SummaryRosalyn Rudran Bruno202004-03-26T13:21:00Z2004-03-26T13:21:00Z18124634Dell Computer Corporation3810543611.6113SummaryThis document was developed by the Local Authority Websites (LAWs) Project, Information Architecture & Standards Strand. It builds on the APLAWS Category List of April 2002 and prior versions of LGCL with contributions from local authorities via regional workshops, APLAWS+ piloting and direct input.LGCL is made available for use, without guarantees and without licensing costs, by local authorities, community organisations and any other bodies referencing local and community resources.Key Design CriteriaThe following decisions have been made with respect to LGCL:It is poly-hierarchical (ie each term may appear more than once in the hierarchical structure. A term will have the same meaning wherever it appears).It provides a controlled vocabulary suitable to apply to subject metadata.Terms flagged as ‘categories’ provide a default local authority Web site navigation hierarchy from which individual Web sites may deviate to include more or less levels of detail in some areas and to accommodate varying information requirements between authorities.It includes one preferred term and any number of non-preferred terms for each concept.Once added, terms are never be removed from the List (subject to the exceptions in moving from mono- to poly-hierarchical in version 1.01). Terms may move position in the hierarchy between versions and may move between ‘preferred’ and ‘non-preferred’ for a concept.The List includes non-preferred terms, volunteered by local authorities, and related terms. Certain terms are identified as suitable for inclusion in the ‘A to Z’ page of a local authority Web site. Some terms are associated with standard shortcuts proposed for adoption by authorities.The XML version of the List provides scope notes for and version history information for terms.Major Changes and NotesThere has been a major revision of the entire list so that it conforms to a better default navigational list as well as keeping to the rules of a controlled vocabulary. To this end, where possible, the list at category level is restricted to three levels deep.There has been a revision of narrower categories to ‘Business’. In 1.02, business licences were not explicitly mentioned. In 1.03, a new second level category, ‘Business and street trading licences’ has been introduced. New terms that relate specifically to business licences have been added as narrower terms to this concept. The addition of ‘Business and street trading licences’ affected the terms that appeared narrower to ‘Business sectors and services’. In 1.03, five new broad business sector categories have been introduced. The terms that appeared under this branch have now been moved and changed to non-preferred in other appropriate concepts.‘Housing’ has been reorganised because the old structure, at category level, was not sufficient to express the entire range of housing issues. There were gaps in the structure and it was more appropriate to form a considerably new structure under this top level concept, than amend it.‘Education’ has been reorganised to a considerable extent because feedback indicated that the groupings in the old structure were inappropriate for the information expected to be disseminated from a typical local authority. The new structure is more suitable for navigation purposes.Non-preferred terms have been separated into one of four distinct types. In 1.03, a non-preferred term is a ‘synonym’, an ‘acronym’, a ‘misspelling’, or a ‘search term’. With the exception of search terms, all other types of no-preferred items will only apply to one concept.Further instances of profile (audience) and document types have been removed and, where applicable, have been substituted with a new term. For example ‘Judges’ has been made a non-preferred term and ‘Legal professions’ is now the preferred term for the concept.Higher level terms are flagged as ‘categories’. All mappings to other lists are for terms flagged as categories (as opposed to lower level terms)Mappings to both GCL and LGSL have been reviewed and revised. Higher level terms revised to map more evenly to LGSL services. The rules governing mapping between lists remain unchanged.Version 1.03 includes a substantially larger number of A-Z terms, as feedback suggested that this was very useful for local authorities. However, shortcuts remain largely the same.Further non-preferred terms added.Version 1.03 changes are expected to be the last major changes at the higher ‘category’ level. After version 1.03 the List goes into routine maintenance through esd-toolkit.Further ReferenceGuidance notes are published at: http://www.esd.org.uk/LGCLGuidanceNotes.pdf.LGCL in various formats with supporting resources can be found at:http://www.esd.org.uk/lgcl/. Resources include mappings between LGCL and the following other controlled lists:APLAWS category list (ACL)Government Category Lists (GCL)Local Government Services List (= ‘PID List’) (LGSL)CommentsOngoing revisions to the List, including addition of synonyms will be via the esd-toolkit Web site.Local government officers can raise queries and comments on the List via the forums at http://www.esd-toolkit.org.Comments can also be sent to laws@esd-toolkit.org.