Hierarchies vary depending on the kind of knowledge organization system, so you cannot assume that a hierarchy in one system converts to a hierarchy in another system
Category: Thesauri
What is a Thesaurus and What is it Good For
A thesaurus has the benefits of supporting more semantics than a taxonomy while not being as complex as an ontology.
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…
Synonyms, Alternate Labels, and Nonpreferred Terms
“Synonyms, Alternate Labels, and Nonpreferred Terms” is the title of my next conference presentation in October and in a different, briefer co-presented format as “How Many Synonyms Should You Have?” in November. So, now would be a good time to explore the topic in this blog. Designations “Synonyms” is…
Vocabularies and Controlled Vocabularies
I have long considered a taxonomy as a particular, structured kind of controlled vocabulary. More recently, however, I have been hearing of “vocabularies” without the word “controlled” in front, although still for the purposes of information management and retrieval, which is cause to wonder: are controlled vocabularies and vocabularies the…
One or More Taxonomies
In the various definitions of taxonomy, one aspect of the definition that is often missing is what constitutes a single taxonomy (or thesaurus) versus multiple related taxonomies (or thesauri). If you hire a taxonomy consultant, they won’t tell you because they will defer to their client’s terminology. If you are…
Indexing vs. Thesaurus Creation
The activities of back-of-the-book indexing, document/digital asset indexing, and thesaurus/taxonomy creation all require similar skills, but each has its own unique requirements. Indeed a typical career path toward an accidental taxonomist is to first work as an indexer. You might think that the two kinds of indexing are similar to…
Taxonomies vs. Thesauri
Two taxonomy consulting projects I worked on last year seemed to lend themselves more to the development of a thesaurus than a set of hierarchical taxonomies. But clients usually ask for a taxonomy and not a thesaurus. Perhaps we need to ask what is in mind with the notion of…