I recently attended the SLA annual conference,
which this year was in Vancouver,
BC, June 8 – 11. This year marked
the 5th anniversary of the professional association’s Taxonomy Division, its newest and fastest growing special
interest group. The Taxonomy Division plans the programming of all
taxonomy-related sessions for the conference, enough sessions so that attendees
interested in only taxonomies can find a session of interest for most of the
programmed time slots.
The Taxonomy Division comes closest to a professional
organization for taxonomists and provides a good networking opportunity. The
founding of this Taxonomy Division five years ago was the reason that I joined SLA, since I am not a librarian. (I was an accidental
taxonomist after all.) SLA stands for “Special
Libraries Association” but the organization now favors the acronym over the
name that it once stood for, and members are increasingly referred to as
“information professional” or “info-pros” instead of librarians. This label
better fits taxonomists. In addition to the annual conference programs, the
Taxonomy Division also has bi-monthly webinars, a mentoring program, and other
resources for its members.
A selection of half-day pre-conference workshops, called “continuing
education” sessions, are an important part of the SLA annual conference, and this
year two of the five such workshops were on taxonomy topics (“Introduction to
Taxonomies” and “Taxonomy Integration: Content Management, Navigation and
Search”) and were organized by the Taxonomy Division, despite the fact that SLA
has 25 Divisions. Regular session topics included taxonomies and metadata, eDiscovery,
semantics, SharePoint, and from-scratch taxonomy creation
(my presentation).
Not only does the Taxonomy Division organize
taxonomy-related conference sessions, but it also organizes networking events
at the annual conference, including an informal no-host dinner and a more
formal networking event that is part of the conference program. Both division
members and anyone else interested in taxonomies are welcome to attend these
events. There is typically a mixture of experienced taxonomists, who likely
already know each other from previous conferences, and those new to taxonomies
and would like to learn more.
The SLA conference is a
great place for taxonomists to network and learn from each other, but it is not
necessarily the place to hear the latest trends in taxonomies. “Current Topics
in Taxonomies” was the title of an informal roundtable session, but its
discussions were more about sharing experiences. At the four roundtables, with
on average seven people per table, some of the discussions involved experienced
taxonomists giving advice to the less experienced for specific taxonomy
implementation issues. The latest topics or trends are not necessarily the
subject of regular sessions either, since the program is planned close to a
year in advance. On the other hand, the field of taxonomies is not one that
changes that much year to year. It is rather business and technology trends
that change.
If you are new to taxonomies, then the SLA
conference is a great place to learn a lot, through both the various sessions
and pre-conference continuing education workshops. If you are an experienced
taxonomist then SLA is a great way to network
with other taxonomists and get inspired to speak at future conferences. I am
looking forward to speaking at SLA in Boston in
June 13-16, 2015. See you there, in my home city!
