A thesaurus provides a standard language or set of terms with which to describe a subject area. Applied to indexing of a database, it indicates to a searcher which terms to use to retrieve the maximum number of relevant documents.
The thesaurus terms are used by indexers to describe
the contents of publications in a consistent, comprehensive and concise
manner. These terms are listed in the Descriptors field (DE=) of each
record added to the database.
Using our interactive Thesaurus
Search you can browse for terms via a hierarchical, alphabetical,
or rotated index display. These display formats allow you to navigate
the thesaurus alphabetically or through the hierarchical relationships
between terms. After finding appropriate terms, you can submit a search
for those terms in the database descriptor field.
This Fourth Edition of the Life Sciences Thesaurus contains some 9,400 descriptors used in indexing documents for the Life Sciences databases and corresponding printed abstracts journals. Over 500 new terms have been added to the Fourth Edition. It provides thorough cross-referencing among all terms, directing the user to synonyms and near-synonyms, to broader and narrower terms in the same class, and otherwise related terms.
As a new service, specialized lists of names frequently used by CSA in indexing may be requested from the Editorial Department. These lists are:
a. Antibiotics (and other antimicrobial agents) 630 terms
b. Enzymes 3,100 terms
c. Hormones 160 terms
d. Proteins 560 terms
e. Other chemical terms 490 terms
f. Viruses 4,100 terms
The basic terminology for the Life Sciences Thesaurus has resulted from experience in indexing over 3 million documents in biological disciplines since 1965. This Thesaurus has thus evolved hand-in-hand with the rapid growth of the literature dealing with the life sciences.
The Life Sciences Thesaurus will be updated periodically to include new terminology and other revisions based upon usage of the Thesaurus for indexing and retrieval purposes, and suggestions from users of the thesaurus will be given serious consideration. Please email comments to dwhitman@csa.com.
The Life Sciences Thesaurus should be used to identify appropriate search terms that will retrieve relevant information when searching the following databases and journals published by CSA:
Databases
CSA Biological Sciences
CSA Biotechnology & BioEngineering
Life Sciences Collection
Journals
ASFA Marine Biotechnology Abstracts
Agricultural & Environmental Biotechnology Abstracts
Animal Behavior Abstracts
Calcium & Calcified Tissue Abstracts
Chemoreception Abstracts
CSA Neurosciences Abstracts
Ecology Abstracts
Entomology Abstracts
Genetics Abstracts
Immunology Abstracts
Medical & Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Abstracts
Microbiology Abstracts Section A: Industrial & Applied Microbiology
Microbiology Abstracts Section B: Bacteriology
Microbiology Abstracts Section C: Algology, Mycology & Protozoology
Nucleic Acids Abstracts
Oncogenes & Growth Factors Abstracts
Toxicology Abstracts
Virology & AIDS Abstracts
This thesaurus contains only the controlled subject and disease descriptors and their related terms. General details of taxonomic or chemical descriptors may be found at the end of this introduction.
The following describes the main features of this thesaurus.
1. Hierarchy of Terms
Abbreviations used to describe the relationships between descriptors are:
Broader Term - indicates a term which is conceptually broader in meaning
than the lead-term.
Narrower Term - indicates a term which is conceptually narrower in meaning
than the lead-term.
Related Term - indicates a term which is related in meaning to the lead-term.
2. Synonyms
When a concept or disease has several synonyms, one descriptor has been chosen
as the preferred term. This is indicated by use of the abbreviations:
Use For
Use
For example:
Abortus fever
Use Brucellosis
This indicates abortus fever and brucellosis are synonyms of a single disease name and the term brucellosis has been chosen as the preferred term. The reciprocal entry in the thesaurus is:
Brucellosis
Use For Abortus fever
This indicates that any article on abortus fever will be indexed with the preferred term, brucellosis. Abortus fever is thus a forbidden term.
3. Medical Terms
Disease names and clinical terminology generally rely on the following source reference:
Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary
27th Edition, published by
W.B. Saunders Company
218 West Washington Square
Philadelphia, PA 19105
ISBN 0-7216-3154-1
4. Taxonomic Terms
Latin binomials are used to index all organisms except domestic animals, livestock, pets and laboratory animals. Family, order, or other hierarchical levels are used as necessary.
The following source references are consulted:
Bergey's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology
Volume 1-4, published by
The Williams & Wilkins Company
428 E. Preston Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
ISBN 0-683-04108-8
American Insects, A Handbook of the Insects of North America
published by Van Nostrand Reinhold Company
135 West 50th Street
New York, NY 10020
ISBN 0-442-20866-9
Synopsis and Classification of Living Organisms
Volumes I and 2, published by
McGraw-Hill Book Company
1221 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10021
ISBN 0-07-079031-0
5. Chemicals and Macromolecules
As far as possible, enzymes are indexed according to the 1992 IUB recommendations:
Enzyme Nomenclature Recommendations (1992) of the Nomenclature Committee
of the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
published by Academic Press
1250 Sixth Avenue
San Diego, CA 92101-4311
ISBN 0-12-227165-3
Chemical names are indexed using the following source reference:
The Merck Index
12th Edition, published by
Merck and Co. Inc
Whitehouse Station, NJ
ISBN 0911910-12-3
Pesticide names are standardized as much as possible, using the following publication:
The Pesticide Manual A World Compendium
11th Edition, published by
The British Crop Protection Council
49 Downing Street
Farnham, Surrey GU9 7PH, UK
ISBN 1-901396-11-8
As well as the specified pesticide name, the type of pesticide, e.g. fungicides, is also entered.
How to use the Life Sciences Thesaurus on CSA Illumina
There are many different approaches for finding suitable terms to use when
searching the life sciences databases. One approach, especially if you are new
to the thesaurus or the database(s), is to start with the Rotated Index. Enter
a word that you know in the Find: box and select the Rotated Index display. If
your word is a valid thesaurus term or is part of a valid term, it will be found
and all terms containing the word will be displayed, as well as similar or related
terms in which you may also be interested. For example, a Rotated Index display
for the word Stability looks like:
This shows the word Stability occurring in terms that represent very different
concepts. It also suggests that you consider related terms for similar concepts.
From this screen you can mark terms in which you are interested and search the
selected databases(s) for them, by clicking on the search button on the left side
of the screen.
Or you can continue to navigate the thesaurus looking for more possible terms.
Clicking on any hyperlinked term takes you to the main thesaurus display for that
term. This lists all other terms that have a hierarchical (narrower or broader)
or other type of relationship to your main term. In these displays, the [+] symbol
immediately indicates that there are further narrower terms. In the example above,
clicking on Osmosis displays:
Starting in the Rotated Index probably provides a better overview of the range
of terms used in the thesaurus. However, you can only enter a single word in the
Find: box for the Rotated Index display. Phrases can be used for the Thesaurus
and Alphabetical displays.
For further information about the contents of the CSA Life Sciences Thesaurus
Editorial Department
CSA
7200 Wisconsin Avenue
Bethesda, MD 20814, USA
Telephone: 1-800-843-7751 (in N. America)
Telephone: +1 301-961-6750 (worldwide)
Fax: +1 301-961-6740
Email: dwhitman@csa.com
To order a printed version of the CSA Life Sciences Thesaurus, Fourth Edition, 1998,
ISBN 0-942189-47-7, contact:
Customer Service
CSA
7200 Wisonsin Avenue
Bethesda, MD 20814, USA
Telephone: 1-800-843-7751 (in N. America)
Telephone: +1 301-961-6750 (worldwide)
Fax: +1 301-961-6708
Email: service@csa.com
