Sarah Downs joined the Synaptica team as Director of Client Solutions earlier this year. For this Insights interview, we found out more about Sarah's experiences, being a client of Synaptica...
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Legacy in Language There are potential or new clients who come to us with a definitive version of their taxonomy, typically in a spreadsheet format like CSV or Excel. The...
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Records Management According to ARMA International, “Records Management is the professional field dedicated to information that rises to the level of importance that requires ongoing maintenance, whether it be for...
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A Single Taxonomy Controlled vocabularies are meant to provide a single source of truth for terminology. Within the enterprise, the goal of a taxonomy program is to have one or...
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Hierarchy Depth “Taxonomy” has become the de facto term for most types of controlled vocabularies, including flat lists, authority files, simple hierarchies, or thesauri. Whether we choose to be pedantic...
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For our Insights series we talked with Helen Lippell and Bob Kasenchak about Taxonomies: Practical Approaches to Developing and Managing Vocabularies for Digital Information. This curated anthology by Helen Lippell...
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Concept Names Language is inherently ambiguous. The dream to create universally agreed-upon, standardized conceptual language will be extremely difficult. We can achieve widely-accepted consensus, but that’s the silent agreement we...
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Looking Forward I have blogged before about trends in taxonomies and ontologies, particularly based on observations from KMWorld and Taxonomy Boot Camp (in 2017, 2019, and 2020), Taxonomy Boot Camp...
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Ask Who? Taxonomies do not build themselves. Constructing any controlled vocabulary requires, at minimum, input from end users, subject matter experts, and a taxonomist. End users and subject matter experts can provide concepts and their attributes for inclusion...
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Not just NPTs: Thinking in Labels The taxonomy standards (ANSI/NISO z39.19, ISO 25964-1, et al.) were written using the standard thesaural relationships and their abbreviations: BT, NT, RT, NPT (or...
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