The DDC THESAURUS: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Although I am honoured to have been asked to present this paper I feel somewhat diffident about my topic. Even in the United States documentalists refer to thesauri in disparaging terms and I sometimes get the impression that British documentalists are sure that their American counterparts are suffering from an epidemic of thesaurosis. Interestingly enough, there really is such a disease, and the twentieth edition of Stedman's Medical dictionary defines the condition as follows: ‘Abnormal or excessive storage in the body of phosphatides, fat, iron or other material’.