Two correspondents asked about this thesaurus. I previously
incorrectly referred to it as the NSF/NIH thesaurus. The NSF/NIH/DOE
thesaurus version four is also known as the Rodman Thesaurus, named after
its developer, who worked with NSF/NIH/DOE to meet their needs. I
understand that version 4 is in the public domain, whereas version 5, the
current version, is proprietary. (This information is from InfoEd Inc, who
use version 4 for faculty matches with the SPIN database they market.)
Consequently we would use version 4 for our faculty interests.

The Thesaurus is very comprehensive, and is arranged in a heirarchy by
disciplinary areas, and extends to public service topics. It includes about
2600 terms.

If there is sufficient interest, I can probably make the Thesaurus
version 4 available on our Gopher server for this listserv to view. It was
available at one time, but off-campus people kept asking me to do SPIN
searches for them, so I blocked access.
Charlie Graham, Director, Office of Sponsored Research
117D David Boyd Hall, Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA 50310       504-388-8692    xxxxxx@UNIX1.SNCC.LSU.EDU