I recently wrote an article on taxonomy management for the online magazine FreePint. By “taxonomy management” I mean taxonomy maintenance, governance, and long-term planning. I’m not going to repeat that article here, because you can look it up. The short version is available without a subscription: “The Care and Feeding…
Category: Taxonomists
The Remote Taxonomist
One of the characteristics of taxonomy work is that taxonomists can work remotely from their managers, colleagues, or clients, and many do. It’s not because those attracted to taxonomy work specifically want to work from home. Rather, taxonomy work is a narrow specialty, in which relatively few people are sufficiently…
Mentoring Taxonomist Program
In my last blog post, I discussed the need for mentoring taxonomists and mentioned that I had volunteered to lead the new mentoring committee of the Taxonomy Division of SLA (Special Libraries Association) and establish its mentoring program (http://taxonomy.sla.org/get-involved/mentor). While some of the mentoring activities are available to members only,…
Mentoring Taxonomists: The Need
As explained in Chapter 2 of my book on an introduction to taxonomy creation, The Accidental Taxonomist, the majority of taxonomists did not intend to be taxonomists, and they come to the field by accident from various backgrounds. What this means is that most people who find they want to…
The Accidental Taxonomy Consultant
It’s well known that most taxonomists become taxonomists by accident, as the title of my book attests. As I look back on my career, I see this progression continuing one step further in accidentally becoming a taxonomy consultant.Not all consultants are accidental, though. Bright college graduates in the social sciences…