THE PRE‐HISTORY OF THE INFORMATION RETRIEVAL THESAURUS Available to Purchase

The modern history of the information retrieval thesaurus may be dated from 1947. Even at this early stage a confusion of terminology and purpose was evident. The situation was only partly clarified by the emergence of the first fully operational information retrieval thesaurus in 1959. The intervening period produced a number of theoretical and practical contributions which shaped the thesaurus concept for operational use. The major ideas and influences of this period are examined and related.