ECLAS Thesaurus : permuted list of descriptors. Part II.

PRESENTATION OF THE THIRD EDITION BACKGROUND The ECLAS thesaurus dates from 1978, when the catalogues of the Central Library of the Commission of the European Communities were computerised. [...] It is intended for the indexing of the publications and documents acquired by the Library, which can be classified in three major groups: a) material on European integration and, in particular, the political objectives and activities of Community and Union Institutions, b) material on the Member States of the EU and, in particular, their institutional, legal and socio-economic structures, c) techn [...] In the absence of an existing thesaurus satisfying the requirements for such holdings, the ECLAS thesaurus was based on the Macrothesaurus of the OECD (the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development ) to which additional terms specific to the needs of the Library were added. [...] For example, locate in the alphabetical list the word which seems at first glance to describe the required subject matter; through its numerical code, locate it in the subject volume, then consider its relevance in the context of the related terms in the list, go into the permuted listing and consider words with the same root. [...] Changes in the denomination of the Communities and their Institutions following the ratification of the Treaty on European Union have created some doubt and confusion as to the best terms to use.