precoordinate vs. postcoordinate

2005 December 01 in classification, infosci by corprew | 2 comments

So, just as a helpful hint for people doing Taxonomy type stuff, or whatever controlled vocabulary: The difference between pre-coordinate and post-coordinate terms are pretty obvious when you can actually remember them, but here’s a helpful hint:

Precoordinate: concepts are combined into terms before the thesaurus is created.
Postcoordinate: concepts are combined into terms after the thesaurus is created — ie: usually at time of use.

I know that someday someone who needs this information will find it searching the web, and that makes me (relatively) happy.

  1. librarian to be’s avatar

    librarian to be on 2006 June 04 at 8:01 pm

    ayep, Corprew, you just helped me figure out what the heck obsfucoator is talking about… I owe you one!

  2. Erin’s avatar

    Erin on 2008 November 10 at 1:56 pm

    “I know that someday someone who needs this information will find it searching the web, and that makes me (relatively) happy.”

    You were right, thank you!