Taxonomy Development Process Checklist

Librarians Kathryn Breininger and Mary Whittaker at the Boeing Library in Seattle identified seven stages to creating a taxonomy in their presentation at the Internet Librarian conference October 2007. Their 6-page handout, the Taxonomy Development Process (pdf), is a useful checklist for the questions to ask, tasks, outputs, and possible deliverables for each of the seven stages.

Seven stages are:

1. Determine taxonomy requirements
2. Identify concepts - where is the content and what do the users think?
3. Develop draft taxonomy
4. Review with users and SMEs
5. Refine taxonomy
6. Apply taxonomy to content
7. Manage and maintain taxonomy