Taxonomies and TOCs

Tom Johnson boiled down 200+ slides from a Seth Earley workshop on taxonomies to one very readable summary.

"Seth outlined a three-prong approach to information management:

• Develop a taxonomy.

• Apply the taxonomy to your content.

• Leverage the taxonomy to view your content in different ways."

The workshop fitted in all the parts: taxonomy, folksonomy, inforamtion architecture, metadata, facets. A writer, Johnson noted  the likeness of taxonomy to table of contents:

"That said, although organizing a TOC and building out a taxonomy seem similar, wouldn’t it be much easier to build out the TOC if you already had a taxonomy to refer to? The taxonomy should provide the heavy critical thought already, making the TOC somewhat of a derivative exercise." 

Comments to the post lead to more observations and resources.

Taxonomy, Metadata, and Search: Notes from Seth Earley’s Confab Workshop by Tom Johnson, idratherbewriting.com (June 25)

Business Value of a Taxonomy

Early and Associates is running a free webinar on What is the Business Value of Taxonomy? (Aug 2012)

 "How can taxonomy impact the bottom line of your organization? What are the advantages of taxonomy vs. technology solutions for improving knowledge flow? Join us for a sixty-minute rundown of the theory, practice and business benefits of taxonomy. "

Introduction to Semantic Web

Giving meaning to the Semantic Web by Dan Misener, Globe and Mail (May 31) Wonderfully succinct statement about the semantic web: "The bottom line: The Semantic Web means many things to many people, and therein lies the irony. It's an online movement focused on adding meaning, but its own meaning is far from clear." This is a good introduction to "semantic web" of structure and connections. We may never see it in full force as a personal information agent, but the technology supports some services on the web today. "For example, Google recently announced Knowledge Graph, an effort to improve search results by applying semantics. Mr. Giasson points to both Wolfram Alpha and Apple's Siri as well-known services that use semantic approaches."

If you're working in taxonomies you'll want to join SLA and its Taxonomy Division. It has a new website at http://taxonomy.sla.org with blog and resources - faq, standards, events, presentations. Some materials are open for viewing, and others are for members. Heather Hedden, a leading author about taxonomies, contributes to this site and the SLA community.

An Introduction to the concepts

An Intro to Metadata and Taxonomies by Christine Benson, Brain Traffic (March 29)

Clear, simple definitions of metadata and taxonomy and how the two relate to each other. Good list of references.

Excellent primer on organizing information

Organizing digital information for others from Maisch Nichani at Pebble Road (Feb 23)

This looks interesting - an e-book on organizing information - download or read online. It's somewhat addressed to a web or intranet team, but anyone organizing information for others will get value.

"In this short book, we explore how lists, categories, trees and facets can be better used to organize information for others. We also learn how metadata and taxonomies can connect different collections and increase the findability of information across the website or intranet."

It starts off very well with a concept map of the concepts covered in the book. It explains the concepts simply and gives practical advice and illustrations.

For example, "the first principle of making lists is - all terms used in the list should pass the common knowledge test". It's fun to read, and recommends many excellent resources. Length - 54 pages and closes with a check list.

Very much ecommended. Enjoy.

Taxonomies - relationships

KMWorld's Enterprise Search Newsletter for March 14, 2012, has a very concise explanation of taxonomies with illustrations - a perfect, quick introduction.

Also note the item about concept searching - also pertinent to management of information assets and governance.

Information Architecture in Prezi

Watch a cool presentation on Information Architecture by Mr Findability himself, Peter Morville, that he created using the new Prezi -"powerpoint on steriods" web application.

http://prezi.com/aafmvya6bk7t/understanding-information-architecture/

View from the top

FreePint's new categories developed for easier access to articles in VIP and FUMSI on information tools and strategies provide an excellent definition and introduction to this space. Content managemnent, taxonomy, intranet are only three.


From Big Data Discovery, by Michelle Manafy, Freepint (March 2012)

"It is with this in mind that here at FreePint we are introducing a range of discovery tools to improve our users' ability to determine quickly which information resources are likely to be of value to meet individual needs. First among these is the introduction of FreePint Categories, which provide both solution-oriented (Industry Topics) and job-related (Functional Areas) categorisation. These categories will also be visible with abstracts of articles, to help users more quickly skim and find content worth clicking through and reading (or sharing with staff). These categories draw content from across the entire FreePint family of resources and each category has its own RSS feed so that users can create more targeted content alerts."

Stephanie Lemieux's Favourite Tipples

Taxonomy and content management consultant Stephanie Lemieux offers her favourite sites at the Freepint bewsletter column, My Favourite Tipples (March 2012. She tracks taxonomy development, information architecture, search, user interface dessign - showing the breadth of fields that relate to the taxonomy specialist.

Of interest - Pinterest, the new image social bookmarking tool, is on her list. "...what first drew me was the quickly-growing collection of examples of interesting navigation and search design. It will be interesting to see how the community grows and evolves over time" - and she names some boards.