MultiTes is a company who provide software for creating thesauri, taxonomies and vocabularies. They produce the thesaurus management products: MultiTes Pro and two add-on products MultiTes WDK (Web Deployment Kit) and MultiTes EDK (Enterprise Deployment Kit). The type of thesaurus that this software creates would be defined by Rosenfeld and Morville as ‘classic’ in that it incorporates both searching and indexing functionalities in a vocabulary controlled by the three main term relationships (associative, hierarchical and equivalence) (2006, p. 209). Its MultiTes Pro software allows users to create and manage a controlled vocabulary via a thesaurus. MultiTes Pro is currently the most popular single-user commercial software package. This has been attributed to its longevity (it was released in 1983) and its reasonable pricing (Hedden, 2010, p. 151). For a single user the cost is very low at US$ 295 with US$ 165 as an annual maintenance cost.
The MultiTes Pro package does not enable publishing and is available for use on a single workstation, thus further add-on software is required to publish the thesaurus to the web. This add-on software is called MultiTes WDK. It is this software that truly provides the online, interoperable services that facilitate searching, linking and updating. Their MultiTes EDK software allows the thesaurus to be exported and published on corporate servers. Therefore, it would be necessary to purchase and use at least the Pro and WDK add-on software for utilisation on an enterprise website, intranet or online database. Information architects would also need to evaluate the necessity and cost of purchasing annual maintenance, the full EDK version is US$ 1950 per site. Although the add-on software elements in the MultiTes suite are necessarily used together for web applications, our evaluation will be focussing on the thesaurus creation tool.
The centrality of online database, and the “availability of the internet, the worldwide web and countless other net-works has created a demand for seamless access across multiple heterogeneous resources”(Clarke, 2010, p. 43). The MultiTes WDK software specifications claim that it enables use from multiple sites, across multiple workstations (Multisystems, 2005-2009). The information architect would need to make sure that this access is convenient and appropriate for all of the site’s stakeholders. That is, making sure that it allows easy access for staff on different operating systems on different networks. This would have to be compliant with budget specifications, as MultiTes charge incrementally depending on the number of users or servers. They provide specifications, free tutorials and a downloadable trial version for testing pre-purchase.
MultiTes Pro and WDK software specifications state that they abide by International Standards for thesauri, (ISO 25964-1 Information and documentation — Thesauri and interoperability with other vocabularies — Part 1: Thesauri for information retrieval).
References
Clarke, S. D. (2010). Thesaurus standards on a converging track. Legal Information Management, 10(1), 43-45.
Hedden, H. (2010). Accidental Taxonomist. Retrieved from ebrary Academic Complete
Morville, P., & Rosenfeld, L. (2006). Information architecture for the World Wide Web. (3rd ed.). Sebastopol, Calif.: O'Reilly Media.
Multisystems. (2005-2009). Our products: MultiTes WDK Retrieved 11 Sep 2012, from http://www.multites.com/productsWDK.htm