A source of published controlled vocabularies (taxonomies, thesauri, ontologies, etc.) can be useful for different purposes. Sometimes, finding a vocabulary to license and reuse is the objective, whereas in other cases finding a vocabulary to consult as a source for confirming individual terms and relationships is the goal. Thus, different…
The Accidental Taxonomist Blog
Synonyms, Alternate Labels, and Nonpreferred Terms
“Synonyms, Alternate Labels, and Nonpreferred Terms” is the title of my next conference presentation in October and in a different, briefer co-presented format as “How Many Synonyms Should You Have?” in November. So, now would be a good time to explore the topic in this blog. Designations “Synonyms” is…
Who Are Accidental Taxonomists?
Turning to the name of this blog, who are the accidental taxonomists? I sought an answer to this questions through some of the questions of a survey I conducted of taxonomists to gather information on the opening chapter of my book, and more recently I looked at the job titles…
Taxonomies vs. Thesauri: Practical Implementations
The differences between taxonomies and thesauri and when to implement which has been a subject of previous presentations of mine and a previous blog post, Taxonomies vs. Thesauri. Most recently, a presentation of a case study of controlled vocabularies at Cengage Learning, which I gave at the “Taxonomy Café” session…
Taxonomy Design for Content Management Systems
A very common implementation for taxonomies is in content management systems (CMS). The content managed in this kind of software can be diverse: office application files, PDF documents, image files, audio files, video files, and, in the case of web content management systems, also HTML and any kind of file…
“The Accidental Taxonomist,” 2nd edition
Recently I was asked what I added to the newly published 2nd edition of my book, The Accidental Taxonomist. The additions and changes are summarized in the book’s preface, so I have decided to post the entire preface here, which follows: When I published the first edition of The Accidental…
Taxonomy Books
I am pleased to announce the 2nd edition of The Accidental Taxonomist. The print edition is available to order from the publisher, Information Today Inc., now, and will be available from various online retailers by early June. Ebook versions will follow. So, this is a good time to survey other…
Free Taxonomy Management Software
There is always an interest in free taxonomy or thesaurus management software. Many people who create taxonomies try to save money on purchasing taxonomy management software by simply not using any taxonomy management software but something else they already have, such as Excel. Those who are developing either very large…
Polyhierarchy in the SharePoint Term Store
Last year I had the opportunity to create some taxonomy in the SharePoint Term Store (also called Managed Metadata), and while I am pleased that hierarchical taxonomies are supported in this widely used platform, I had some concerns about the support of polyhierarchy, as information about this capability is inconsistent.…
Vocabularies and Controlled Vocabularies
I have long considered a taxonomy as a particular, structured kind of controlled vocabulary. More recently, however, I have been hearing of “vocabularies” without the word “controlled” in front, although still for the purposes of information management and retrieval, which is cause to wonder: are controlled vocabularies and vocabularies the…