Faceted taxonomies—those that allow users to limit or filter search results by selecting terms or attributes from each of several types/aspects—are becoming increasingly common. They are easy and effective for end-users with various abilities in searching. When it comes to designing facets, some of the facets and their terms for…
The Accidental Taxonomist Blog
Related Terms in Taxonomies and Thesauri
One of the benefits of a taxonomy is that there are relationships between the terms to support navigating to find the most suitable term. This could be the multi-level hierarchical browsing from broader terms down to more specific narrower terms. In a strict definition of a taxonomy, the only required…
Subject Searching: Why a Taxonomy, Thesaurus, or Controlled Vocabulary Still Helps in the Age of Search
Subjects, topics, index terms, keywords, controlled vocabulary, thesaurus, taxonomy. These all refer to an organized, precise way to find and retrieve desired information, where that information has been indexed to terms. Indexing content with subject terms can be manual or automated, but in either case the focus is on what…
Taxonomies for Filtering and Sorting
Taxonomies are versatile and may be used for various purposes. Originally designed to support hierarchical browsing of topics linked to content, they also may be implemented to support more accuracy in searching. Most discussions of taxonomies have focused on browse and/or search, but taxonomies may function in additional ways: enhancing…
Best Practices for Different Taxonomies
A question was recently posted to a group: “I’m wondering if anyone knows of a standard for designing taxonomies for industrial components (widgets).” So far, no one has replied. To clarify, taxonomies for different subject areas and different content don’t have different standards. Standards, whether for interoperability, such as SKOS,…
Engaging Others in Taxonomy Building
Whether you are building a new taxonomy from scratch or redesigning one based on an existing taxonomy, it’s important to engage other people in the process. There are two primary reasons: getting input from those who will use the taxonomy, so that it will better suit their needs getting buy-in…
Auto-categorization and Taxonomies
Taxonomies and thesauri are only truly useful if their terms are appropriately indexed or tagged to content. My path to taxonomist had been as an indexer, so I always value the importance of human indexers. Nevertheless, I must acknowledge that automated indexing, also called auto-categorization, is becoming increasingly common and…
Taxonomies for Specific Business Needs
Designing controlled vocabularies to meet specific business needs was the topic of my latest conference presentation at Taxonomy Boot Camp London on October 17. There are two aspects to this topic: (1) the type of controlled vocabulary to choose, and (2) whether to have the same controlled vocabulary or distinct…
Vocabulary Management Issues
“Issues in Vocabulary Management” is the latest Technical Report (TR-06-2017) published by the National InformationStandards Organization (NISO), approved on September 25, 2017. I had the honor of serving on its working group, specifically on its subgroup for Vocabulary Use/Reuse. The most significant NISO publication for controlled vocabularies is ANSI/NISO Z39.19-2005…
Taxonomies in SharePoint
Controlled vocabulary metadata, including hierarchical taxonomies, has been supported in SharePoint since its 2010 version, and its use and features have been enhanced is succeeding versions of SharePoint. While it’s not technically difficult for users to create taxonomies and apply their terms to content items in SharePoint, developing a metadata/taxonomy…