Introduction

The aim of this chapter is to give readers an easy-to-digest overview of the issues, requirements, practical steps and possible pitfalls of building a taxonomy, or controlled language, for use in an organization. It is designed for those with some background knowledge and familiarity with the associated terminology. As every taxonomy project is different, the value that information professionals can offer is to help organizations implement the appropriate solution to meet their objectives. A great taxonomist is partcompulsive organizer, part-techie and part-diplomat.

The author has been working with taxonomies and other knowledge organization systems for a number of years and draws on her practical experience to provide a loose outline of the steps taken in building and implementing taxonomies. The chapter is divided into five sections, which deal with the full lifecycle of a taxonomy project, from inception to creation and then to ongoing maintenance. It may be that not all five steps are relevant to every project. For example, if the taxonomy has already been implemented in the business but is now undergoing a review, then only the later sections of the chapter will be pertinent. However, the tips and experience in every section will be useful no matter where someone is starting from.

Why do businesses need taxonomies?

Business objectives and taxonomies

Taxonomies are tools by which we can divide up information so that items which are similar are to be found together, differentiated from each other where appropriate, and described using language which their users understand. They provide organizations with a stable, agreed set of controlled terms for use in a particular application. Taxonomies and other knowledge organization systems are needed because they are a means to organize, manage and direct information. Many organizations, no matter how small, handle large volumes of data, which must be processed in some way to enable it to become meaningful, findable and, for customer-facing products, financially valuable. Increasingly, organizations also deal with more diverse sources of data than ever before, and taxonomies are a way to apply consistent metadata to these streams. Ten years ago, it was common for information systems to be built assuming that the power of free-text search was enough to enable users to find relevant and specific results.