Thesaurus

About the thesaurus
One of the most useful aspects of the database is the thesaurus used for describing the content of items. During the early stages of this project’s development, we recognised that there were significant weaknesses in existing drug thesauruses because they failed to capture many of the issues underlying substance use among Indigenous people. In response to this, we developed an hierarchical thesaurus containing 400 terms that specifically reflects how substance use affects Indigenous communities in Australia. The thesaurus takes into account the social, political, economic and cultural aspects of indigenous substance use, and covers intervention so that it best complements the Database on Indigenous Australian Alcohol and Other Drug Projects.

How to use the Thesaurus
As with many thesauruses, the keywording system is hierarchical so that related terms are grouped together. For example, the broad category of ‘Intervention’includes keywords for the narrower categories of Acute Interventions, Counselling, Drug Therapy, Dietary Interventions, Support Services, and Prevention. Each of these categories in turn contains a number of subsidiary keywords, and those keywords may contain yet another lower level of related keywords. For example, ‘intervention’ has a narrower term ‘personal injury and disease prevention’, which has narrower terms ‘needle exchange’ and ‘safe containers’.

The thesaurus classifies each term in relation to its own broader, narrower, used for, and related terms. For example, ‘personal injury and disease prevention’ is a narrow term of ‘prevention’, but a broad term of ‘needle exchange’. Related terms refer to those that share a common theme with others and that you might want to also consider using in your search; for example 'Native title', 'Land' and Land rights'. Used for terms refer to terms that are often used by people but which are not used by the database. For example, if you searched for ‘glue’, the computer would automatically search for ‘Volatile substances’ because it recognises ‘glue’ as a used for term for ‘volatile substances.

Articles are keyworded at the most specific level of the hierarchy, that is, at the narrowest term possible. Because narrower terms are linked to broader terms, if you searched on a broader term it will also retrieve all items keyworded with its narrower terms. Graphically, an example of how the broad and narrow terms relate to each other in the hierarchy can be displayed as follows:

Intervention (first level term)

        Prevention (second level term)

        Personal injury and disease prevention (third level term)

            Needle exchange (fourth level term)

If you searched on Intervention, all items about Prevention, Personal injury and disease prevention, and Needle exchanges would also be retrieved. If you searched on Personal injury and disease prevention, all items on Needle exchanges would also be retrieved. If you searched  on Needle exchanges, only the items on Needle exchanges would be retrieved because it is the narrowest term within that hierachy.

Searching within the hierarchy lets you decide the specificity of your search. You can search for a broad topic, a more finite topic, or an extremely specific topic, depending on your needs. When you do a highly specific search, only a few items maybe retrieved, so it can be helpful to do another search for items at a broader level. When you first start using the database, it is well worth your time to browse through the keywords so that you are aware of the large scope of terms contained within it. This will improve the effectiveness of future searches and thus save you time.

Primary keywords versus secondary keywords
Our keywording system gives you an indication of whether items are likely to be particularly relevant or partially relevant for your needs. We code the main focus of items with ‘Primary keywords’, but if items also contain useful comments or information on a topic which is not their primary focus, we code that topic using ‘Secondary keywords’. In doing this, we can alert you to the potential relevance of items. For example, an item about health education may briefly mention a successful media campaign for Aboriginal people, so its Primary keywords would include ‘health education’, and its Secondary keywords would include ‘media campaigns’. All items contain Primary keywords for drug type and document type, and wherever possible, we code the geographic location and population group discussed in the item. We also code whether one or more authors of an item is an Indigenous Australian.

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