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Gives an overview of taxonomies and how they work in websites,
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Principles of Taxonomy
Theresa PutkeyInformation Architect
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What We’ll Cover
• A brief history lesson• A look at modern day taxonomies• Taxonomies purpose and uses• Building a taxonomy• Taxonomy maintenance• Transferring your skills
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Brief History Lesson
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Modern Day Taxonomies
• We have information products that are extremely content heavy
• Managed with CMS, DAM, digital library
• Taxonomies help us re-use content• Taxonomies help users find content
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LISTA
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CBC
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CBC Archives
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Amazon
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Taxonomy Purpose
• Find like items• Improve search results• Disambiguate terms• Differentiate between dissimilar
items
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Taxonomy Use
• Used by an author to find and reuse content
• Used by a customer to find and use content
• Label items with terms• Search on those terms• Browse through the terms
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Copyright (C) Key Pointe Usability Consulting, Inc.
Metadata & Taxonomy
• Metadata is data about data, or information about information. We have a shoe, then we have information about the shoe.
• Some of this information can be assigned by the taxonomy.
Company: HunterStyle: Hunter OriginalColour: PurpleBoot Shaft: Knee HighWidth: M
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What We’ll Cover
We’ve covered:• A brief history lesson• A look at modern day taxonomies• Taxonomies purpose and usesNow we’ll get into:• Building a taxonomy• Taxonomy maintenance• Transferring your skills
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Basics of Building a Taxonomy
• Do a content audit and assign keywords to each component.
• Pull out all the keywords into one list, then consolidate.
• Decide on your controlled vocabulary.
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Ways to Categorize
• Controlled vocabulary refers to an authority list, thesaurus or taxonomy.
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Taxonomies
• Hierarchical and faceted• Outlines relationships between items• Used in computer systems to retrieve
non-physical objects.• Images, content components,
documents, videos.
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Relationships
• Scope Note• Broader Terms• Related Terms• Narrower Terms• Use• Use For
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Hierarchical Taxonomy
• Used when hierarchical structure of items is very important
• Preserves relationships• But can be more difficult to navigate
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Hierarchical Taxonomy Example
Hierarchical Flat Format (Thesaurus)
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Faceted Taxonomy
• Used when attributes are more important than hierarchy
• Easier to navigate• But can hinder someone looking for
hierarchical relationships• Traditionally one facet value from
each facet (but used more casually outside of libraries)
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Faceted Taxonomy
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Faceted Taxonomy
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Taxonomy Review
You may need to teach others how to read and use a taxonomyNeed to work with stakeholders to make sure:• Taxonomy reflects real-world language• BT, RT, and NT are accurate• Nothing is missing• Nothing needs to be removed
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Taxonomy Maintenance
• New content always being created• Some of it may not have a “spot”
and needs to be accommodated• Keywords can be promoted to
taxonomy terms• Weekly, monthly, quarterly reviews• Email list for suggestions and
discussion
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You, a Taxonomist
• Aware of content• Aware of how people use content
(authors and customers)• Know how to classify information
(think indexing)• One of a few people interested and
good at information organization• Volunteer yourself
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What We Covered
We covered:• A brief history lesson• A look at modern day taxonomies• Taxonomies purpose and uses• Building a taxonomy• Taxonomy maintenance• Transferring your skills
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More Resources
• National Information Standards Organization (2004). Understanding metadata. http://www.niso.org/publications/press/UnderstandingMetadata.pdf
• Thesaurus Principles http://willpowerinfo.co.uk/thesprin.htm
• Metadata? Taxonomy? Thesauri? Topic Maps! http://www.ontopia.net/topicmaps/materials/tm-vs-thesauri.html
• Getty AAT http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/aat/
• Hedden, Heather. (2010). Accidental Taxonomist.• Taylor, Arlene G. (2004). The organization of
information, 2nd ed. Westport, CN: Libraries Unlimited.
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Sesame Street Taught Us
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Contact Info
• 604 563 6317• [email protected]• www.keypointe.ca• @tputkey
