Monday, April 16, 2018

Librarians are increasingly finding reasons to create taxonomies or related knowledge organization systems. They may need to classify a special collection or local archives, develop a thesaurus to index a local or institutional periodical, create a controlled vocabulary for tagging pages or posts in a web content management system, or merely categorize a large collection of resource links. This workshop, taught by the author of The Accidental Taxonomist, provides instruction and best practices tips on designing and maintaining taxonomies for practical use. Design considerations include whether to create a taxonomy or thesaurus, whether a taxonomy should be primarily hierarchical or faceted; how large it should be; whether synonyms/variants are needed and if so, how many; what the sources are for the terms; and what the guidelines are for properly creating hierarchical relationships. The outline of the workshop is as follows: introduction, definitions, types, uses, benefits; creation and wording of terms; sources for terms; synonyms, alternative labels, nonpreferred terms; term relationships; structural design: hierarchies and facets; maintenance and governance; and taxonomy management software.