CENDI AGENCY TERMINOLOGY RESOURCES

The following URLs provide access to the online thesauri and indexing resources of the various federal scientific & technical agencies including CENDI agencies. These resources are of interest to those wishing to know about the scientific and technical terminology used in various fields.

Agriculture & Food

NAL Agricultural Thesaurus http://agclass.nal.usda.gov/agt/agt.shtml
The NAL Agricultural Thesaurus (NALT) is annually updated and the 2007 edition contains over 65,800 terms organized into 17 subject categories. NALT is searchable online and is available in several formats (PDF, ASCII text, XML, SKOS) for download from the web site. NALT has standard hierarchical, equivalence and associative relationships and provides scope notes and over 2,400 definitions of terms for clarity. Proposals for new terminology can be sent to thes@nal.usda.gov. Published by the National Agricultural Library, United States Department of Agriculture.

Tesauro Agrícola http://agclass.nal.usda.gov/agt_es.shtml
Tesauro Agrícola is the Spanish language translation of the NAL Agricultural Thesaurus (NALT). The thesaurus accommodates the complexity of the Spanish language from a Western Hemisphere perspective. First published in May 2007, the thesaurus contains over 15,700 translated concepts and contains definitions for more than 2,400 terms. The thesaurus is searchable with a Spanish interface and is available in several formats (PDF, ASCII text, XML) for download from the web site. Proposals for new terminology can be sent to thes@nal.usda.gov . Published by the National Agricultural Library, United States Department of Agriculture.

Applied Science & Technologies

DTIC ( Defense Technical Information Center ) Thesaurus http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/search/tr/str/thesaurus.html
The Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) Thesaurus provides a basic multidisciplinary subject term vocabulary that aids in information search and retrieval. The Thesaurus contains broader terms (BT), narrower terms (NT), scope notes, and "used for" (UF) references. Published by the Defense Technical Information Center.

DTIC ( Defense Technical Information Center ) Subject Categories http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/stresources/techreports/subjCategory/index.html
Contains 25 broad subject fields and 251 groups to categorize the areas of scientific and technical interest. These fields and groups provide the structure for the subject grouping of technical reports in DTIC's collection and are used to define the areas of need-to-know in distributing these reports. Published by the Defense Technical Information Center .

Transportation Research Thesaurus (TRT) – Department of Transportation/National Transportation Library (DOT/NTL) http://ntl.bts.gov/tools/trt/
The Transportation Research Thesaurus was developed under the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Project 20-32 at the Transportation Research Board (TRB) to provide a tool to improve the indexing and retrieval of transportation information. The thesaurus covers all modes and aspects of transportation. The TRT is used in indexing the TRB’s bibliographic database, Transportation Research Information Services (TRIS) and its web accessible version, TRIS Online by the National Transportation Library (NTL). Proposals for new terminology can be sent to http://ntl.bts.gov/tools/trt/trt_suggestion.html. The Transportation Research Thesaurus (TRT) is developed and maintained by the National Transportation Library (NTL) http://ntl.bts.gov/.

Astronomy & Space

NASA Thesaurus (pdf) http://www.sti.nasa.gov/thesvol1.pdf
Contains authorized subject terms of the NASA Aeronautics and Space Database for aerospace engineering, and all supporting areas of engineering and physics, the natural space sciences (astronomy, astrophysics, and planetary science), Earth science, and to some extent, the biological sciences. The Thesaurus contains over 18,000 terms, 4,000 definitions, and 4,400 USE references. Terms are organized within a hierarchical structure, and also include ‘related terms’ lists. Edited by the NASA Center for AeroSpace Information (CASI).

Biology and Nature

Biocomplexity Thesaurus - U.S. Geological Survey http://www.usgs.gov/core_science_systems/csas/biocomplexity_thesaurus/index.html
The Biocomplexity Thesaurus contains nearly 12,000 terms (broad (BT), narrow (NT), and ‘use-for’ (UF) terms), and can be rotated to examine facets of a particular concept by clicking on the hyperlinked terms in the results list. A Web Service is also available.

Earth & Ocean Sciences

Science Topics - United States Geological Survey http://geo-nsdi.er.usgs.gov/thesaurus/science/
USGS Science Topics is intended to help the public find and understand earth scientific information available from USGS without specific knowledge of the organizational structure or operations of the bureau. This site uses three integrated thesauri and presents information and lists of publications for more than 1000 science terms.

Energy & Energy Conservation

Joint Thesaurus: ETDE/INIS - DOE (Department of Energy) http://www.etde.org/edb/reference.html
The Joint Thesaurus contains the controlled terminology for indexing all information within the subject scopes of the International Nuclear Information System (INIS) and the Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDE). It contains 21,147 valid descriptors and 9,114 forbidden terms.The terminology is intended for use in subject descriptions for input or retrieval of information in these systems. The thesaurus may be revised at any time; please refer to the supplements content for cumulative references for changes made to the initial printing of the thesaurus.

ETDE/INIS Joint Thesaurus: Online Subject Tool http://www.osti.gov/taxonomy/
This online guide to the ETDE/INIS Joint Thesaurus is a subject select tool. In the "Browse Categories" mode, the thesaurus is organized by subject and type of descriptor; in the "Search for Terms" mode, matching descriptors may be found by typing words into the search box. The Subject Select tool is also accessible through the advanced search pages of Energy Citations Database (http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/advancedsearch.jsp) and Information Bridge (http://www.osti.gov/bridge/advancedsearch.jsp), in which the guide can be used to enter search descriptors into the "Subject" field.

Subject Categories and Scope Descriptions (INIS/ETDE) - DOE (Department of Energy) http://www.etde.org/edb/reference.html
This document is one in a series of publications known as the INIS Reference Series. It defines the subject categories

Environment & Environmental Quality

Terminology Services - Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) http://ofmpub.epa.gov/sor_internet/registry/termreg/home/overview/home.do
Terminology Services replaced EPA's Terminology Reference System (TRS) in August 2008. Terminology Services provides access to the same repository of EPA terminological content previously accessible through TRS. Terminology Services include access to commercial software (Synaptica) to support the creation and management of terminology resources. EPA's Terminology Services also provide web services for importing and exporting terms, as well as access to documentation, training, and subject matter expertise to support the development of quality terminology.

General Science

Subject Category Descriptions - National Technical Information Service (NTIS) http://www.ntis.gov/pdf/scopenotes.pdf
NTIS assigns one or more subject topic codes and their titles to every information product that it catalogs. These subject topic assignments can be used to refine a subject term search.

Health & Medicine

MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) – NLM (National Library of Medicine) http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html
MeSH consists of sets of terms naming descriptors in a hierarchical structure that permits searching at various levels of specificity. MeSH descriptors are arranged in both an alphabetic and a hierarchical structure. There are 24,767 descriptors in MeSH. In addition to these headings, there are more than 171,500 headings called Supplementary Concept Records (formerly Supplementary Chemical Records) within a separate thesaurus. Used by NLM for indexing articles from about 5,000 medical journals. Published by the National Library of Medicine.

RxNORM– NLM (National Library of Medicine) http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/umls/rxnorm/index.html
A standardized nomenclature for clinical drugs and for dose forms as administered to a patient. It provides links from clinical drugs, both branded and generic, to their active ingredients, drug components (active ingredient and strength), and related brand names. Query the RxNorm database using the RxNav search tool. Operated by the National Library of Medicine.

Unified Medical Language System (UMLS)– National Library of Medicine (NLM) http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/umls/
The purpose of NLM's Unified Medical Language System^® (UMLS^®) is to facilitate the development of computer systems that behave as if they "understand" the meaning of the language of biomedicine and health. To that end, NLM produces and distributes the UMLS Knowledge Sources (databases) and associated software tools (programs) for use by system developers in building or enhancing electronic information systems that create, process, retrieve, integrate, and/or aggregate biomedical and health data and information, as well as in informatics research.

DailyMed - NLM (National Library of Medicine) http://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/about.cfm
DailyMed provides high quality information about marketed drugs. This information includes FDA approved labels (package inserts). This Web site provides health information providers and the public with a standard, comprehensive, up-to-date, look-up and download resource of medication content and labeling as found in medication package inserts.

Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics

Joint Thesaurus: ETDE/INIS - DOE (Department of Energy) http://www.etde.org/edb/reference.html
The Joint Thesaurus contains the controlled terminology for indexing all information within the subject scopes of the International Nuclear Information System (INIS) and the Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDE). It contains 21,147 valid descriptors and 9,114 forbidden terms.The terminology is intended for use in subject descriptions for input or retrieval of information in these systems. The thesaurus may be revised at any time; please refer to the supplements content for cumulative references for changes made to the initial printing of the thesaurus.

ETDE/INIS Joint Thesaurus: Online Subject Tool http://www.osti.gov/taxonomy/
This online guide to the ETDE/INIS Joint Thesaurus is a subject select tool. In the "Browse Categories" mode, the thesaurus is organized by subject and type of descriptor; in the "Search for Terms" mode, matching descriptors may be found by typing words into the search box. The Subject Select tool is also accessible through the advanced search pages of Energy Citations Database (http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/advancedsearch.jsp) and Information Bridge (http://www.osti.gov/bridge/advancedsearch.jsp), in which the guide can be used to enter search descriptors into the "Subject" field.

Subject Categories and Scope Descriptions - DOE (Department of Energy)
http://www.osti.gov/stip/sites/www.osti.gov.stip/files/SubjectCategoriesBooklet.pdf

Science Education

Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) Thesaurus - NLE (National Library of Education)
http://www.eric.ed.gov (click on Thesaurus at top of page)
The ERIC Thesaurus is a controlled vocabulary list containing more than 5,000 education-related terms, used by ERIC to organize database materials by subject. The Thesaurus is a tool for finding documents relevant to a searcher's area of interest. Published by the National Library of Education, Department of Education.