Taxonomies may seem like a very niche specialization, but interest keeps growing, as indicated by participation in the conferences dedicated to taxonomies, Taxonomy Boot Camp in Washington, DC (TBC) and Taxonomy Boot Camp London (TBCL). TBC, now in its 14th year, was held November 4 and 5, and TBCL, now…
The Accidental Taxonomist Blog
Managing Tagging with a Taxonomy
A lot of work can be put into designing and creating a taxonomy, but if it’s not implemented or used properly for tagging or indexing, then that work can be wasted. As the volume of content has grown, many organizations have invested in auto-tagging/auto-categorization solutions utilizing text analytics technologies. However,…
SEMANTiCS conference
Summary of the SEMANTiCS conference in Karlsruhe, Germany, September 9-11, 2019
Taxonomy Mapping
As more taxonomies get created, we see a growing need to “map” taxonomies to each other, which is linking between individual terms or concepts in each taxonomy so that the taxonomies may be used in some combination. Mapping is not new, but as it has become more frequent it is now reflected in newer standards and in taxonomy management software features.
Onsite Corporate Taxonomy Training
I enjoy teaching about taxonomies. The feedback I get from my students or workshop participants helps me improve my methods of communication, teaching, and consulting, and I learn about the varied implementations of taxonomies. The courses evolve and improve over time. I teach online courses, conference workshops, and corporate onsite…
Taxonomy Sessions at the 2019 SLA Conference
SLA (Special Libraries Association) offered a good number of taxonomy-related sessions at this year’s annual conference, held June 14-18 in Cleveland, Ohio, thanks to the organizing efforts of its Taxonomy Division. There were enough taxonomy sessions so that there was always at least one session of interest at any time. SLA is a…
Knowledge Graphs and Ontologies
I’ve been hearing a lot about knowledge graphs recently. Corporate and academic implementations have been increasing in recent years, and now the taxonomy community is also taking an interest. Taxonomy software vendors are talking about knowledge graphs in webinars, blogs, and conferences, and knowledge graphs was on the list of…
Taxonomy Software Trends: Convergence and Visualizations
I recently looked more closely into current offerings of taxonomy software to prepare for an upcoming presentation at the SLA conference in Cleveland in June: “Taxonomy Tools and Tool Evaluation.” I will speak about the tools, and my co-presenter, Marti Heyman, will speak about how to evaluate them. I had last contacted…
Knowledge Modeling
I recently presented a webinar on “knowledge modeling.” I usually have spoken or written only of creating controlled vocabularies, or more specifically taxonomies, rather than creating knowledge models. Now, I am beginning to think of knowledge models and knowledge modeling. A knowledge model is not just a fancy buzzword for…
Taxonomy Building Steps
What are the steps to take when building a taxonomy? This question was posted not long ago to a discussion group of which I am member. I referred the person asking to slides of one of my past presentations, “Everything You Need to Know to Start a Taxonomy from Scratch.”…