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This announcement might be of interest to some here.<br>
<br>
Joel Kovarsky<br>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">Subject:
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<td>["EXLIBRIS-L"] Ligatus Language of Binding On-line
Thesaurus</td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">Date: </th>
<td>Mon, 10 Aug 2015 15:22:13 +0100</td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">From: </th>
<td>Nicholas Pickwoad <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:npickwoad@paston.co.uk"><npickwoad@paston.co.uk></a></td>
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<td><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:exlibris-l@list.indiana.edu">exlibris-l@list.indiana.edu</a></td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">To: </th>
<td><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:EXLIBRIS-L@LIST.INDIANA.EDU">EXLIBRIS-L@LIST.INDIANA.EDU</a></td>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family:
'TimesNewRomanPSMT'">Ligatus is proud to announce the
launch of the Language of Binding online thesaurus of
bookbinding terms, which was celebrated with a one-day
event in the Chelsea College of Arts
(University of the Arts London) in collaboration with
CERL on 23 June, 2015.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family:
'TimesNewRomanPSMT'">The aim of the thesaurus is to
present a consistent vocabulary for the use of all those
who work with
early bindings, built wherever possible on existing
resources, but adapted for use in an on-line
hierarchical environment that will allow terms that are
not known to a user to be found. It is
constructed around </span><span style="font-size:
12.000000pt; font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPS'; font-style:
italic">concepts </span><span style="font-size:
12.000000pt; font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'">(such as
different bookbinding components, features, materials or
techniques) that can be expressed by a number of
language terms (</span><span style="font-size:
12.000000pt; font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPS'; font-style:
italic">labels</span><span style="font-size:
12.000000pt; font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'">). The
thesaurus allows one
concept to have more than one label, which allows the
same concept to be searched for by the
different terms that may have been used historically to
describe it. It will also allow the concepts to
be expressed in different languages.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family:
'TimesNewRomanPSMT'">The Language of Binding thesaurus
can be used as a reference online resource that can be
searched
by keyword or alphabetically. The concepts contained in
the thesaurus are, however, also arranged
hierarchically, based on a class/sub-class relationship,
which allows concepts to be retrieved by
navigating down the hierarchies even if their label (the
term) is not known.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family:
'TimesNewRomanPSMT'">It is hoped that the thesaurus will
enable all those who work with books in early bindings
to arrive
at more consistent descriptions of those bindings. By
being based primarily on single concepts, it
has tried to avoid the more familiar but sometimes
frustratingly imprecise language that has often
been used in the past. This means that some of these
familiar terms will not be found as labels,
though they may be referred to in the scope notes that
define and describe the concepts (and can
therefore be found by a simple keyword search).
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family:
'TimesNewRomanPSMT'">At the moment, the thesaurus
contains labels primarily in English, but work on its
translation has
already started, and plans for the addition of
illustrations are also underway. The thesaurus can, in
addition, be used as a look-up service for software
applications that need to populate schema fields
from thesauri.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family:
'TimesNewRomanPSMT'">An accompanying volume, </span><span
style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family:
'TimesNewRomanPS'; font-style: italic">Coming to Terms:
guidelines for the description of historical bindings</span><span
style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family:
'TimesNewRomanPSMT'">,
which is based on the terms in the thesaurus, is to be
published in the autumn.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family:
'TimesNewRomanPSMT'">The success of the thesaurus will
to a large extent depend on contributions made to it by
its users,
either to add more concepts, refine existing scope notes
or correct mistakes. Such contributions to
the thesaurus will be welcomed, and can be made online
following a registration process.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family:
TimesNewRomanPSMT;">The thesaurus can be accessed at: </span><span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;
color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.ligatus.org.uk/lob">http://www.ligatus.org.uk/lob</a> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size:
16px;">Ligatus is a research centre of the University of
the Arts London with projects in libraries and archives
and with a particular interest in historic bookbinding.
The Language of Binding thesaurus is the result of our
long experience with historic bookbindings, but has been
greatly assisted by contributions from an international
group of bookbinding experts and book conservators. This
work was made possible by a Networking Grant from the
Arts and Humanities Research Council in the UK.</span></p>
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