[Contents]

Foreword

Thesaurus building is one of the key tasks necessary for a specialist subject area to make itself understood for the future. The Waterways Trust, with its combined interest in the historic environment and its conservation and accessibility, is determined to present a catalogue of its collections to allow the public, both for general interest and specialist research, the opportunity to find out about canals and rivers. Of necessity this is work behind the scenes and it has involved leadership from MDA [now Collections Trust] and a partnership between the curatorial staff of The Waterways Trust and colleagues from the Inland Waterways Heritage Network.

The Thesaurus represents a tremendous achievement by the members of the MDA Waterways Terminology Working Group and all those who have contributed through peer review in establishing, for the first time, guidance and common principles for nomenclature and the use of object names within the field of inland waterways. It also starts to record the wealth of often fast disappearing terminology associated with this important area of the nation's industrial heritage.

This first edition of the thesaurus is not a definitive document but it represents a significant step in attempting to record a terminology that is rich and varied and is not covered in full in other written sources. We believe it will achieve its aim of enhancing access to and use of collections of inland waterways objects held by organisations and individuals across the country.

Sir Neil Cossons
Chairman
The Waterways Trust
January 2002

Acknowledgements

The MDA Waterways Terminology Working Group has included the following members: Jane Bowen, River and Rowing Museum, Henley, Emma Chaplin, The Waterways Trust (Chair), Brian Collings, The Waterways Trust, Tony Conder, The Waterways Trust, David McDougall, The Waterways Trust, Bill Gage, Museum of the Broads, Loveday Herridge, Waterways Museum and Adventure Centre, Goole, Jim McKeown, The Waterways Trust, Rachael Rogers, The Waterways Trust (Secretary), Paul Sillitoe, The Waterways Trust, Carol Stevenson, River and Rowing Museum, Henley, Matthew Stiff, (formerly) MDA, Diana Sumner, The Waterways Trust, Simon Wilson, The Waterways Trust.

The Working Group has been supported by Resource and the Designation Challenge Fund award to the Waterways Trust Museums: The Boat Museum, Ellesmere Port and the National Waterways Museum, Gloucester.

The Working Group gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the following participants in an extremely useful peer review process.

Helen Ashby (National Railway Museum), Helen Armstrong (National Waterways Museum), John Baylis (Inland Waterways Association), Ceri Binding (University of Glamorgan), David Blackburn (British Waterways), David Blagrove, Richard Booth (Historic Narrow Boat Owners Club), Phil Carlisle (English Heritage), Malcolm Chapman (Manchester Museum), Tony Conolly, Mike Constable (Thinktank), Hugh Conway-Jones (Friends of the National Waterways Museum), John Cox, Roger Cragg (Institution of Civil Engineers), Louise Craven (Public Record Office), Lynda Crawford (University of Nottingham), Peter Cross-Rudkin, Richard Dean, Stella Dextre Clark (Information Consultant), Wendy Freer, Allan Gilbert, Brian Haskins, Stanley Holland, Joanne Howdle (National Maritime Museum), Sarah Jenkins (Boat Museum), Liz Larby (Museum of the Broads), Pam Latchem (National Waterways Museum), Gerald Leach (Railway and Canal Historical Society), Edmund Lee (English Heritage), Pauline Lillico (National Waterways Museum), Hugh McKnight, John Moore (The Boat Museum), Janet Moult, Liz Orna, Edward Paget-Tomlinson, Ray Shill, Steve Smith (Boat Museum), Malcolm Tucker (London Canal Museum), Steve Waring (English Heritage), Alan Whitney (National Waterways Museum), Leonard Will (Willpower Information) and D.G. Wood (Thames Barge Sailing Club).

The group also acknowledge the contribution of the following individuals and organisations: Mike Clarke, English Heritage Data Standards Unit and Tony Lewery.

Final checking and editing was carried out by Gordon McKenna, MDA.

Introduction

1.1. What is a thesaurus?

A thesaurus is used to standardize terminology, allowing the recording of information in a consistent and retrievable way. A thesaurus provides the user with a single preferred term to use where there is a choice of terms with the same or similar meaning (for example, Worsley mine boat use for starvationer). It also allows terms, with similar subjects, to be grouped together into hierarchies and cross-referenced to other groups of terms, which have a similar subject. Creating terms in a hierarchical order allows these terms to be indexed at general or specific level when appropriate. A thesaurus can be developed by the addition, amendment and deletion of terms, relationships between terms and/or hierarchies as dictated by users needs.

1.2. Why use a thesaurus?

By standardizing information that is entered onto a database it is easier to search records and retrieve the required output. The use of a thesaurus allows the retrieval of information created by someone else, it also allows users to access and retrieve data not only within specific information systems but also across a range of information systems operating within an organization, and across organizations. The simplest way to ensure that the information is consistent, is to use a wordlist. This is simply an alphabetical list of accepted terms used to control the information recorded in a specific field within a database. However, a wordlist does not allow the user to create relationships between the terms. Using a thesaurus structure, expanding abbreviations and removing punctuation, can greatly aid the indexing and retrieving of object and monument types. It also reduces the number of searches required to retrieve information from a database.

1.3. Scope of this thesaurus

The thesaurus is primarily concerned with suggesting preferred terms for use in describing objects which relate to the inland waterways of the British Isles and establishing relationships between them. The working group established the scope of the MDA Waterways Object Name Thesaurus as follows:

a) The thesaurus will be based on object names that are specific to inland waterways (covering canals and rivers but not coastal areas). NB. Some terms do appear in the thesaurus that also have relevance outside an inland waterways use- particularly in certain types of tools. These have been included when it was felt that they were useful for grouping purposes (e.g. adze to group types of waterway specific adze) and where it was felt that they were fundamental to an understanding of waterways related objects- e.g. blacksmith's equipment.

b) The thesaurus will be based chiefly on the British Isles but will cover international scope where appropriate to the nature of the National Inland Waterways Collection.

c) The thesaurus primarily covers terminology from the period of the 'canal age' (Eighteenth Century) onwards.

d) The thesaurus will also include regional variations, traditional inland waterways terms and slang, though the preferred terms will be those that would be used on an object label.

e) Each term will be warranted by at least one written or oral reference. f) The thesaurus will be polyhierarchical and with full scope notes. It will be further developed to be illustrated.

g) It will not include terms that are adequately dealt with by existing thesauri.

From the museum based perspective of the working group object name terms are most useful in a museum context for searching and browsing through museum object collections. The aim of the working group is to go on to complete further waterway specific thesauri to cover concepts such as waterway structures, activities, company names etc. Together these thesauri will provide a comprehensive indexing and retrieval tool for waterways related information

1.4. Layout of the thesaurus

This thesaurus is laid out in two sections: the Class Listing and the Alphabetical Listing. The Class Listing shows the hierarchical layout of the thesaurus within each class. It only includes the preferred terms. The Alphabetical listing includes both preferred and non-preferred terms. In each case, natural language order is used. Punctuation is used where grammatically correct The same conventions are used in both the class and alphabetical displays. All terms in lower case, capital are used only for proper nouns. Indexing terms shown in bold and non-indexing terms shown in normal type.

1.5. Class definitions

Components

Objects which form a distinct part of a larger object and cannot perform their function alone. (Something which is usually attached to something else in its working role).

Containers

A rigid or flexible receptacle, e.g. sack, designed to hold, store or ship objects or substances.

Costume

Objects worn or carried by people for warmth, protection, embellishment or for symbolic purposes.

Tools and Equipment

Objects used for working upon materials or performing a function, from hand held objects through to machinery.

Transport

Vehicles used to carry people, animals or materials - e.g. narrow boat.

Specific Issues Arising

Pattern. It is recommended in Holm 1993 that the type of precursor should be recorded as the object name (i.e. pattern) and the products that it helped to shape be recorded elsewhere. This rule should be followed in this thesaurus.

Transport-material type. The terms 'wooden boat', 'iron boat', 'steel boat', 'concrete boat'' 'fibreglass boat', 'aluminium boat', 'carbon fibre boat', 'composite boat', 'skin boat' and 'titanium boat' have been included in the transport class to allow types of boat to be multiple indexed by the their boat type and material, where appropriate.

Components. Some terms that are not strictly object names have been included here, most notably boat component terms which do not refer to objects so much as spaces- e.g. side bed. They are treated as boat components as they do have a physical presence.

'Equine'- is used in guide terms and facet indicators to refer to both horses and donkeys and mules (also used in an inland waterways context).

1.6. Other cultural thesauri

The MDA Waterways Object Names Thesaurus has been created by the MDA Waterways Terminology Working Group but there are many other thesauri in the Cultural Heritage Sector , all following the similar layouts which complement the Waterways Object Names Thesaurus. These include the Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus, MDA Archaeological Objects Thesaurus and the English Heritage Monument Types, Maritime Craft and Components thesauri.

Art and Architecture Thesaurus

The basic structure for the classes has been adopted from that in the Art and Architecture Thesaurus. This thesaurus generally adds waterways specific terms under the broad AAT groupings or duplicates them if it is felt that terms are waterways specific and need to be included. Scope notes may also be modified to explain specific waterways usage.

E.g. canal horses used specific sets of harness. The closest AAT term is harness but this thesaurus expands to include all the different pieces of equipment that make up the harness.

English Heritage Maritime Craft Thesaurus

This covers maritime craft as opposed to inland waterways craft but there are areas of overlap. Terms are duplicated at a broad level from the viewpoint of this thesaurus- e.g. barge, keel, trow, wherry. At times the scope of the terms conflicts with that in the waterways object name thesaurus (e.g. fly boat- 'Flat bottomed Dutch boat of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries with two masts. Used for coastal work). At other times the terms are only included at a broad level- e.g. keel, which have many more narrower terms in this thesaurus.

English Heritage Monument Types Thesaurus

This covers built structures and is particularly useful in conjunction with waterways object names as, under the transport class, it looks at structures associated with inland waterways.

MDA Archaeological Objects Thesaurus

There are areas of overlap here within the Tools and Equipment classes of both thesauri. The groupings in this thesaurus under <tools and equipment by process> e.g. cutting equipment are duplicated to a degree but, in general, the MDA Archaeological Objects Thesaurus includes tools at a broad level - e.g. adze whereas this thesaurus goes on to list narrower terms that are more specific to waterways related activities - e.g. shipwright's adze.