I am looking forward to attending and presenting at my 8th Taxonomy Boot Camp conference next week. What makes this conference special is that it is very much both a professional and a commercial/industry conference, whereas most conferences tend to be one or the other. In other words, it is…
Category: Taxonomists
Independent Taxonomy Work
Are you an aspiring taxonomist looking for work? Because taxonomies tend to be project-based tasks, a lot of taxonomy work is freelance, contract, or consulting. I have written on this topic in my book, but that was over four years ago, and I have seen or experienced many taxonomy jobs…
A Professional Association for Taxonomists
I recently attended the SLA annual conference, which this year was in Vancouver, BC, June 8 – 11. This year marked the 5th anniversary of the professional association’s Taxonomy Division, its newest and fastest growing special interest group. The Taxonomy Division plans the programming of all taxonomy-related sessions for the…
Taxonomy Management Consulting
I recently wrote an article on taxonomy management for the online magazine FreePint. By “taxonomy management” I mean taxonomy maintenance, governance, and long-term planning. I’m not going to repeat that article here, because you can look it up. The short version is available without a subscription: “The Care and Feeding…
The Remote Taxonomist
One of the characteristics of taxonomy work is that taxonomists can work remotely from their managers, colleagues, or clients, and many do. It’s not because those attracted to taxonomy work specifically want to work from home. Rather, taxonomy work is a narrow specialty, in which relatively few people are sufficiently…
Mentoring Taxonomist Program
In my last blog post, I discussed the need for mentoring taxonomists and mentioned that I had volunteered to lead the new mentoring committee of the Taxonomy Division of SLA (Special Libraries Association) and establish its mentoring program (http://taxonomy.sla.org/get-involved/mentor). While some of the mentoring activities are available to members only,…
Mentoring Taxonomists: The Need
As explained in Chapter 2 of my book on an introduction to taxonomy creation, The Accidental Taxonomist, the majority of taxonomists did not intend to be taxonomists, and they come to the field by accident from various backgrounds. What this means is that most people who find they want to…
The Accidental Taxonomy Consultant
It’s well known that most taxonomists become taxonomists by accident, as the title of my book attests. As I look back on my career, I see this progression continuing one step further in accidentally becoming a taxonomy consultant.Not all consultants are accidental, though. Bright college graduates in the social sciences…