Survey questions (without answers) from Appendix A “Survey of Taxonomists,” (pp. 463-462) in The Accidental Taxonomist, 3rd edition.
To purchase the published survey with all answers, ($15), please email Heather Hedden at heather@hedden.net.
- To what extent do you create and/or maintain taxonomies or other controlled vocabularies?
- My primary job responsibility
- One of my job responsibilities, but secondary
- Manage taxonomists or taxonomy projects, while also doing at least some taxonomy review work
- A special project, not in my job description or an originally expected responsibility
- Work done as contract/freelance often
- Work done as contract/freelance only occasionally
- How long have you been doing work on taxonomies or other controlled vocabularies?
- Less than 1 year
- 1-2 years
- 2-4 years
- 4-6 years
- 6-8 years
- 8-10 years
- 10-15 years
- 15-20 years
- Over 20 years
- How long have you been doing work specifically called “taxonomy”?
- Less than 1 year
- 1-2 years
- 2-4 years
- 4-6 years
- 6-8 years
- 8-10 years
- 10-15 years
- 15-20 years
- Over 20 years
- What is your current employment situation?
- Employee of an organization that uses taxonomies primarily internally, for its website, or in ecommerce
- Employee of an organization that incorporates taxonomies into an information product or information service, which it sells/offers
- Employee of a company or agency that provides taxonomy services or custom taxonomies to clients
- Independent contractor or freelancer (obtaining work primarily through subcontracting, agencies, other third parties, or as a temp employee)
- Consultant or business owner/partner (obtaining work primarily from direct clients)
- If you selected either the first or second response in question #4 (if you are an employee but not in consulting), where do you fit into your organization?
- Content management/content strategy
- Documentation/technical writing
- Editorial
- IT
- Knowledge management
- Library
- Marketing
- Operations
- Product development/product management
- Search
- User experience
- Other (please specify)
- What is your job title?
- What degree(s) do you hold?
- Less than a BA/BS
- BA only (4-year college)
- BS only (4-year college)
- MA
- MS/M Eng.
- MLS/MLIS
- MBA
- PhD/doctorate
- Other advanced degree
- What is your study or training specifically in the field of taxonomy or classification?
- Concentration/specialty within a degree program
- Two or three college/university credit courses (but not a specialization)
- One college/university credit course
- Continuing education course or workshop
- Conference or professional seminar workshop
- On the job formal training
- On the job informal learning and experience
- Self-taught through reading
- Prior to your work in taxonomies, which best describes your professional background?
- Content management/Web content/Content strategy
- Database design, development, or administration
- Document management
- Indexing
- Knowledge management
- Librarian
- Marketing/Sales
- Project management
- Records management
- Software/IT
- User experience/Information architecture
- Writing, editing, or publishing
- None/Student
- Other (please specify)
- In your current position, what are your primary taxonomy-related activities?
- Design/model new taxonomies or other vocabularies, determining structure type and policies
- Based on an established model, develop and build out new taxonomies or other vocabularies
- Edit, update, or maintain taxonomies or other vocabularies
- Map (such as crosswalks), merge, integrate, or restructure existing taxonomies or other vocabularies
- Write auto-categorization rules for taxonomies or other vocabularies
- What software do you primarily use to work on taxonomies or other controlled vocabularies?
- Commercial, dedicated thesaurus/taxonomy/ontology management software
- Open-source, dedicated thesaurus/taxonomy/ontology management software
- Commercial software, of which taxonomy management is a feature, module, or component
- An internally developed thesaurus/taxonomy management system
- Other commercial software not intended for taxonomies (such as a word processor, spreadsheet, or database management software)
- Which of the following describes the implementation and use of taxonomies or vocabularies you work on?
- For content organization, search/findability, and retrieval by internal users (employees)
- For content search/findability and retrieval by external users (customers, subscribers, members, partners, prospects, patrons, the public)
- For both internal users and external users
- What is the size of the controlled vocabularies you typically work on?
- Under 50 concepts per vocabulary
- 50-100 concepts
- 100-500 concepts
- 500-1500 concepts
- 1500-5000 concepts
- 5000-10,000 concepts
- Over 10,000 concepts
- How are your current taxonomies/vocabularies linked to content?
- By manual tagging or indexing
- By auto-categorization/auto-indexing
- Some of each
- Don’t know
- Are you familiar with and generally try to follow any of the following national or international standards: ANSI/NISO Z39.19 (2005) Guidelines for Construction, Format, and Management of Monolingual Controlled Vocabularies and ISO 25964 Information and documentation—Thesauri and interoperability with other vocabularies?
- Don’t know these standards and thus don’t follow them.
- Have read at least some of these standards, but don’t follow them.
- Generally, keep these standards in mind and apply what is relevant, but not strictly.
- Attempt to follow these standards closely and refer to them as needed.
- What do you enjoy about taxonomy work?
- What are pain points or challenges in your taxonomy work?
- How did you first get started doing taxonomy work?
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