ISO 25964-­1 is the new international standard for thesauri, replacing ISO 2788 and ISO 5964. The full title is Information and documentation -­ Thesauri and interoperability with other vocabularies -­ Part 1: Thesauri for information retrieval. As well as covering monolingual and multilingual thesauri, it addresses 21st century needs for data sharing, networking and interoperability.

Content includes:

• construction of mono-­ and multi-­lingual thesauri;
• clarification of the distinction between terms and concepts, and their
  
  inter-­relationships;
• guidance on facet analysis and layout;
• guidance on the use of thesauri in computerized and networked systems;
• best practice for the management and maintenance of thesaurus development;
• guidelines for thesaurus management software;
• a data model for monolingual and multilingual thesauri;
• brief recommendations for exchange formats and protocols.

An XML schema for data exchange has been derived from the data model, and is available free of charge at www.niso.org/schemas/iso25964/ .

Coming next

ISO 25964-­1 is the first of two publications. Part 2: Interoperability with other vocabularies is in the public review stage and will be available by the end of 2012.