United States Department of Agriculture Thesaurus

"The thesaurus is organized into 17 subject categories, indicated by the 'Subject Category' designation. The subject categories are used to browse the Thesaurus in a specific discipline or subject area. The subject scope of agriculture is broadly defined in the thesaurus, and includes terminology in the supporting biological, physical and social sciences. Biological nomenclature comprises a majority of the terms in the thesaurus and is located in the 'Taxonomic Classification of Organisms' Subject Category. Political geography is mainly described at the country level. The NAL Agricultural Thesaurus includes hierarchical, equivalence and associative relationships among concepts. English Total Terms - 128,253 Lead-in Terms - 60,959 Preferred Terms - 67,294 Subject Categories - 17 Scope Notes - 759 Definitions - 5,223 Spanish Total Terms - 105,432 Lead-in Terms - 38,138 Preferred Terms - 67,294 Subject Categories - 17 Scope Notes - 759 Definitions - 5,223. The thesaurus is primarily used for indexing and for improving retrieval of agricultural information. Currently, the thesaurus is the indexing vocabulary for the National Agricultural Library's bibliographic database of citations to agricultural resources, AGRICOLA. The Food Safety Research Information Office (FSRIO) and Agricultural Network Information Center (AgNIC) also use the NALT as the indexing vocabulary for their information systems. In addition, the NALT is used as an aid for locating information at the Agricultural Research Service, Economic Research Service and AgNIC web sites and databases."