User:Brian Swidal/sandbox

=Thesaurus of Indexing Terms (Federal Register)=

The Thesaurus of Indexing Terms is a finding aid created by the Office of the Federal Register in cooperation with other Federal Agencies and the public. The intent of the thesaurus is to support the public information function of Federal Register publications by standardizing, wherever possible, the language used to describe Federal regulations.

Purpose
Under the Federal Register Act, the Administrative Procedures Act, and the Freedom of Information, Privacy, and Government in the Sunshine Acts, the public's right to know and participate in the day-to-day activities of their Government is protected through the compliance by Government agencies to publish rules, proposed rules, meetings, record systems, and administrative procedures in the daily Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations.

As the increasing number of Federal Register pages and CFR volumes along with the growing complexity of regulatory subject matter made it difficult for the average user to pinpoint pertinent information quickly and easily, the Office of the Federal Register proposed the creation of a thesaurus or vocabulary of indexing terms to be used in identifying, indexing and retrieving information contained in the Federal Register and its related publications.

Scope
The Federal Register Thesaurus is a basic indexing vocabulary for Federal regulations which are published in the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations. It includes indexing terms that describe the specific program regulations of individual agenciese as well as general administrative regulations common to all agegncies. The indexing terms included are intended to express and organize the often technical regulatory conceptes in research terms familiar to laypersons.

Use
The Office of the Federal Register uses the Thesaurus as the basis for teh subject entries in the Index and Finding Aids volume accompanying the Code of Federal Regulations. The volume is published annually as of January 1. Federal agencies also use the Thesuarus to prepare the List of Subjects which is included in rule and proposed rule documents submitted for publication in the Federal Register.

Background
The impetus to create a standardized list of indexing terms was proposed in the daily Federal Register of April 24, 1974.

List of Subjects
On January 22, 1981 the Office of the Federal Register published a final rule requiring Federal agencies to identify major topics and categories of persons affected in thier regulations in standard terms derived from the Thesaurus of Indexing Terms.


 * For regulations exising prior to the effective date of the regulation, agencies were required to prepare a list of index terms for each of its existing CFR parts; and snd the list to the Director of the Federal Register on or before December 31, 1981
 * Beginning April 1, 1982, each agency that submited a document that is published in the Rules and regulations or the proposed rules section of the Federal register, would include a list of index terms for each CfR Part affected and place the list of terms as the last item in the Supplementary Information portion of teh preamble for the document.
 * To prepare the list of indexing terms, each agency shall use terms contained in the Federal Register Tesaurus of indexing Terms. Agencies may include additional terms not contained in the Thesaurus as long as the appropriate Thesaurus as long as the appropriate Theasuarus terms are also used.