The Argentine Standard for Thesaurus Construction IRAM 32057: A Need for Updating. 1. The Controlled Vocabulary

Abstract

The Argentine standard for the construction of monolingual thesaurus (IRAM 32057:1983) was compared with the last editions of the international standard (ISO 2788:1986), and the national standards of Spain (UNE 50106:1990), United States (Z39.19:2005), and Great Britain (BSI 8723-2:2005b), and very well known manuals. The scope and formal issues were analyzed, as well as the conceptual issues for controlled vocabulary. The scope of the Argentine standard is limited to the construction of monolingual thesauri, while the new North-American and British standards also cover different knowledge organization systems. In relation to the formal issues, the Argentine standard has not table of content, analytical index, glossary, bibliography and some sections and annexes, having very few examples. In reference to conceptual issues, some definitions are incorrect or outdated, as well as some recommendations for vocabulary control. We conclude that the Argentine standards should be reviewed and updated in agreement to the recently published standards, and the ISO 25964 standard, still in preparation.