New tools for managing and disseminating the Eurovoc thesaurus

In December 2000, Eurovoc users were able to access the Eurovoc website for the first time. Online access to Eurovoc has considerably increased its audience. The site allows users to consult the thesaurus in a simple way that closely follows the paper version. Besides subject-oriented consultation and alphabetical searches for a particular term, the site offers various other possibilities: a lexicon of terms belonging to a micro thesaurus; translation of a descriptor or of the complete semantic environment of a descriptor; a multilingual list; downloading in .pdf format.

At the same time, a maintenance system for the Eurovoc thesaurus based on web technology has been developed entirely for the needs of the thesaurus management system. This restricted-access system can be used to manage all types of amendment, make proposals, visualise or propose new concepts, and handle the proposals made by users in all language versions.

The electronic maintenance system is now open to the members of the Maintenance Committee and to national parliaments for submitting their proposals, and to the translator–terminologists for translating concepts in all the language versions.