Access Insights
On the Cusp of DHUG
Next week will be the 11th Annual Data Harmony Users Group (DHUG) meeting here in Albuquerque. By far, the biggest week of the year for Access Innovations as our clients come from all over the nation to meet and learn from the people who built the software and use it on a daily basis.
Read MoreA Newbie’s Guide to DHUG, Part 2
It’s hard to believe that the Data Harmony Users Group Meeting starts a week from today. If I thought things were buzzing in the office a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t know what was in store for me. And since there’s so much to do, it’s definitely at the front of my mind.
Read MoreGroundhog Day: Names and Recursions
I’m sure you’re all just like me and waiting anxiously to hear the results from Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, whence this very day we will find out from Punxsy Phil whether spring will come early this year or we have to wait six more weeks (pro tip: it’s always going to fall on March 20th, or occasionally, the 21st). As ridiculous as the holiday might seem to me, though, there are things about groundhogs and Groundhog Day that are pretty interesting.
Read MoreBob Kasenchak Named Head of Product Development at Access Innovations, Inc.
Access Innovations, Inc. is pleased to announce an exciting change to its corporate structure, a change designed to increase revenue and maximize the considerable talent of its staff.
Read MoreA Newbie’s Guide to DHUG Meetings
The biggest week of the year at Access Innovations is almost upon us. Every year, we present Data Harmony Users Group (DHUG) meeting, where our esteemed clients come from all over the nation to meet and learn from the people who built the software and use it on a daily basis. Right about now, there starts to be a lot of buzz around the office. There are a lot of people coming to Albuquerque for this, and everyone here is pretty excited to swap ideas with them, because they’ve come up with some interesting uses of our software, things that have made us better in the process.
Read MoreA Celebration of Roget’s Taxonomy
Later this week is January 18th, which for taxonomists is notable for two things: 1) it’s Thesaurus Day; and 2) it’s the birthday of Peter Mark Roget. This double occurrence is no coincidence. We may consider Doctor Roget to be the inventor of the thesaurus (or at least one of its pioneers), and a person whose birthday is cause for taxonomists’ celebration.
Read MoreMarjorie M.K. Hlava’s Taxobook Published by Morgan Claypool
Access Innovations, Inc. is proud to announce the publication of The Taxobook, a three-volume series on taxonomies and thesauri, written by Marjorie M.K. Hlava, president of Access Innovations. The three volumes are part of a larger series, Synthesis Lectures on Information Concepts, Retrieval, and Services, edited by Gary Marchionini, Dean of the School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and published by Morgan & Claypool Publishers.
Read MoreRaising 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.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreThe 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.
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