Introduction: Several controlled vocabularies are used for indexing three journal articles to check if better or equal consistency rates are achieved with a list of descriptors than with a standard thesaurus and augmented thesaurus. Method: A terminology set for library and information Science was used to build a list of descriptors with equivalence relations (USE and UF), a standard thesaurus and an augmented thesaurus (all the descriptors have scope notes). Subsequently, three articles were indexed by selected indexers with varying degrees of experience: on the one hand Library and Information Science students and, on the other, professionals from various documentation centres. Hooper's measure to find the consistency between pairs of novice indexers and experts has been applied. Analysis: Data were tabulated and analysed systematically according to pairs of novice indexers and experts. Results: The tool with the best results is the list of descriptors (39.5% consistency), followed by the augmented thesaurus (29.8%) and, with an almost identical value, the standard thesaurus (27.5%). Conclusion: It is concluded that the list of descriptors in both groups returns better indexing consistency but more research is required. (Contains 7 tables and 6 figures.)