Kekal Abadi 29(1) 2011 Controlled Vocabulary in the Digital Age Muhamad Faizal Abd Aziz University of Malaya Library mfaizal@um.edu.my Abstract Libraries are undergoing changes from managing traditonal to hydrid informaton. With the rapid development in IT, especially the Internet, libraries need to establish a standard to manage the informaton such as having a controlled vocabulary. This artcle describes the underlying factors in the digital age for the establishment of controlled vocabulary. Abstrak Perpustakaan kini sedang mengalami perubahan dari segi pengurusan maklumat, iaitu secara tradisional kepada hibrid. Dengan perkembangan pantas teknologi maklumat (IT), terutama internet, perpustakaan perlu membangunkan satu piawaian untuk perbendaharaan kata terkawal (controlled vocabulary). Artkel ini menerangkan faktor-faktor asas untuk membangunkan perbendaharaan kata terkawal dalam era digital. to achieve consistency in the descripton of content objects and to facilitate retrieval. Basically, the need for vocabulary control arises from two basic features of natural language which are: (i) two or more words or terms can be used to represent a single concept and (ii) two or more words that have the same spelling can represent diferent concepts. Controlled vocabulary can be simply defned as a list or collecton of terms or words available for use. In library and informaton science, controlled vocabulary is a carefully selected list of words and phrases, which are used to tag units of informaton (document or work) so that they may be more easily retrieved by a search. To get a beter understanding of controlled vocabulary let us look into the defnitons below. Wikipedia.com gives a defniton of controlled vocabularies as providing a way to organize knowledge for subsequent retrieval which are used in subject indexing schemes, subject headings, thesauri and taxonomies. According to Larson (1998), controlled vocabulary is the atempt to provide a standardized and consistent set of terms (such as subject headings, names, classifcatons, etc.) with the intent of aiding the searcher in fnding informaton. Introducton Libraries are undergoing change from traditonal to hybrid and currently to the electronic or virtual library. Challenges faced by librarians are tremendous in maintaining the collecton and services. As we witness the development of the physical library, we should not forget the development of its content or collecton. Today, libraries are not only holding just books, but also diferent kind of informaton and formats whether in printed, audio, digital, and electronic resources available on the web which have substantally increased in the recent years. The resurgence of interest in controlled vocabularies in the recent decade is related to the development of contents and format of library materials. Basically, these are caused by three main factors, which are: Development of Internet Technology, Development in Integrated Library System and Variatons of Informaton Content and Format. All these factors are seen as reasons why researchers and librarians are paying more atenton in the vocabulary control actvites. In this artcle, the defnitons from various sources, history and development will be discussed. Defniton of Controlled Vocabularies Before looking at the defniton of the term ‘controlled vocabularies’ (CVs), we need to know why controlled vocabularies are important and what are the efects of not having it. Vocabulary control is used to improve the efectveness of informaton storage and retrieval system, web navigaton systems, and other environments that seek to both identfy and locate desired content via some sort of descriptons using language. The primary purpose of vocabulary control is