The Accidental Taxonomist, Third Edition

The third edition of my book, The Accidental Taxonomist, will officially be published November 7, and I just received  advance printed copies, so now is a good time to talk about. Details of the book are on its website. For those who wonder how this edition differs from the prior edition, I discuss that in the preface of the 3rd edition, which I have copied here.

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I am thrilled that taxonomies are as relevant now as they were when I was writing my first edition in 2009 and second edition in 2015 and even more so. Some people had previously thought that improved search algorithms would largely replace the need for taxonomies, but users want to be able to select search refinement terms, and the greater adoption of search has led to more taxonomies. Some thought that AI technologies of text analytics and auto-classification might replace human-created taxonomies, but, on the contrary, they made taxonomies more valuable. Some thought that ontologies would replace taxonomies, but instead ontologies have connected and extended taxonomies, providing additional uses for taxonomies. Innovations and trends in digital content and data have given rise to new uses for taxonomies, including support for recommendation, personalization, data-centric enterprise knowledge management, voice of the customer analysis, and chatbot design.

There are signs of interest in taxonomies in various places: social media posts, conference presentations and workshops in a greater number of different conferences, and a continued strong enrollment trends in my online taxonomy course. Taxonomy consultants I know are doing well with business. A search on “taxonomy” in Google Trends shows a continued steady interest in the term since around 2006. Members of the Taxonomy and Ontology Community of Practice LinkedIn group has grown from 3,330 in 2015 to 5,564 in June 2022. More people continually get involved in taxonomy work, as our survey of taxonomists indicates relatively more people with fewer years of experience. (See Appendix A, Question 2.) The number of jobs for taxonomists continues to increase, as evidenced by repeated taxonomy job searches over the years on job boards, job alert postings, and direct queries colleagues of mine have reported receiving from recruiters. The trend toward remote work, especially for knowledge workers, has opened up more job possibilities for taxonomists, who are no longer limited by their geographic location, which had previously been an issue for this very niche specialization. We may soon see more digital nomad taxonomists living and working all over the world.

Meanwhile, as I have continued to engage in taxonomist discourse, consulted for more taxonomy clients, and attended and created new conference presentations, I have continued to learn more and thus refine how I understand and explain taxonomies. It is time that this book also catches up to how I have been explaining taxonomies in my most recent presentations and workshops. I have even revised my thinking on the definitions and types of controlled vocabularies, so the definitions and types section of chapter 1 has been rewritten in this edition. Also in the first chapter, additional uses for taxonomies have been included.

In addition, perspectives on taxonomies have gradually changed, and I am finally catching up. One of the main updates to this third edition has been to move decisively from the traditional thesaurus model and adoption of the language of the SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System) with respect to taxonomies. Most significantly this means referring to concepts and their labels and not to terms. An oft repeated phrase is that it’s about “things, not strings.” Concepts are things, whereas terms, as words or phrases, are merely strings (of text). This has also involved removing the equivalence relationship section from the chapter on relationships and adding a section on alternative labels to the chapter Creating Concepts and Labels (which has been renamed from Creating Terms).

When I updated the 2nd edition, I was working at the time for a library database vendor, so my perspective was somewhat biased toward that industry and use case, despite having had experience has a consultant too. Now, with not only more consulting experience in the interim, but from the perspective of working for a taxonomy software vendor, I see better the varied uses and implementations of taxonomies. As a result, I have changed number of the examples. I also made updates to the chapter on manual tagging (formerly called human indexing) and replaced many references to “indexing” with “tagging,” in recognition of the more commonly used term, although they are not identical. I had entered this field as an indexer, but I should no longer let my indexing roots influence my perspective. I also cut out some information on thesauri, such as details of the various thesaurus print display formats.

This edition features a new chapter on ontologies. This is not merely because ontologies may be of interest to taxonomists, but because ontologies in business and industry are increasingly created as an extension of existing taxonomies thus enabling taxonomies to serve more purposes. A convergence of taxonomies and ontologies is now possible with SKOS-based taxonomies, whereby both taxonomies and ontologies are based on RDF and other W3C standards. I am also seeing more taxonomist/ontologist hybrid jobs posted.

Technologies and vendors change, so the chapters on software and auto-categorization needed updating. There have been evolving trends in software, such as the ability to connect and integrate with other systems through APIs, instead of exporting and importing taxonomies, and including auto-tagging within the same tool. Other updates include data from a new survey, nearly all new screenshots, and updated information on taxonomy courses, conferences, and other resources in the final chapter. About half of the chapter head quotes are also new.

In case you missed it in the preface to the second edition, the updates from the first to the second edition (and thus also updates between the first and the third edition) include the following: managing taxonomies in SharePoint, the relationship between taxonomies and metadata, reference to updated ISO standards of 25964 of 2011 and 2013, the introduction of the SKOS standard, and improved explanations on planning and designing taxonomies, along with results of a new taxonomist survey and software information updates.

"The Accidental Taxonomist," 2nd edition

Recently I was asked what I added to the newly published 2nd edition of my book, The Accidental Taxonomist. The additions and changes are summarized in the book's preface, so I have decided to post the entire preface here, which follows:


When I published the first edition of The Accidental Taxonomist, I knew that changes would be needed within a couple of years, mostly to reflect the changes in thesaurus management software vendors, as software is a volatile industry characterized by new companies, acquisitions, and some vendors going out of business. It was also expected that the website examples, given as screenshots in the book, would change. As it turned out, the changes were more widespread than anticipated. I ended up replacing all screenshots and adding some new ones (totaling 44), since even existing software vendors or websites had updated their user interfaces. More than half of the various website URLs found throughout the book also had to be updated.

In the area of software, what I did not anticipate was that software changes have gone beyond just who the vendors are and what features vendors have added. There have also been some notable trends, such as in the adoption of Semantic Web standards, the convergence of taxonomy and ontology support, and more web-based, cloud/software-as-a-service offerings. Thus, in addition to adding more software vendors (and removing a few), I have also added a short section summarizing all of these software trends.

Also with respect to software, the first edition made no mention of SharePoint, since SharePoint 2010, the first version to support taxonomies, came out the same year my book did. So this new edition includes some discussion of managing taxonomies in SharePoint. There is not the space here to go into all the details, so I explore specific topics, such as managing polyhierarchy in SharePoint, on my blog, also called The Accidental Taxonomist.

The standards have changed too. ANSI/NISO Z39.19 2005 Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of Monolingual Controlled Vocabularies was reaffirmed in 2010, but more significantly ISO 2788 Guidelines for the Establishment and Development of Monolingual Thesauri and 5964 Guidelines for the Establishment and Development of Multilingual Thesauri have been replaced by ISO 25964 Thesauri and Interoperability with Other Vocabularies, Part 1 in 2011 and Part 2 in 2013. This is not merely a reorganization of parts. The changes also comprise new content in the area of interoperability, including the exchange of taxonomy data and mappings between vocabularies. Now ANSI/NISO Z39.19 is coming due for a new version, but it is a long process. With an eye to a wider international audience, in this edition I cite the ISO standard along with the ANSI/NISO standard whenever relevant.

In addition to the change in the ISO thesaurus standard, there is also a change involving the wider adoption of other kinds of standards, most significantly those associated with the Semantic Web. Although development had begun earlier, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) formally released the SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System) standard only in August 2009, when I was busy finalizing my manuscript for the first edition, before the extent of the eventual adoption of SKOS was known. Now it is quite common for taxonomy management software to follow the SKOS specifications of concept modeling and taxonomy output. So, more attention to SKOS is given in this edition.

Another trend, which was already underway at the time I wrote my first edition, but which I simply did not bother to consider in detail, is the convergence of metadata and taxonomy. So, I have added a short section on the topic. I needed the intervening years to actually work in areas where taxonomies and metadata meet, whether through consulting or in a department called Metadata Standards and Services, before I felt I could say something original on the subject.

As for the people who do taxonomy work, the accidental taxonomists, I conducted a new survey, which has shown that their backgrounds remain as diverse as they were when surveyed six years prior, but there are new stories and examples of how people got involved in this type of work and what they like about it. Meanwhile, the opportunities for taxonomists continue to grow. I executed the exact same search for jobs in fall of 2009 and again in fall of 2015, on the job board aggregator Indeed.com, and found the numbers of currently posted openings had significantly increased.

Although I considered myself quite experienced with various taxonomies at the time I wrote the first edition, I have continued to gain additional taxonomy work experience since, so here and there throughout the book I have added information based on further reflection. Thus, in the chapter on planning and designing a taxonomy, I have added some advice regarding designating facets for enterprise taxonomies, questions to ask during stakeholder interviews, how to conduct stakeholder workshops, and methods of testing taxonomies.

I had also started writing my blog the year after the first edition, but the blog post topics are not the same as the additions to this book. The Accidental Taxonomist blog allows me to explore tangents in more detail, and this book is already longer than needs to be!

Taxonomies are interesting in that some things about them are fundamental and do not change, such as the notion of a concept, its varied names, its hierarchical and nonhierarchical relationships with other concepts. But, as anything related to information technology, there are things about taxonomies that do change, such as how they are managed, implemented, and utilized. Thus, it is not only the varied subject matter that makes taxonomy work interesting, but also the various implementations and opportunities to take advantage of in new technologies, such as those related to the Semantic Web and Linked Open Data. Although this new edition addresses these topics, my ongoing blog will cover further considerations in such areas.

Taxonomy Books

I am pleased to announce the 2^nd edition of The Accidental Taxonomist. The print edition is available to order from the publisher, Information Today Inc., now, and will be available from various online retailers by early June.  Ebook versions will follow. So, this is a good time to survey other books on taxonomy creation.

When I wrote the first edition in 2009, I had looked into other books about taxonomies that were published at the time. Following is what I had written in my proposal to the publisher regarding the “competition,” including my comments at the time and how my book would fill a gap. (The only change I have made below is updating the prices, which are the list prices, but lower prices can usually be found through online retailers.)

• Lambe, Patrick. Organising Knowledge: Taxonomies, Knowledge and Organisational Effectiveness. Oxford, England: Chandos Publishing. (2007)
  This book is well-reviewed, but published in the UK and somewhat expensive. It takes a somewhat broader approach, looking at knowledge management and not just taxonomies. It is aimed more at the business professional, manager, consultant, rather than the practicing taxonomist. It can be a bit overwhelming to the new MLIS grad or the indexer curious about getting into taxonomy construction. [$70.00]

• Stewart, Darin L. Building Enterprise Taxonomies. Portland, Oregon: Mokita Press. (2008)
  This book is self-published and not well marketed. It was created to as a book for an online course taught by the author at the University of Oregon Applied Information Management Master’s degree program. Its reviews are generally good. The book is focused on enterprise taxonomies only, though. Its index is horrible. [$39.99]

• Jagerman, Evert J. Creating, Maintaining and Applying Quality Taxonomies. Zoetermeer, Netherlands: E.J. Jagerman. (2006)
  This book is self-published (Lulu.com) and not well marketed, published in the Netherlands, and only 152 pages.  I have not found any reviews of it. [$43.62]

• King, Brandy E. and Kathy Reinold. Finding the Concept, Not Just the Word: A Librarian's Guide to Ontologies and Semantics. Oxford, England: Chandos Publishing. (2008)
  Like Lambe’s book Organising Knowledge, this book is also published by Chandos Publishing in the UK and is rather expensive. It is focused on only ontologies and not other kinds of taxonomies, and its audience is research librarians. The inclusion of four case studies is interesting, though. [$61.81]

• Aitchison, J., A. Gilchrist, and D. Bawden. Thesaurus Construction and Use: A Practical Manual (4th ed.). Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn. (2000)
  This book is limited to traditional information retrieval thesauri, is somewhat out of date (based on a first edition published in 1972), published in the UK and rather expensive. [$125.95]

• Broughton, Vanda. Essential Thesaurus Construction. London: Facet Publishing. (2006)
  This book is limited to traditional information retrieval thesauri, scholarly and not well marketed, published in the UK and rather expensive [$85.00]

• Bailey, Kenneth D. Typologies and Taxonomies: An Introduction to Classification Techniques (Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences series) Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications. (1994)
  This is a short monograph of under 100 pages and focuses on cluster analysis (whatever that is) written by a professor of sociology with a focus on research methods. It is mathematically too technical for most readers. [$15.46]

Of the aforementioned books, the one that I would recommend, and I recommend highly is Patrick Lambe’s Organising Knowledge. The book is indeed worth its price, but is probably more suited for readers who are serious about taxonomies and not merely curious about them.

In the intervening six years a few more books about taxonomies or controlled vocabularies have been published, and I have looked at the following: 

• Harpring, Patricia. Introduction to Controlled Vocabularies: Terminology for Art, Architecture, and Other Cultural Works. Los Angeles: Getty Publications. (2010)
  This book is focuses on classification schemes, taxonomies, thesauri, or other controlled vocabularies for indexing information within a limited subject area and especially for museum works. It is an excellent book for that purpose, but less relevant for taxonomies or controlled vocabularies in general or for other purposes. [$50.00]
• Abbas, June. Suctures for Organizing Knowledge: Exploring Taxonomies, Ontologies, and Other Schemas. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers. (2010)
   book gives a broad treatment of knowledge organization systems. While it does not provide detailed instructions on how to create a taxonomy or another type of system, the comprehensive and thorough coverage puts taxonomies, controlled vocabularies, and other classification schemes into perspective and context, and thus is very informative book. [$93.00]

• Hlava, Marjorie H.K. The Taxobook. (series) Morgan & Claypool Publishers. (2015)
  This book is published as a series of three separate volumes: Part 1: History, Theories and Concepts of Knowledge Organization (54 pages); Part 2: Principles and Practices of Taxonomy Construction (117 pages); Part 3: Applications, Implementations, and Integration in Search (128 pages). The first volume has some interesting insights, but is not information that is needed for practical purposes. The second volume explains the basics of taxonomies and how to create them. The third volume presents more unique information on taxonomy implementation, but may be aimed at others than those who create taxonomies. [$150 for the series, or $50 for each volume]

For more in-depth information on some of these books, I have published book reviews in Key Words the journal of the American Society for Indexing, and have PDF copies on my website:

    Lambe, Patrick. Organising Knowledge

    Stewart. Building Enterprise Taxonomies

    Harpring. Introduction to Controlled Vocabularies

    Abbas. Structures for Organizing Knowledge

    Hlava. The Taxobook 

As for where The Accidental Taxonomist fits in, I would consider it the most practical and instructional book on how to create taxonomies and thesauri for all kinds of uses. It is clearly aimed at the practicing taxonomist, as the title implies, especially since the core of the book came out of an online course I had developed a year and half prior. It also has unique information about the field of taxonomy work. It’s also not expensive ($39.50 list price, with discounts periodically available). So, if you already own the first edition, you should consider buying a copy of the second edition as well, which has new information on taxonomy software, SharePoint, metadata, taxonomy testing, etc., a new taxonomist survey, and all new screenshot graphics. Thus, another benefit of The Accidental Taxonomy, 2nd edition, is that it's the most up-to-date book on the subject.