Language of Bindings Thesaurus

"The Language of Bindings Thesaurus (LoB) includes terms which can be used to describe historical binding structures. The thesaurus can be used as a lookup resource through this website and also as a software service where the terms can be retrieved directly through your own application. LoB is a young project and community contribution will ensure that it will be improved. (...) The thesaurus is structured based on the Simple Knowledge Organisation System (SKOS). Some of the main principle of that system are: We define concepts (not words) to avoid common problems such as when different communities use different words for the same idea. Each concept can have a number of labels (language words) which refer to the concept, with one of them being a recommended label (preferred label) and the rest being the alternative labels. Concepts are organised from the more general ones, the broader concepts, to the more specific ones, the narrower (broader / narrower relationship). A narrower term should always describe a concept which is included in the parent concept. For example, adzes is a narrower concept of tools and equipment because all adzes are tools. (...) LoB concepts are described in the so-called scope notes, which aim to give both a brief definition of each concept as well as a broader indication of what the concept is about, together with some historical information where this is known and relevant. (...) Where possible we have matched our concepts with concepts from the Getty AAT. Our intention is to submit LoB concepts to the AAT where corresponding terms do not exist. (...) The thesaurus is meant to be used as part of a documentation system. We recognise the value of the CIDOC-CRM in the documentation of cultural heritage. For this reason we have chosen our top concepts to match CIDOC-CRM entities so that their narrower concept hierarchies can be used as E55 Type for these entities in a documentation system. However, using a CRM compatible documentation system is not required."