Powerhouse Museum Object Names Thesaurus

"The thesaurus has been developed specifically for our collection. The Powerhouse collection covers a wide variety of subject areas and many different types of objects are included. There are approximately 8,600 terms. But we do not claim to have a comprehensive list of all objects and we are actively seeking contributions to broaden the appeal of the thesaurus. We have recently added a number of new terms at the request of the National Museum of Australia, and we continue to work with them in developing the thesaurus. We are hopeful that with contributions from other institutions we can create an Australian standard for object name terminology. This object name thesaurus provides a standard terminology for naming objects. It does not claim to provide the correct name for an object. It merely provides a name for use in museum cataloguing systems to enable accurate retrieval of information about objects. The hierarchical structure of the thesaurus assists in searching. By organising object names, the relationships between objects can be made explicit. Object names are organised according to their hierarchical, associative or equivalence relationships. The object name thesaurus allows for more than one broader term for each object name. Any term is permitted to have multiple broader terms, for example 'Bubble pipes' has the broader terms of 'Pipes' and 'Toys'. There is no single hierarchy in which an object name is located, enabling it to by found by searchers approaching with different concepts in mind. All terms within the thesaurus are plural. This standard was determined when the thesaurus was first published. The thesaurus attempts to place object names within an Australian context; we therefore commonly use the Macquarie Dictionary as a general guideline when deciding on the preferred or non-preferred spelling for a term. The purpose of the Powerhouse Museum Object Name Thesaurus is to provide object name terms within an Australian context, for indexing museum collections. It also provides a controlled vocabulary that facilitates easier searching of collection databases for specific object types. A secondary purpose of a thesaurus can be to aid in the general understanding of a subject area. A thesaurus can provide a 'semantic map' by showing the inter-relationship between objects and help to provide definitions of terms. This is particularly true for the Powerhouse Museum Object Name Thesaurus which can provide a greater understanding of an object and the relationships between different types of objects."