Library and Information Science

It is the purpose of this paper to identify and solve problems on developing the thesaurus of fine art as result of the trial development by Japanese language.

Art information has some unique characteristics; (1) variety of items to be indexed, e,g. art original, art reproduction, literature, etc.; (2) variety of access points, e.g. personal names, titles, names of collections, themes of art, etc.; (3) ambiguity of art terms.

The trial development of the thesaurus of fine art is carried out as follows; (1) gathering terms from Japanese Periodical index and Shincho Encyclopedia of Wold Art; (2) selecting Preferred terms; (3) establishing main categories (Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Applied Art, Style and School, History, Theme and Motif, Material, Print, Theory); (4) grouping preferred terms.

As the results, it is found that preferred term should be gathered from exhaustive art encyclopedias and specific art cyclopedias, cross reference is very important factor, and sub-categorization should be appropriated to characteristics of main categoris.