Purpose:  The Wiggy Thesaurus was developed as a searching aid in the identification and selection of wigs needed to create costumes for film and theatre.  Users of the thesaurus will include employees at WIGCO searching the collection for appropriate wigs for clients.   It is anticipated that people employed in theatre or in the film industry as costume experts, designers, researchers, and purchasers will browse the collection on the company web page.  Most users of the thesaurus will be experts on hairstyles and wigs, with a good idea of what they need and what their budget is.  Few users, perhaps none, will be librarians or professional thesaurus designers. (For more detail on this aspect, please refer to “Background Information” on the Home page.)

In the process of compiling the Wiggy Thesaurus, we used a combination of deductive and inductive methods of term selection.  We extracted terms from documents and web sites and then identified the broader terms to create the hierarchical arrangement.  After the initial structure was developed, we continued to add more terms and slot them into the existing structure. The 1993 NISO Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of Monolingual Thesauri (Z39.19-1993) were used as a reference point in this design process.  The relevant sections of this standard are referred to in the text that follows.

Type of Language:  The Wiggy Thesaurus is designed from a users’ perspective.  Instead of requiring complicated pre-coordinated subject strings to be entered when searching, the Wiggy Thesaurus allows post-coordinated search strings (with Boolean AND, OR and NOT operators), using a combination of natural and controlled language.  Preferred terms representing unique items (types of hairstyles) or qualities of wigs can be combined into unique subject strings.

All of the thesaurus terms were extracted from the available literature (including dictionaries, specialized books, web sites and (minimally) other thesauri) on hairstyles, hair design, hairdressing, and wig manufacture.  This provided us with the necessary legitimacy, or literary warrant, for the preferred terms (3.7.2; 4.1.3). There was a high degree of consistency within the literature for naming the various hairstyles, although we also found many synonyms or alternate terms.  To select which term should be the preferred terms in each case, we consistently tried to choose the term used most frequently in the most recent and most comprehensive and authoritative sources. (Please refer to the list of reference sources in the bibliography for details on these sources.)

Facets (or classifications) within the Wiggy Thesaurus:  The vocabulary within the Wiggy Thesaurus is divided into several broad facets, or classes, which are used to organize the vocabulary that describes the wig collection at WIGCO.  These facets are  (1) length of hair, (2) hairstyle processes, (3) wig construction and (4) historical time period.  Each one of these facets contains a homogenous group of concepts that share characteristics distinct from those of the other facets. 

1. Length of Hair:  We have grouped the 20th century women’s hairstyles according to length of hair – namely, SHORT, MEDIUM, and LONG.  Short hairstyles are defined as those exposing at least part of the nape of the neck and no longer than the chin.  Medium hairstyles apply to hairstyles from the chin  to the shoulders. Long hairstyles apply to those that reach below the shoulders, even though the hair may be “up”.  A “sub-facet” under “long hairstyles” is “up-dos”, used to classify wigs that are made with the hair pulled up from the nape of the neck and piled on the back or top or the head. 

Within these three general classes of wig style, the unique names of the hairstyles are indexed.  Since the 1930s, many women’s hairstyles have been popularized by an individual in a televised or filmed role.  Subsequently, particular hairstyles can be referred to by the name of that celebrity.  However, depending on which movies one has seen, there are in fact, many different associations one can make regarding any given hairstyle.  With this in mind, the names of people associated with different hairstyles, and that we found in at least two sources, are included in the Wiggy Thesaurus as non-preferred terms. 

When deciding on the format that these names should take, and because proper names are only used as non-preferred terms, we decided to enter both the natural order format of the name and the inverted form as found in most indexes.  For example, “Lauren Bacall” and “Bacall, Lauren” are both found as non-preferred terms for “page boy roll styles”. 

2. Wig Construction/Manufacture:  There are several different ways to make wigs, including the use of various hair types.  These variables have an impact on the price of wigs – a real concern to those working within a budget, which applies to all of our users.  As yet, this facet of the thesaurus is incomplete and there are many more terms we could include.  For now, we have included only the most relevant vocabulary.

3. Hairstyle Processes:  We have collected many terms that describe the processes that are used to create hairstyles (for example, permed, layered, crimped).  These are not unique to specific time periods or style or method of construction, but do serve to describe the collection.  Inclusion of this facet allows the users to search through the collection by general style combined with time period.  For example,  “curled styles and 1920s” would be a valid search string. 

4. Time Periods:  Many users will want to select wigs by historical period (e.g. 1920s).  By including this facet, and by indexing the collection with these terms, the thesaurus will be a valuable tool for selecting wigs that realistically represent different eras.  This approach is consistent with the literature, where in most cases, hairstyles are organized by the historical period during which they were made popular.  In the case of 20th Century hairstyles, chapter headings are often the decades themselves. 

The ANSI Thesaurus Guidelines recommend consulting established orthographic authorities to detremine the usage of non-alphabetic characters (3.7.2).  Although the 19th edition of the Library of Congress Subject Headings suggests using the format "Nineteen fifties”, instead of the numerical "1950s",  the APA Manual, as well as other style guides, advise using the “1950s” format within text (see APA, 2001, p. 130). In the controlled vocabulary of the Wiggy Thesaurus, date formats are written in numerical form, without apostrophes, as per the APA style guide.  For example, instead of “nineteen fifties”, the preferred form is “1950s”. 

We have included quite a number of alternative time period terms with the assumption that users may often wish to search by general time period (for example, “jazz era” or “disco”).  In these cases, the user will be pointed towards the preferred terms.  There will be an explanation for this usage in the introduction for users, as well as clear instructions to the indexers.  When the thesaurus is complete, and for historical periods other than the 20th Century, the preferred entry terms would include “Egyptian” or “16th century”, etc. 

Relationship structures:  The Wiggy Thesuarus displays semantic relationships between all the terms included, as per the guidelines (5.1.1). There are three kinds of relationships that link terms in the Wiggy Thesaurus: equivalence (terms that represent the same or synonymous concept) - (5.2), hierarchical (broader and narrower categories of concepts) - (5.3) and associative or related (between terms that are related in some way, neither equal nor hierarchical) - (5.4). 

1. Equivalent terms all refer to the same concept or type of object, and one of these terms is designated as the preferred term.  All non-preferred terms appear with the notation “USE ”.  The preferred term appears with UF (use for) followed by the non-preferred synonyms. The Wiggy Thesaurus included the following types of equivalent terms: 

a. Synonyms (different words with the same meaning) (5.2.2)
        Example: synthetic hair 
                                        UF artificial hair

b. Quasi-synonyms (terms treated as synonyms for the purposes of the thesaurus) (5.2.4)
        Example: 1920s
                                UF jazz age
                                      prohibition era

c. Lexical variants of terms (different word forms for the same expression) (5.2.3)
         Example: braids
                               USE: braiding styles

2. Hierarchical terms are indicated in the thesaurus by the abbreviations “BT” 
(broader term) and “NT” (narrower term).  Narrower terms refer to objects (in this case, wigs) that fall into a broader classification of wig styles. In all cases, these relationships are reciprocal (5.3). Although most hierarchical relationships in this thesaurus are generic (5.3.1), many identify links between general categories of hairstyles and individual instances of those categories (5.3.3).  This is known as the instance relationship between terms.

Example:  Short Hairstyles 
                              NT bubble cut styles
                                     urchin style)
                     Urchin style 
                              BT Short hairstyles

3. Related or associative terms are indicated as “RT” (related term).  This
designation is used in situations where one term suggests another, but where
they are neither equivalent nor hierarchically related (5.4).

Example:  Permed styles 
                              RT Curled styles

                     Natural hair 
                              RT Synthetic hair

Vocabulary control:  Vocabulary control in the Wiggy Thesaurus has been achieved by defining terms with scope notes (3.2.2). These definitions serve as an aid to future indexers (by clarifying the scope of terms), and they provide clarity to the users of the system.  We have also used parenthetical qualifiers (3.2.1)to disambiguate, or clarify the homographs that are included in the thesaurus.  An example of this is the use of “gamine styles” to describe hairstyles both from the 1930s and from the 1950s as follows:  gamine styles (1930s); gamine styles (1950s). Due to the fact that the Wiggy Thesaurus will serve as an orthographic authority on wig styles and hairstyles in general, we have retained the correct orthographic form of proper names (i.e. they are capitalized).
Although the ANSI standards for thesaurus creation advises against hyphenated terms because of problems in filing and searching (3.7.2.2), we felt it was necessary to include hyphens in a number of terms due to their universal use in the literature, especially in The Illustrated Dictionary of Hairdressing and Wigmaking (Cox, 1983). 

To avoid possible problems in filing and searching, we have avoided using hyphens in most of the preferred terms of the Wiggy Thesaurus.  According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, this word is correctly spelled with hyphens, and we anticipate that our users would enter it this way.  In addition, where it appears in the indexes of the literature, the hyphens have always been retained. Examples of hyphenated terms in the Wiggy Thesaurus are "peek-a-boo", "flick-up", "flip-up".

Specificity and Exhaustivity:  The Wiggy Thesaurus is fairly detailed and includes minutiae about hairstyle differences that are reflected in the literature and among hairstyle professionals.  So far, our scope includes 20th Century women’s hairstyles, some detail on how they are created, as well as some vocabulary to describe the wig manufacturing process.  In the future, and as our client WIGCO grows and expands their collection, the thesaurus will be expanded to include more detail as necessary.  It will eventually be designed to index wigs from many different time periods and for both men and women.  It will also include the vocabulary associated with wig and postiche manufacture, including all manner of facial hair, extensions and partial hairpieces. 

Welcome to the Wiggy Thesaurus!!!!!  We have designed this introductory guide to help you utilize our thesaurus more easily. We do not want you to become frustrated or in other words,“wiggy”, through attempting to use the thesaurus. (Pun intended!) We have decided to display all of the terms in the thesaurus in an alphabetical list because we felt that this would be a logical arrangement for our users. The next section will outline the structure of the Wiggy Thesaurus for you. 

Guide to Alphabetical Display of Terms

Preferred Terms - We have placed several of the terms in this alphabetical list in bold type to highlight them. These bold faced items are preferred terms. A preferred term is the standardized phrase that we have selected to describe a particular item in our collection. An example of a preferred term in thesaurus is “bob styles”. 

Non-Preferred Terms - Non-preferred terms are synonyms for preferred terms. To illustrate, “flapper” is the non-preferred term for “bob styles”. We have placed the non-preferred terms in regular type to differentiate them from the preferred terms. 

Relationship Indicators – Equivalence (Synonymy)

Relationship Indicators are semantic tools that can be utilized to distinguish the relationships between all the terms in a thesaurus. 
USE is one example of a relationship indicator.. The purpose of the USE indicator is to lead the user from the non-preferred term to the preferred term. 

Example: 

                      Flapper 
                           USE  bob styles

 USED FOR (UF) is another relationship indicator. UF is the “counterpart” indicator of USE. Its function is to identify the preferred terms in relation to the non-preferred terms. 

Example:

                     bob styles 
                          UF: flapper
                                 Louise Brooks
                                 Lulu

As the previous example demonstrates, a preferred term may have several non-preferred synonyms. The UF indicator basically identifies a “one-many” relationship. The USE indicator denotes a “one-one” relationship. Here is another example from our thesaurus to help clarify this point.

Example:

                     Marcel Wave styles
                          UF: coxscomb curls
                                 Marlene Dietrich

                     Coxscomb curls
                           USE: Marcel Wave Styles

One final note about USE and UF is that both indictors identify relationships that are considered to be equivalent in nature. However, there are some relationship indicators that identify different types of relationships between terms. 

Relationship Indicators – Hierarchical 

Some relationship indicators identify hierarchical relationships between the preferred terms. 
Narrower Term or (NT) delineates a relationship between a particular term and other terms that are subordinate to it in the hierarchy of the thesaurus. 

Example:

                      Human Hair
                              NT: Asian Hair 
 

Broader Term or (BT) is the reciprocal indicator of Narrower Term. Broader Term identifies the relationship between an individual term and other terms that are ranked above it [the term] in the hierarchy.

Example:

                      Human Hair
                              BT: Natural Hair 
 

Relationship Indicators – Associative

Related Term (RT) is a type of relationship indicator that identifies associative relationships between preferred terms in the thesaurus. Related Terms are important because they can facilitate the search and retrieval process for the user. Related Terms specify terms that many users may consider to be conceptually linked. 
 

Additional Features of Thesaurus

Scope Notes – Scope Notes are short explanatory notes that accompany some terms when necessary in order to provide further clarification for the users. For example, we decided to provide scope notes for most of our wigs styles because our users may not be familiar with every style in our collection, particularly the older styles. Also, we wanted to ensure that the users would be able to find wigs suitable for their needs.

Example:

                           Bob style
                                 SN – A short hair style in which the hair is cut all around 
                                           the head and is level with the ear lobes. This hair 
                                           style first appeared in the 1920s and is usually 
                                           associated with the actress Louise Brooks or Lulu.

Node labels – Some of the terms in the alphabetical list appear between <angled brackets>. Node labels are not to be used for retrieval purposes; they are “dummy terms” which serve an organizational function only. Node labels group together related or “sibling” preferred terms together under one heading.

Example:

                            <20th century time periods>
                                       1900s
                                       1910s
                                       1920s
                                       1930s
                                       1940s
                                       1950s
                                       1960s
                                       1970s
                                       1980s

Numeric terms - For purposes of clarity, all numeric terms appear at the beginning of the alphabetical display of the thesaurus.

Tips for Using the Wiggy Thesaurus

1. Scan the list of terms in the Wiggy Thesaurus to locate the preferred terms that best represents your needs. 

2. If the preferred term contains a scope note, be sure to review this scope note to ensure that your definition matches the definition in the Wiggy Thesaurus.

3. If you would like to expand your search, utilize the broader term (BT) relationship indictor. In contrast, if you would like to make your search more precise, utilize the narrower term (NT) relationship indicator. 

4. Consider using Boolean Operators to create a more specific search query. We have programmed the Wiggy Thesaurus to recognize the following the three Boolean Operators: AND, NOT, OR. Using these operators can save you time during your search process by allowing you to build a “multi-concept” query. 

Example – If you were searching for wigs from the 1920s that were short in length, you could enter the following search query.

                               Short wigs and 1920s
 

Good luck and “Get Wiggy with it”  but don't split too many hairs as you go!