I do not know whether anybody has already drawn Elizabeth Dow's attention=
to the Australian functional thesaurus project? But just in case that
nobody has, or that Elizabeth herself does not already know about it, I
think that it comes closest to what she is looking for in terms of an
example. The problem with functional thesauruses, particularly where the=
y
pertain to functions of governments, is that terminology for functions
developed for one government would not necessarily fit those of another
government. It depends how a government is organized, whether one is
dealing with a monarchy, a dictatorship, a monarchical democracy, a
republican type of government, etc. Also, which level of government. Fo=
r
example, national, state/province/territory, municipal, etc. Other
differences may be in the terms themselves used for various functions. Th=
e
Australian one is called _ AA Thesaurus_ or the _AA Index_. (Sorry, the
site seems to be down right now and I cannot get at it to give you a
precise reference.) It is available from the National Archives of
Australia. There is a report on the Australian functional thesaurus
available on the internet site at the URL:
http://www.aa.gov.au/AAIndexpage.html (Also down right now. It may be a=
t
this address or near it. You have to do the surfing.)
Hope this helps,
Hugo Stibbe
National Archives of Canada
Archives Development and Preservation Branch
Office of the Director General
Special Projects
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada
Telephone: +613 996-7592 (work)
+613 746-0008 (home)
Fax: +613 995-2267 (work)
E-mail: [log in to unmask] (home)
OR
[log in to unmask] (work) =
=
> The functions hierarchy in the AAT was built on a list developed for th=
e
> NEH-funded Government Records Project which got many state archives int=
o
> the MARC business. It is the most complete, archivally-developed list=
> that I know of. Though, like all thesuari, certainly not
> comprehensive.
> =
> Michael Fox
> Head of Processing
> Minnesota Historical Society
> 345 Kellogg Blvd West
> St. Paul MN 55102-1906
> phone: 651-296-1014
> fax: 651-296-9961
> [log in to unmask]
> **NOTE NEW AREA CODE EFFECTIVE JULY 12, 1998**
> =
> ----------
> From: Elizabeth H. Dow[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Monday, December 28, 1998 1:21 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list EAD
> Subject: Government functions thesaurus?
>
> EADers
>
> Determined to develop no thesaurus of our own, my indexer and
> I
> have searched for a thesaurus of government functions. We found LCs
> thesaurus of Legislative Indexing Terms, and find it better than LCSH,
> but
> still wanting. I notice some people using the AAT for <function> terms
> (analogous to MARC 657). Can anyone suggest others out there?
>
>
> Elizabeth H. Dow, Ph.D. [log in to unmask]
> Special Collections -- Bailey/Howe Library
> University of Vermont "Dare to be stupid."
>
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