Expanded Thesaurus

"The goal behind this project is the development of an extensive Arabic thesaurus that would encompass all fields of knowledge – something that most libraries and information centers in the Arab world lack – to serve as the basic instrument of subjective analysis of information retrieval devices, and to keep abreast with developments taking place in information technology. In mid 1993, an agreement for developing an extensive trilingual (Arabic – English – French) Arab thesaurus was concluded between AHS Foundation, the Dubai Municipality, and Jum’ah Al-Majid Center for Culture and Heritage in Dubai, UAE. By mid 1995, the first paperback edition of the thesaurus was issued, containing some 48,000 terms. The electronic version was issued in mid 2001 on CD, and it contained some 50,000 terms. This version is marked by a set of technical specifications that were specifically added to suit the purposes of this issue of the thesaurus as well as to make search and retrieval easier for persons doing the indexing and cataloging. "

"المكنز هو عبارة عن قائمة إستنادية بالواصفات أو مصطلحات التكشيف في نظام المعلومات فهو الأداة التي يعتمد عليها المكشف في الحصول على المصطلحات أو الواصفات المناسبة لوصف محتوى الوثائق وهو أيضاً الأداة التي يعتمد عليها الباحث أو المستفيد من النظام في الاسترجاع فالمكنز إذاً هو حلقة الوصل بين المكشف والباحث وهو الذي يوفر أقصى درجة كفاءة في التخزين والاسترجاع."