Taxonomy Warehouse Update

Factiva has three new partners for the Taxonomy Warehouse. These are Cycorp, Ibuki, and Intellisophic. These are all featured on the main page. The Taxonomy Warehouse now offers 650 taxonomies produced by nearly 300 publishers in 40 languages and in 73 subject areas. [Source: Information Today, p 41. March 2007)

Using The Thesaurus of Aging Terminology

The Thesaurus of Aging Terminology 8th Edition (July 2005) is available online from AARP (formerly American Association of Retired Persons).

This is a good application for seeing how the thesaurus has been constructed and how it is used to assist in finding materials in the AgeLine Database of articles and studies.

Thesaurus - http://www.aarp.org/research/ageline/thesaurus.html

"The Thesaurus of Aging Terminology is a controlled vocabulary of subject terms (also called keywords or descriptors) used to index all publications cited in AgeLine. Because AgeLine focuses on aging-related topics from a variety of disciplines, the Thesaurus can be very useful in constructing a thorough search of the database, in defining how a term is used in AgeLine, and in identifying references having a major focus on that topic."

It is not the easiest to use. Basically, browse the PDF version of the thesaurus (272 pages), note terms you'd like to use, and do a copy and paste into the AgeLine search form.

"The Thesaurus of Aging Terminology is divided into three sections: Relational Terms, Rotated Terms, and Geographical Terms. The Relational Terms section indicates all levels of relationship among Thesaurus terms. The Rotated Terms section provides an alphabetized columnar listing of all words found within Thesaurus terms. The Geographical Terms section provides a ready reference list of state, province, country, regional, and continent names searchable as Descriptors."

AgeLine Database - http://www.aarp.org/research/ageline/index.html

Search Ageline - there are several options - basic keyword, subject, and multiple options. It covers a great range of aging topics related to health, living, and well being.

Watch for the Descriptors on articles that are displayed, and navigate to other topics.

Taxonomy Boot Camp 2006 Presentations

Two PowerPoint presentations from sessions at the Taxonomy Boot Camp 2006 conference are available from Conference Buzz. There is a short recap of the two days plus:

+ Taxonomy 101 by Marjorie Hlava, Data Harmony - introduces taxonomies and how to create them.

+ Semi-Automated Creation of Faceted Hierarchies Marti Hearst, Berkeley

"Taxonomy Boot Camp 2006 offered nearly 200 enthusiastic attendees the rare chance to focus on taxonomies-all the time-and nothing but taxonomies."

Conference for 2007 is scheduled for November 8-9, 2007 in San Jose, CA.

Earley buys Wordmap

Wordmap Ltd, makers of the the enterprise taxonomy software, has been bought by Earley and Associates, consultants in content management and taxonomies.

See Tantalizing taxonomies, KMWorld (Feb 7, 2007)

Seth Earley, principal of the firm, explained, "An interesting aspect of the Wordmap suite that differentiates it from many products on the market is the integration with content tagging and search. After all is said and done, taxonomies are only useful if they are presented to the user in a meaningful way. Wordmap modules have the ability to do that without a lot of API level coding. The tagging module overcomes many limitations of content management tools in presenting and applying taxonomies for tagging. The navigation module is an easy way to add faceted search (also called guided navigation) without having to acquire additional faceted search tools. In these ways, Wordmap adds value to existing search and content management environments."

Study into Tagging Practices

Patterns and Inconsistencies in Collaborative Tagging Systems: An Examination of Tagging Practices by Margaret E.I. Kipp and D. Grant Campbell, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, University of Western Ontario

Abstract

This paper analyzes the tagging patterns exhibited by users of del.icio.us, to assess how collaborative tagging supports and enhances traditional ways of classifying and indexing documents. Using frequency data and co-word analysis matrices analyzed by multi-dimensional scaling, the authors discovered that tagging practices to some extent work in ways that are continuous with conventional indexing. Small numbers of tags tend to emerge by unspoken consensus, and inconsistencies follow several predictable patterns that can easily be anticipated. However, the tags also indicated intriguing practices relating to time and task which suggest the presence of an extra dimension in classification and organization, a dimension which conventional systems are unable to facilitate.

Taxonomies to enhance search

Two excellent articles by Penny Crosman in Intelligent Enterprise on the use of taxonomies to enhance search.

Search in Focus: Implementing a Taxonomy (Dec 2006)

" Search engines don't know the difference between reading glasses and drinking glasses, but a taxonomy puts your query in context. We outline several ways to build taxonomies, ranging from the tough but potentially more accurate approach of building from scratch to the easier but potentially compromised approach of buying a prebuilt taxonomy or using automated clustering software. "

Select from http://www.intelligententerprise.com/
toc/?day=01&month=12&year=2006

The Perfect Search (March 2006)

"Google-style search is all right for some, but an enterprise search demands a mix of technologies and techniques that lead to better accuracy."

Select from http://www.intelligententerprise.com/
toc/?day=01&month=03&year=2006

Taxonomy Warehouse

Factiva Expands Taxonomy Warehouse Partner Network , Press Release (Dec 19, 2006)

"Factiva, a Dow Jones and Reuters Company, has added three new partners to its Taxonomy Warehouse Partner Network. Austin, Texas-based Cycorp, Los Altos, Calif.-based Ibuki, and Paoli, Pa.-based Intellisophic join the Taxonomy Warehouse Partner Network, which currently includes Thomson Gale and WAND, to bring together a collection of taxonomies, thesauri, and classification schemes to its global customer community."

Taxonomy Warehouse is at www.taxonomywarehouse.com

Seamark Navigator 4.1

Siderean will organize unstructured data by extracting the "metadata". It is notable for its navigation. The new release, Seamark Navigator 4.1 " features a number of visualization enhancements designed to interactively present relationships, analyses and trends." Of interest, this version introduces "Tag Library" support for enhancing user customization."

The Librarians' Internet Index uses Siderean to provide navigation to its subject directory.

See Easing navigation in KMWorld (Nov 8, 2006)

Factiva Taxonomy Warehouse

Taxonomically speaking in KMWorld (Oct 23)

"Factiva has introduced an enhanced version of its Taxonomy Warehouse, a community directory and information source for taxonomies, thesauri and classification schemes. It is said to provide enterprises, as well as academic and government organizations, the information required to categorize internal and external data collections and ensure that relevant answers to search queries are found with speed and precision, Factiva reports."

View and search the Taxonomy Warehouse at http://www.taxonomywarehouse.com/index.asp

Endeca Moves to Version 5.0

Endeca Information Access Platform 5.0 Released, by Avi Rappoport, Newsbreaks (Oct 16)

Endeca has been long known for its faceted search. Online shoppers will know it from the Walmart and Home Depot websites. With version 5.0 Endeca is adding "relationship discovery, extended data source integration, and greater business control."

"Version 5.0 has a new feature called Relationship Discovery, which leverages a richer metarelational index that can support ad hoc dynamic connections for related content. This content can then be displayed using visualization tools pioneered by business intelligence, such as charts and graphs."