PRECIS (Preserved Context Index System)
PRECIS, designed by Derek Austin (1984), is a development of chain indexing which was used for the subject analysis of material in the British National Bibliography and British Catalogue of Music from 1984. It used natural language description as far as possible, and instead of a prescriptive list of terms provides a model for subject analysis (known as a paradigm) in each subject area.
PRECIS was replaced by COMPASS in 1990. (In 1996 was COMPASS also terminated and British Library applied instead Library of Congress Subject Headings, which have been available in British records since 1995, cf., MacEvan, 1998). The British Library compiled an internal thesaurus for PRECIS-indexing of the British National Bibliography from 1950-1987. The PRECIS thesaurus has, unfortunately, never been available online. It is one of the few examples of a wide-ranging general thesaurus of considerable specificity.
The system is an example on the application of
syntactical devises in indexing.
Literature:
Austin, D. W. (1974/1984). PRECIS: a manual of concept analysis
and subject indexing. London: British Library Bibliographic Services Division.
(1st ed. 1974: 2nd ed. 1984).
Austin, D. W. & Butcher, P. (1969).
PRECIS; a rotated
subject index system. London, British National Bibliography.
Dykstra, M. (1987). Preserved Context Indexing System (PRECIS); A Primer.
Scarecrow Press. (3r.e. of "Preserved Context Indexing System: A Manual of
Concept Analysis and Subject Indexing" ).
Frohmann, B. P. (1983). An investigation of the semantic bases of some theoretical principles of classification proposed by Austin and the CRG. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 4(1), 11-27.
Krarup, K. & Boserup, I. (1982). Reader-Oriented Indexing. An investigation into the extent to which subject specialists should be used for the indexing of documents by and for professional readers, based on a sample of sociological documents indexed with the help of the PRECIS indexing system. Copenhagen: The Royal Library.
MacEvan, A. (1998). Working with LCSH: the cost of
cooperation and the achievement of access.
A perspective from the British Library. 64th IFLA General Conference August
16 - August 21, 1998.
http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla64/033-99e.htm
Sørensen, J. (1979). A Bibliography of PRECIS. 2nd edition. København: Danmarks Biblioteksskole.
Birger Hjørland
Last edited: 12-05-2007