The Accidental Taxonomist

by Heather Hedden

Overview

The Accidental Taxonomist is the most comprehensive guide available to the art and science of building information taxonomies. Heather Hedden—a leading taxonomy expert and instructor—walks readers through the process, displaying her trademark ability to present highly technical information in straightforward, comprehensible English. In this fully revised second edition, Hedden provides updates on taxonomy standards, development techniques, and career opportunities for taxonomists. She presents fresh survey data and offers new and expanded coverage of such critical topics as taxonomy testing, metadata, linked data, and SharePoint. Drawing on numerous real-world examples, she explains how to create terms and relationships, select taxonomy management software, design taxonomies for human versus automated indexing, manage enterprise taxonomy projects, adapt taxonomies to various user interfaces, and more.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781573879187
Publisher:	Information Today, Inc.
Publication date:	05/24/2011
Series:	The Accidental Library Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Heather Hedden has been active in developing and editing taxonomies since 1995. She has worked as an independent consultant (Hedden Information Management, www.hedden-information.com) and currently is a senior vocabulary editor at Cengage Learning. Heather is also an instructor of taxonomy development through the continuing education program of Simmons College School of Library and Information Science. Heather is the author of Indexing Specialties: Web Sites (2007), the chapter “Controlled Vocabularies, Thesauri, and Taxonomies” in Index It Right! Advice From the Experts (Vol. 2, 2010), and the chapter “Indexing Arabic Names” in Indexing Names (2012), all of which are published by Information Today, Inc., on behalf of the American Society for Indexing (ASI). She has also published numerous journal articles.

Table of Contents

Figures and Tables vii

Foreword Patrick Lambe xi

Acknowledgments xvii

About the Website xix

Introduction xxi

Chapter 1 What Are Taxonomies? 1

Definitions and Types of Taxonomies 1

Applications and Purposes of Taxonomies 15

Taxonomies for License 24

History of Taxonomies 28

Chapter 2 Who Are Taxonomists? 39

Backgrounds of Taxonomists 40

Taxonomist Skills 50

Related Duties 53

Employment of Taxonomists 56

Chapter 3 Creating Terms 67

Concepts and Terms 67

Identifying Concepts 71

Choosing the Preferred Term 77

Term Format 83

Precoordinated Terms 86

Notes and Attributes 90

Chapter 4 Creating Relationships 97

Equivalence Relationships and Nonpreferred Terms 98

Hierarchical Relationships 110

Associative Relationships 119

Hierarchical/Associative Ambiguities 125

Semantic Variations for Relationships 127

Chapter 5 Software for Taxonomy Creation and Management 135

Software Not Designed for Creating Taxonomies 136

Thesaurus Software 143

Single-User Desktop Thesaurus Software 150

Large-Scale Thesaurus Systems 154

Free and Open Source Software 163

Other Software With Taxonomy Management Components 165

Chapter 6 Taxonomies for Human Indexing 171

What Is Human Indexing? 171

Terms, Relationships, and Notes for Indexers 178

Taxonomy Structure and Indexing Interface 182

Taxonomy Updates and Quality Control 187

Managing Folksonomies 193

Chapter 7 Taxonomies for Automated Indexing 199

Automated Indexing, Search, and Taxonomies 199

Automated Indexing Technologies 205

Software for Auto-Categorization 216

Creating Taxonomies for Automated Indexing 225

Chapter 8 Taxonomy Structures 231

Hierarchies 231

Facets 244

Multiple Vocabularies and Categories 252

Chapter 9 Taxonomy Displays 257

Thesaurus Displays 258

Hierarchical Taxonomy Displays 268

Fielded Search Displays 280

Chapter 10 Taxonomy Planning, Design, and Creation 289

Planning for a Taxonomy 290

Enterprise Taxonomies 303

Taxonomy Creation Process 310

Taxonomy Governance 316

Chapter 11 Taxonomy Implementation and Evolution 321

Taxonomy Interoperability 322

Taxonomy Updating 326

Combining Taxonomies 331

Multilingual Taxonomies 343

Chapter 12 Taxonomy Work and the Profession 349

The Nature of Taxonomy Work 349

Taxonomists as Contractors 353

Education and Training 359

Organizations, Networking, and Resources 370

Appendix A Survey of Taxonomists 377

Appendix B Glossary 381

Appendix C Recommended Reading 399

Appendix D Websites 407

About the Author 415

Index 417