Taxodiary – Access Insights

Raising a Glass to Rich and Complicated Words

By Melody Smith|December 29th, 2014|Access Insights, Featured, Taxonomy, Term lists|Comments Off on Raising a Glass to Rich and Complicated Words

As we anticipate the approaching new Gregorian year, those of us who are taxonomists are looking forward with renewed anticipation to the taxonomic challenges that certain kinds of words bring. Take “glass”, for example. “Glass” is one of those words that contain an abundance of possible meanings. Ironically, this poses the potential for ambiguity. What makes this particular situation even more ironic is that this ambiguity clouds the very clarity that the word often symbolizes. Ambiguous words are tricky to work with in constructing and developing taxonomies and thesauri. Moreover, they make the writing of effective indexing rules challenging. Taking care in the crafting of those rules becomes all the more important, because of the need for disambiguation.

The Ghosts of Concepts Future

By Melody Smith|December 22nd, 2014|Access Insights, Featured, indexing, Taxonomy, Term lists|Comments Off on The Ghosts of Concepts Future

As taxonomists, we have a responsibility to discern those future concepts, although they may still be invisible to most. We can save the various expressions of those concepts in search logs from being rejected from consideration for a vocabulary simply on account of their as yet infrequent appearance. In a taxonomy or thesaurus, we can provide labels that will consolidate the indexing for a concept for which researchers have not yet settled on a name. In some cases, especially with widely used vocabularies, we can perhaps determine the name by which a concept will be known on a standard basis.

The Gift of SMEs

By Melody Smith|December 15th, 2014|Access Insights, Featured, reference|Comments Off on The Gift of SMEs

A typical thesaurus construction project for a scholarly publisher, policy clearinghouse, medical institution, or any other client with a technical vocabulary involves the input of a number of stakeholders.

Webinar Addresses Effective Semantic Strategy

By Melody Smith|December 11th, 2014|Access Insights, Business strategy, News, semantic|Comments Off on Webinar Addresses Effective Semantic Strategy

There are many pieces that need to fit together to implement a semantic strategy. Just as the instruments in an orchestra combine to provide a beautiful sound, a semantic strategy can provide a wonderful platform for your user community to enjoy. To really make it work, however, you need to understand each instrument and how to organize them for the best effect. Register today and plan to attend the webinar - Orchestrating an Effective Semantic Strategy Webinar on December 16 from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. (Mountain Time).

Access Innovations Named to EContent’s Annual Top 100 Companies

By Melody Smith|December 8th, 2014|Access Insights, Featured, metadata|Comments Off on Access Innovations Named to EContent’s Annual Top 100 Companies

Access Innovations, Inc., a leader in digital data organization, is proud to announce its inclusion for the fourth time on EContent magazine’s annual list of the top 100 companies in the digital content industry in the category of SEO and Search Analytics.

Passive Searching for KM Taxonomy Resources

By Melody Smith|December 1st, 2014|Access Insights, Featured, search|Comments Off on Passive Searching for KM Taxonomy Resources

"The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot."  (Michael Althsuler) In past blogs we’ve already looked at several ways to actively search the open web for taxonomy, thesaurus, and ontology resources. Today we’ll consider a few tools that enable passive – “set it and forget it” – searching. In these passive search methods, the searching doesn't require the user’s continuous and direct attention. This search strategy allows you to turn your attention elsewhere while the tool trawls the web for content that is of interest to you. Let’s consider…

Additional Active Searching Techniques for Taxonomy Resources

By Melody Smith|November 24th, 2014|Access Insights, Featured, Taxonomy|Comments Off on Additional Active Searching Techniques for Taxonomy Resources

To continue our theme from last time: “For every minute spent in organizing an hour is earned” (Unknown). This quotation helps us remember the importance of developing online search techniques that will help you “save” time (or, at least allocate your time wisely!). Previously, we looked at keyword searching on the open web and in full-text search environments. Today, let's consider another active search technique. This one takes advantage of online website directories.

Access Innovations Delivers Thesaurus for AAAS

By Melody Smith|November 17th, 2014|Access Insights, Featured|Comments Off on Access Innovations Delivers Thesaurus for AAAS

Access Innovations, Inc. is pleased to announce the delivery of an extensive thesaurus for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Check It Out

By Melody Smith|November 11th, 2014|Access Insights, News, Taxonomy|Comments Off on Check It Out

The first volume in a series about creating and maintaining taxonomies is now available. "The Taxobook: History, Theories, and Concepts of Knowledge Organization" is written by our own Margie Hlava.

The Use of Data in Election Cycles

By Melody Smith|November 10th, 2014|Access Insights, Business strategy, Featured, metadata|Comments Off on The Use of Data in Election Cycles

Election Day has once again come and gone. Incumbents are ousted, bills are passed, and the political ads have finally stopped, so now the fallout begins. But regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, there’s one thing you can be sure of: lobbying groups and political campaigns have utilized Big Data to try to secure your vote and will place an increasing amount of importance on it. On a smaller level, data analysis been happening in this realm for years, but really, it became huge during President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.