The necessity of design and codification of a Persian folk medicine thesaurus

Background and Purpose:

Medical Library and Information Sciences is an auxiliary field in medical sciences that have undergone significant development in recent years. Increasing generation of information in a variety of formats is a major challenge that demands referring to databases. Hence, information storage and retrieval systems seek to address these needs using tools such as thesauri. On the other hand, among the triad sources of Persian medicine, folk medicine had not received much attention so far. Therefore, the present study seeks to answer the need to develop a Persian folk Medicine Thesaurus.

This research, based on a descriptive-analytical method, attempts to show lack of attention to this branch of human knowledge while sorting the thesauri in the classification and the division of sciences. Also, it explains the theoretical and valid foundations of compiling controlled thesauri by searching reference texts in Library & Information Sciences.

A relatively large corpus of thesauri in different categories of science and technology (especially thesauri in the sub-categories of medical sciences, medical history, health promotion, first aid, etc.) has been prepared and compiled in Persian language, and software and hardware facilities and infrastructures has been provided to some degree. Nonetheless, lack of codified thesauri is very noticeable in the field of folk culture, anthropology and ethnography in Persian.

Compilation of thesauri in specific topics is foreseen and recommended in reference texts and thesaurus. Considering the increasing volume of information produced in Persian in the field of folk medicine and the availability of various infrastructures, it is necessary to compile a Persian folk medicine thesaurus.