About the LA Comprehensive Bibliographic Database Thesaurus

Introduction

The Los Angeles Comprehensive Bibliographic Database Thesaurus is a three-part work that was developed as a companion resource for the Los Angeles Comprehensive Bibliographic Database (LACBD).  The LACBD was derived from two print sources, Los Angeles and its Environs in the Twentieth Century: A Bibliography of a Metropolis, (1973) edited by Doyce B. Nunis Jr. and its sequel, Los Angeles and its Environs in the Twentieth Century: A Bibliography of a Metropolis 1970-1990 with a directory of resources in Los Angeles County, (1996) edited by Hynda L. Rudd. 

The LACBD Thesaurus was compiled from the subject indexes that accompany the two bibliographies to provide a controlled vocabulary that spans one hundred years of Los Angeles subject matter.  This specificity means that some terms and names one might expect in a thesaurus about Los Angeles will not be present.  Likewise, general subject hierarchies that may have been constructed to place orphan terms were not developed, although the current structure allows for future development.

Part one of the LACBD thesaurus is a common subject thesaurus.  Index subject headings from the bibliographies were compiled into a hierarchical thesaurus.  Some terms were created or added from other vocabularies to collocate legacy index terms.

Part two is the LACBD Geographic Names Thesaurus.  Buildings, streets, institutions and neighborhoods are among the many kinds of geographic names included.  Only places that are named in the source bibliographies have been included in the thesaurus, although contemporary names may have been added to provide access for today’s users.  Facet nodes based upon the LACBD Subject thesaurus group the geographic names into helpful categories.

Part three is the LACBD Personal Names Authority List.  Peoples’ names that are indexed in the bibliographies are included in this list.  As with the geographic names, facet nodes based upon the LACBD Subject thesaurus group the personal names into categories.  There are some persons who elude categorization, and they are grouped under an “unclassified names” heading.

Please see the “Conventions used” pages for information on abbreviations used in each part of the thesaurus. 

The thesaurus was constructed using the Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of Monolingual Thesauri (Bethesda, MD:  National Information Standards Organization, ANSI/NISO Z39.19-1993, 30 August 1993).   The Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd edition, Chapter 22 was used as the standard for establishing personal names.  The MultiTes Thesaurus Construction software, version 7.2 was used to compile the thesaurus, as well as to create the HTML displays and print versions.

This thesaurus was originally developed by Linda Rudell-Betts under contract for the University of Southern California.

Vocabulary Resources

Art & Architecture Thesaurus.  J. Paul Getty Trust. 

Biography Resource Center.  Gale Group. 

Electronic Neighborhood California Index.  Los Angeles Public Library. 

Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) Feature Class Definitions.  National Mapping Information, U.S. Geological Survey.  18 April 2001. 

Library of Congress Online Catalog, Subject Browse.  Library of Congress. 

Los Angeles Almanac.  Given Place Publishing Co. 

Medical Subject Headings, MeSH.  National Library of Medicine. 

1995 Los Angeles County street guide & directory.  Irvine, Calif.:  Thomas Bros. Maps, 1994.

Nunis, Doyce B., Jr., editor.  Los Angeles and its Environs in the Twentieth Century: A Bibliography of a Metropolis.  Los Angeles:  Ward Ritchie Press, 1973.

Rudd, Hynda L., editor.  Los Angeles and its Environs in the Twentieth Century: A Bibliography of a Metropolis 1970-1990 with a directory of resources in Los Angeles County.  Los Angeles:  Los Angeles City Historical Society, 1996. 

SearchERIC.  ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation. 

UNESCO Thesaurus : a structured list of descriptors for indexing and retrieving literature in the fields of education, science, social and human science, culture, communication and information.  Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 1995.

Union List of Artist Names.  J. Paul Getty Trust.
 

Send your comments to: LACBD Editorial Director