The Australian Pictorial Thesaurus (APT) was a collection of topic terms for indexing Australian images. We just received word that the APT will no longer be available effective August 31, 2015.
The APT used contemporary Australian terminology to describe objects, people, places and structures, activities and concepts depicted in an image. It ensures the common description of pictorial collections across Australian libraries, museums and archives. The collection was available free to users.
No information can be found as to why this is happening. They do direct users to other indexing tools such as the Library of Congress Subject Headings and the [Getty] Art and Architecture Thesaurus.
The loss of this digital archiving project will make it difficult to find data. It is important to remember the value of a solid taxonomy when looking for data. How the content is classified impacts the findability of your data. Professionals should look for an experienced builder of solid standards-based taxonomies to associate content for appropriate machine-assisted indexing. Access Innovations can provide solutions that are ANSI compliant.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.
