The Finnish Maritime Thesaurus - MESA

The Finnish maritime libraries have together created the Finnish maritime thesaurus which is freely available on the Web. The thesaurus is based on subject fields of STCW Code (Standard of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping). The thesaurus concentrates on special terminology and consists of ca. 1 300 Finnish maritime terms. If a term has an equivalent in Swedish and English, they are also given. Because of the international nature of the special field, there are a lot of English terms, but not all terms have equivalents in Finnish. The abbreviations and acronyms frequently used in maritime field are given in full form in original language without Finnish equivalents. If a term originated in another language than Finnish has no Finnish equivalent, only Swedish and English equivalents are given. Since in practice maritime professionals use slang words more often than actual terms, the thesaurus is being completed with slang words which are marked accordingly. The Finnish Maritime Thesaurus is meant to be used especially for indexing and retrieving of publications related to maritime field. The thesaurus is developed continuously, and feedback can be sent by e-mail to the address meri.kir@kyamk.fi.