive sequence.30 The rela-
tionships are reciprocal, meaning that they
can go both ways. For example:
back-of-the-book indexes
BT indexes
indexes
NT back-of-the-book indexes
(“BT” is the conventional indication of a
“broader term” and “NT” indicates a “nar-
rower term.”)
The ANSI/NISO 2005 draft recognizes three
types of hierarchical relationships: generic,
instance, and whole-part. Generic and
instance relationships are often characterized
as “IsA” relationships. For example, an ele-
phant Is A mammal. Therefore:
elephant
BT mammal
mammal
NT elephant31
The elephant-mammal relationship is a
generic relationship. A good test for whether
a generic relationship is valid is the “all-and-
some” test. The relationship between ele-
phants and mammals passes this test because
“all elephants are mammals and some mam-
mals are elephants” is true.
The instance relationship identifies a link
between a general category of objects or
events and individual instances of those
objects or events. These instances are often
proper names or nouns.
KEY WORDS
 indexing software If you decide against a poly-hierarchy, you
NT Cindex will need to decide under which broader
NT Macrex term to post your narrower terms. For exam-
NT Sky Index ple, you will need to decide whether to post
“optic nerve” with “eyes” or with “nervous
The whole-part relationship is just what its system.” The narrower terms listed by facets
name suggests: The narrower term is inher- in the above examples would be listed alpha-
ently a part of the whole (broader term). betically instead of grouped under the facet.
index entries How do you decide what main categories
NT cross-references you will give your taxonomy? How do you
NT locators decide which narrower terms go where?
NT main headings Check the materials you examined when
NT subheadings you were compiling terms. Indexes, dictionar-
ies, and existing thesauri can also give you
You might discover that some terms can fit some ideas.
under two or more headings, in which case A simple, but effective idea for making
you will need to make a decision on whether structure choices is Card Sorting. Write some
to create a poly-hierarchy: of your terms onto index cards – one term
eyes per card. Ask a sampling of people to sort the
NT optic nerve cards into like piles. An Open Card Sort
nervous system allows the testers to create and name their
NT optic nerve own piles. A Closed Card Sort presents the
optic nerve testers with a pre-defined list of terms into
BT eyes which they sort the terms on the cards.35 This
BT nervous system is an effective way to not only generate feed-
back on the work you are doing, but to
Poly-hierarchical relationships create involve staff within your client company more
even more complexity within your vocabulary. directly in the process of creating the con-
The ANSI/NISO 2005 draft says: trolled vocabulary.
Some taxonomies allow poly-hierarchy, which Thus far, we have examined equivalence
means that a term can have multiple parents relationships (synonym rings) and hierarchi-
[broader terms], and although the term appears cal relationships (taxonomies). If you add a
in multiple places, it is the same term. If the par- third type of relationship, associative, you
ent term has children [narrower terms] in one
have built a thesaurus.
place in a taxonomy, then it has the same children
in every other place where it appears.32 Associative Terms
Another way to introduce multiple hierar- Associative (or related) terms are not
chies is with facets. Most taxonomies list nar- related by hierarchy or equivalence to
rower terms alphabetically, but some arrange another term, but are related semantically or
the list of narrower terms by grouping like conceptually:
items together:33
mammals
index entries NT elephants
NT <components of> RT circus animals
cross-references
locators (“RT” indicates “related term.”)
main headings Although not all elephants are circus ani-
subheadings mals and not all circus animals are elephants,
<formatting> elephants are strongly associated with circus
indented indexes animals.
run-in indexes Since they do not need to fit in a hierarchy,
associative terms can become overused. Bella
The words in angle brackets will never be Weinberg has advised that related terms be
used as indexing terms. They are simply indi- used judiciously as they can easily become
cators of the logic behind the grouping in the garbage pails for your vocabulary.36
taxonomy.34
My trusty guide, the ANSI/NISO 2005 draft,
gives a lengthy discussion on types of associa-
tive relationships.37 The following types of
associational relationships are included in the
ANSI/NISO 2005 draft.
Derivational relationships:
equines
NT donkeys
RT mules
NT horses
RT mules
NT mules
RT donkeys
RT horses
Because a mule is a hybrid offspring of a
donkey and a horse, the term “mules” is
related to both “horses” and “donkeys.”
However, “horses” and “donkeys” would not
be listed as related terms, but as “sibling”
narrower terms to the broader term of
“Equines.”
Relationships based on action:
environmental cleanup
RT pollution
Cause and effect relationships:
pathogens
RT infections
Concept/object relationships:
temperature
RT thermometers
Raw materials and products:
wheat
RT flour
Discipline/object or practitioner:
botany
RT botanist
RT plants
Associational relationships are the main
organizing principle for topic maps. An ISO
standard for topic maps provides for a con-
struct called “topic associations,” which cre-
ate relationships between two or more
topics:38 “Flour is made from wheat” or
“Bread is made from flour,” and “Don
Quixote was written by Cervantes” and
“Don Quixote takes place in Spain.”
Association types (“made from,” “written
by,” and “takes place in”) each have desig-

KEY WORDS VOL. 13/NO. 4 OCTOBER – DECEMBER 2005 . 123

 Feature Article
nated roles and can be applied to topics
within a database no matter the subject matter.
In the case of Don Quixote, the roles
might be “title” for Don Quixote, “author”
for Cervantes, and “place” for Spain.
According to Steve Pepper, the topic map
model generalizes the features of a printed
index, and extends those features in many
directions at once, thereby creating more
navigational possibilities.39
Next Steps
Once you have created your controlled
vocabulary, be it synonym ring, taxonomy, or
thesaurus, you will need to decide on a dis-
play format, browsing list, or other strategy for
implementing the controlled vocabulary into a
search function. And once you have installed
the controlled vocabulary, or printed copies,
what are the steps for evaluating the final
product? These topics I will cover in my next
installment for Key Words, “Controlled Vocab-
ularies: Implementation and Evaluation.”
Notes
1
Jean Aitchison and Stella Dextre Clarke. “The The-
saurus: A Historical Viewpoint, with a Look to the
Future,” The Thesaurus: Review, Renaissance,
and Revision. Edited by Sandra K. Roe and Alan R.
Thomas. (Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press, 2004).
2
Karl Fast, Fred Leise, and Mike Steckel, “Creating a
Controlled Vocabulary,” Boxes and Arrows, April 7,
2003. http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/
creating_a_controlled_vocabulary.php (Accessed
March 3, 2005.)
3
Eureka! The Tent Company. http://www.eureka
camping.com (Accessed July 21, 2005.)
4
Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville. Information
Architecture for the World Wide Web. (Sebastopol,
CA: O’Reilly, 2002).
5
Jessica Milstead, How Do I Build A Thesaurus?
http://www.asindexing.org/site/thesbuild.shtml
(Accessed June 21, 2005.)
6
Web databases, CGI Scripts, XML, and search algo-
rithms are ways to link terms to the documents
being searched.
7
Jakob Nielsen. Designing Web Usability. (Indianapo-
lis, IN: New Riders Publishing, 2000).
Rosenfeld and Morville, 2002. Check out Chapter 8 on
8
search systems.
9
Annie Dillard. The Writing Life. (New York: Harper &
Row, 1989).
10
Fast, Leise, and Steckel. “Creating a Controlled
Vocabulary,” 2003.
11
Milstead. How Do I Build A Thesaurus? (1996).
12
Ibid.
124 . VOL. 13/NO. 4 OCTOBER – DECEMBER 2005
13
Ibid. http://contextualanalysis.com/pub_usingfacets
14
Jean Aitchison, Alan Gilchrist, and David Bawden. .php (Accessed April 12, 2005.)
Thesaurus Construction and Use: A practical 34
Ibid.
manual. (London: Aslib, 1997). 35
IAWiki. “CardSorting.” http://iawiki.net/cardsorting
15
Fast, Leise, and Steckel. “Creating a Controlled (Accessed June 29, 2005.) Rosenfeld and Morville’s
Vocabulary,” 2003. Information Architecture (listed above) also gives
16
Aitchison, Gilchrist, and Bawden, 1997. a good introduction to card sorting.
17
Bella Haas Weinberg. “Thesaurus Design for Index-
36
Weinberg. “Thesaurus Design for Indexing, Metadata,
ing, Metadata, and Natural Language Searching” and Natural Language Searching” Workshop. 2000
Workshop, June 1, 2000, St. John’s University. 37
ANSI/NISO Z39.19-200x (2005 draft).
18
Leonard Will. “Thesaurus Principles and Practice,” 38
Steve Pepper. The Tao of Topic Maps, April 2002.
http://www.willpower.demon.co.uk/thesprin.htm http://www.ontopia.net/topicmaps/materials/
(Accessed July 8, 2005.) tao.html (Accessed July 19, 2005.) The ISO stan-
19
Hans Wellisch. Indexing from A to Z. (New York: H. dard is ISO/IED 13250:2003, listed on Wikipedia at
W. Wilson, 1996). Wellisch distinguishes homo- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic_map.
graphs from homonyms by saying that homonyms 39
Pepper, 2002.
might sound the same, but are spelled differently.
(e.g., “beau” versus “bow”). Since the spelling is
what would affect both searching and browsing, I
use the term “homographs.”
20
ANSI/NISO Z39.19-200x (2005 draft).
21
Ibid.
22
Ibid.
23
Google also retrieved many websites on the relevant ASI Materials
term “topic map.” This out-of-context example
makes my point about the difficulties compound ASI Brochures
terms can cause. To obtain copies of the ASI Brochures
24
ANSI/NISO Z39.19-200x (2005 draft). Aitchison, for your chapter or group meeting, index-
Gilchrist, and Bawden (1997) also discuss the for- ing courses, or your clients, contact
mation of compound terms.
25
Ibid.
info@asindexing.org.
26
Aitchison, Gilchrist, and Bawden, 1997. Sample ASI publications
27
Karl Fast, Fred Leise, and Mike Steckel. “Synonym A rotating collection of sample ASI pub-
Rings and Authority Files,” Boxes and Arrows,
August 26, 2003. http://www.boxesandarrows lications (ITI books and issues of Key
.com//archives/synonym_rings_and_authority Words) is available for display at chapter
_files.php (Accessed March 3, 2005.) meetings, trade show exhibits, etc. If you
28
Library of Congress Subject Authorities List. are interested in using the collection,
http://authorities.loc.gov/ please contact info@asindexing.org.
29
Precision and recall are two basic concepts in infor-
mation retrieval. Both concepts are represented as
ratios. Precision is expressed as a ratio percentage
between the number of relevant documents
retrieved and the total number of documents
retrieved. The ratio percentage for recall is calcu-
lated by dividing the number of retrieved relevant
documents by the number of all relevant documents
within the collection. Precision and recall are
inverse ratios. When one goes up, the other goes
down.
30
”Broader” and “narrower” terms can also be
referred to as “parent” and “child” terms.
In upcoming issues of
31
I use the singular form of the nouns here to express
the “IsA” relationship. The plural form is a more
accepted practice in both controlled vocabularies Key Words
and indexing. • Communications on the “Fly”
32
ANSI/NISO Z39.19-200x (2005 draft). • Indexing Chinese Names
33
Fred Leise’s article “Using Faceted Classification to
• Indexing Japanese Names
Assist Indexing” is a good introduction to the sub-
ject of facets.
KEY WORDS