Elements of Skateboarding Thesaurus

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Classifcatory Structures / Information Ordering / Interpreting Documents for their Significant Characteristics / Representation, Organization, and Control of information / Resource Description & Access / Vocabulary Control for Information Systems

A thesaurus I created as a set of organizing terms for resource description and access, related to the topic of skateboarding.

Context

Created

February 2024

Assignment

Thesaurus - Create

Tools

Graphics or photo imaging software: Canva

Roles

  • Created a system of at least 12 preferred terms for a subject matter of my choice: Skateboarding
  • included at least one of each relationship type: Hierarchical relationships
      • Broader Term/BT
      • Narrower Term/NT
    • Associate relationships
      • Related Term/RT
    • Equivalency relationships
      • USE, Use For/UF

Sample

LIBR 509 - Thesaurus by Joseph Watson-MacKay

Peer Review Feedback

You present a highly organized and detailed thesaurus. I almost think you have too many preferred terms, and it is too comprehensive. I think your thesaurus would be more effective just organizing skateboard types or another more narrowed-down version. However, this is a suggestion and seeing how I barely understood this assignment, feel free to disregard it. Logical coherence is a strength of your thesaurus, and the scope of your terms is clear. Although, I am unsure how you hierarchically organized your skateboards because I do not have expansive knowledge on the subject. I do believe that your terms should be alphabetical, though.

Reciprocality is reflected by how you utilize the USE/UF, BT/NT, and RT/RT frameworks correctly; you employ each several times, which fulfills the assignment's requirements. I like your "Longboarding" section. I found this exemplary in conveying that your relationships are associative and intrinsic to the concepts. Moreover, it is easy for someone with no skateboarding knowledge to understand. Lastly, your terms are appropriate to each preferred term group; they are mutually exclusive. However, I am unsure how "Skateboarding is UF Sk8boarding". Overall, great work.

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Hi J.J.! Your thesaurus is so expansive and detailed, wow! You did a great job incorporating many of the different terms (BT, NT, RT, UF. and USE) and I like how you organized under each broad term by grouping all of the UF terms, NT terms, etc. together. I feel like anyone could use this, be it someone who already knows a lot about skateboarding and wants to find more niche information or someone who is new and is beginning to learn. I feel like I'm already learning a lot just by looking at your thesaurus! I also appreciate that you thought to include "Sk8ing" and its variations as one of your terms! My only questions is if maybe making your preferred terms alphabetical in order could make it easier for your user to navigate? Overall, great job J.J.!

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Hi J.J., I really liked your thesaurus! The vocabulary is appropriate and not overwhelming to someone unfamiliar with these terms, and varied enough that the hierarchical relationships seem clear to me. There are terms beyond the basic that would make a search more effective, like taking into account several styles of spelling, and styles of skating. I liked your use of color as a visual learner, and overall I really think this would be useful as an effective research tool!

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I just wanted to drop in here to agree with the other comments! This is really great, good job!

Learning Significance

What does the activity mean to you?

Reading Peer Review comments, I'm delighted to hear how helpful people found it for learning more about skateboarding.

I started skating when I was a teenager and got back into it in May 2022. My son (he's 4 years old) started skateboarding in December of 2023. My wife and I spent nearly every Sunday in January at the Granville Island Greenramp youth skate drop-ins, hosted by the East Van Skateclub, where he got to learn how to skate alongside other kids under 13 years olds, many of whom have been skating for years.

Being able to distill what I've learned, organize it in an intuitive way, and present it as an entry-point to help others get more familiar with a topic, is the underlying pattern of what I love about library and information studies.

What other activities it is connected to?

This activity is connected to my first LIBR 509 submission for the term, Elements of Skateboarding Thesaurus. I appreciated being able to expand on the topic of skateboarding, and reuse the Canvas formatting. The two systems are able to complement each and could be presented to someone who wants to expand their vocabulary and understand a wider variety of skateboarding equipment they might choose to ride.

What might you do next time to improve the activity or your experience?

Alphabetizing the preferred terms is a suggestion that came up a few times in the peer review comments, so I'd definitely revise that aspect of the thesaurus.

The thesaurus includes a lot of text to be presented with at once - the first peer review suggestion about further narrowing the term groupings is onto something. To make the sections easier to digest and read through gradually, I'd also reformat the thesaurus as a series of toggle lists, allowing people to click on each preferred term heading to expand and collapse all of the terms below them as they move through them.

While not originally required for this assignment, if I were to expand on this submission, I'd love to include visual references to some of the terms in the thesaurus to demonstrate examples to share.

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