The Epicurean Cheese Shop Thesaurus
Welcome
Never have North Americans enjoyed a wider range of cheese selections as they do today. According to “The Dairy Review”, a publication of Statistics Canada measuring the output of dairy producers nationwide, fifteen different types of cheese, not counting cheddar and cottage cheese, constitute significant sales in Canada. 1 As recently as ten years ago, many of these brands were made or imported only to highly specialized markets, but they are now in strong demand. Moreover, overall changes in food consumption have indicated a preference for cuisine from Asian diets; cheese is a notable exception, as most brands originate from Europe.
Such a rapid expansion of cheese products poses a considerable challenge for information professionals. Serving their mandate of resolving “information overload”, librarians seek organizational methods that assist their patrons in making informed choices of new and unique phenomena.
The Epicurean Cheese Store has opened in response to these phenomena in the world of cheese, with an initial and judiciously selective range of the most popular European cheeses from France, Italy, Switzerland and the UK. From its well-situated position on Robson Street and Burrard Avenue in Vancouver’s West End, in the centre of a central bus exchange district, the shop serves a diverse, high-density clientele of local apartment dwellers, office workers and commuters.
For our four employees to assist their customers in making well-informed cheese purchases, the Thesaurus for European Cheese Novices’ Oasis (TECHNO), by The Epicurean Librarians League (TELL), has been introduced as the first of several stages in the creation of the European Cheese Chooser Helper (ECCH). This thesaurus will be used as an indexing and retrieval tool for information on the select European cheeses of The Cheese Store. TELL has been contracted to add to this thesaurus, as The Cheese Store expands into more cheese types.
1. http://dsp-psd.communication.gc.ca/Collection-R/Statcan/23-001-XIB/0020223-001-XIB.pdf.