I usually explain that a taxonomy is a structured kind of controlled vocabulary, which is list of terms (or concepts) usually used to tag content to aid in its retrieval. The structure can be hierarchical, faceted, or a combination. Other people have defined taxonomies for a general audience in more…
The Accidental Taxonomist Blog
Taxonomies to Bridge Silos
There is increasing interest in organizations to “break down silos” of content and data. Silos may be different software applications, distinct web or intranet content, or merely different computer drives and folders. The goal is to enable search and retrieval across content that is stored in different content/document management systems…
The Accidental Taxonomist, Third Edition
The third edition of my book, The Accidental Taxonomist, will officially be published November 7, but discount preorders are now being accepted for both print and ebook, and I just received advance printed copies, so now is a good time to talk about. Details of the book are on its website. For those who…
Taxonomies and Semantics
How are taxonomies related to “semantics”? I considered this question, as the latest conference I participated was SEMANTiCS, the European conference of semantic technologies, which took place this year in Vienna, Austria, September 13 – 15. Topics presented and discussed in this conference included ontologies, knowledge graphs, semantic models and…
SKOS-XL for Taxonomies
I recently posted about SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System). If you have read anything about SKOS, then you might have come across SKOS-XL (SKOS Extension for Labels) and wondered what that is. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) released its recommendations for SKOS and SKOS-XL at the same time in 2009…
Taxonomy Challenges Discussed at SLA Conference
When it comes to conferences dealing with the subject of taxonomy creation, implementation, and maintenance, without a doubt Taxonomy Boot Camp and Taxonomy Boot Camp London are by far the best conferences for their content, speakers, and networking opportunities. However, there are other conferences that have sessions on taxonomies. The…
SKOS Taxonomies
Over the 26 years that I have been involved in controlled vocabularies, thesauri, and taxonomies, the biggest change I have seen in the field is the adoption of SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System) as a schema model and standard. If you are creating taxonomies exclusively within a single system (such…
A Taxonomist Community
Taxonomists and others whose work involves taxonomies have not been a unified professional community. Taxonomy development work is interdisciplinary, spanning different specializations, and different organizational functions, including the following: Information services taxonomies and thesauri, developed by those with a background in library/information science, thesauri, and cataloging, and possibly indexing Product/ecommerce…
Polyhierarchy in Taxonomies
A defining characteristic of taxonomies is that terms/concepts are arranged in broader-narrower hierarchies, which may resemble tree structures. A limited number of top concepts each have narrower concepts, which in turn may have narrower concepts, etc., and the narrowest concepts at the bottom of the hierarchy are sometimes referred to…
Taxonomy Quotes
Taxonomies are very valuable, but not always easy to define, and they are described in various ways. They are also interdisciplinary, as taxonomies are developed by people in different fields for slightly different, yet similar purposes. I have heard various comments about taxonomies over the decades. In the earlier years…