The UB Thesaurus (THUB), written in Catalan, contains terms, relationships between terms, scope notes, sources of citation of terms and equivalences of descriptors (preferred terms) in Spanish, English and French.
All of this information is organized in the subject authority record, which includes the complete authority record in MARC21 format.
Elements of a subject authority record
A minimum subject authority record contains:
- A numeric identifier
- A preferred term or descriptor representing a single concept
- One or more classification codes within the categories of the microthesaurus
- One or more sources
Records may also contain:
- Hierarchical relantionships
- Equivalence and associatve relations (the Spanish and English versions do not contain equivalence relations)
- Scope notes, other notes (Spanish and English versions contain scope notes in Catalan)
- Sources for the establishment of the main term
- Equivalents in Spanish, English and French of the descriptor in Catalan
The THUB is poly-hierarchical, which means that a term can have more than one generic term. When establishing the hierarchical relationships between the descriptors, a single level of specificity is maintained. Each descriptor relates to the immediate generic and specific terms.
Most descriptors maintain at least one link in the hierarchy of the semantic field to which the term belongs.
Example of complete record in Catalan: Educadors
Type of terms
There are two types of terms: descriptors and non-descriptors.
Descriptors or preferred terms are the terms that are systematically used to represent a concept in indexing and to perform searches. In the record display, the descriptor is highlighted in bold with a larger font size at the beginning of the record.
Examples in Catalan:
subject descriptor Educadors
geographical name descriptor Maresme (Catalunya)
genre/form descriptor Diapositives
Non-descriptor or non-preferred terms are terms that designate concepts very close to those represented by the descriptors. They can be synonymous or almost synonymous terms that are used as an access point in the thesaurus and that guide us from free language to the term chosen or normalized.
When viewing the record in Catalan, they are introduced by the phrase “Termes no preferents” (non-preferred terms are not available in the Spanish, French or English versions).
Types of relationships, notes and other information
The types of relationships we can find are:
Equivalence relations, which inform us if a term is not accepted, which could be the valid alternative variant forms to find the documents that interest us. Equivalence relations are not available in the Spanish, French or English versions.
Example in Catalan: Botànica (equivalence relations are found under the phrase “Termes no preferents”)
Hierarchical relationships that include generic terms and specific terms in relation to the chosen term. Examples:
Solar energy
Broader concepts Renewable energy sources
Solar radiation
Narrower concepts Photovoltaic power generation
Solar cells
Solar collectors
(...)
Associative relationships that include terms related to the chosen term. Example:
Educadors
Related concepts Pedagogues
Teachers
Linguistic equivalence relations that designate the same concept in different languages. The development of equivalences of the THUB's preferred terms in Spanish, English and French make it possible to access the contents by subject of the University's collections in other languages, in other catalogs, in other databases, etc. Examples:
Catalan subject term Educadors
Spanish Educadores
English Educators
French Éducateurs
Catalan genre/form term Diapositives
Spanish Diapositivas
English Slides (Photographs)
French Diapositives
Catalan geographical name Aquisgrà (Alemanya)
Spanish Aquisgrán (Alemania)
English Aachen (Germany)
French Aix-la-Chapelle (Allemagne)
Type of notes
We can find scope or explanatory notes and source citations only in Catalan.
Scope notes briefly indicate the use of the descriptor when its meaning is ambiguous. Scope Notes are not available in Spanish, French, or English versions. Example:
Accepted subject Educators
Scope note Inclou les obres sobre les persones que són especialistes en el camp de l'educació o que són autoritats en problemes de l'educació, teories, i mètodes.
The source citation notes inform about the sources (dictionaries, encyclopedias, vocabularies, terminology centers, thesaurus, heading lists, classifications, etc.) that have been consulted to verify the forms included in the thesaurus. The sources in Spanish, English and French of the term preferential in Catalan are included, as a starting point for writing equivalences of the descriptors in these languages. Examples:
Accepted subject Educadors
Source notes TERMCAT, consulta feta el 4 d'abril, 2018 (educador)
Autoridades CSIC, consulta feta el 4 d'abril, 2018 (punt d'accés: Educadores)
LCSH, consulta feta el 4 d'abril, 2018 (punt d'accés: Educators)
RAMEAU, consulta feta el 4 d'abril, 2018 (punt d'accés: Éducateurs)
Accepted geographical name Pirineus
Source notes LEMAC, consulta feta el 4 d'abril, 2018 (punt d'accés: Pirineus)
Autoridades BNE, consulta feta el 4 d'abril, 2018 (punt d'accés: Pirineos)
LCSH, consulta feta el 4 d'abril, 2018 (punt d'accés: Pyrenees)
RAMEAU, consulta feta el 4 d'abril, 2018 (punt d'accés: Pyrénées)
Classification code within the microthesaurus.
The classification code allows each term to be grouped within the microthesaurus that they belong to. They are found when opening the MARC21 Format tab drop-down menu. Example:
Accepted subject Educators
Classification TH 37
Chronological identifiers
Although chronological identifiers are not part of the THUB (they are not structured with equivalence, hierarchical or associative relationships, except for centuries without time intervals), they are used in indexing to indicate specific dates or more or less broad periods of time, and they follow systematic rules for their construction. They can be searched in Cercabib (UB CRAI's discovery tool), within the subject index.
Chronological identifiers are expressed in Roman numerals (for centuries and century period intervals) and in Arabic numerals (specific years and year period intervals).