Taxonomy
Keeping Things Clear
In a controlled vocabulary, we strive for disambiguation, the restriction and clarification of meaning. We want to determine and clarify what exactly is meant by each term. Reading could mean a town in England or it could be a communication process. We might have the word ‘cells’, meaning biological microsystems or electrical equipment or prison housing or other things. You can have a terrorist cell. Cell is a broadly used term, and without some kind of a modifier around it, we can’t be sure what it is exactly.
Read MoreSupporting the Role of Taxonomists
The new phase of the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) Open Access Support Project (EOASP) started last month, but with some slight changes in the eligibility criteria. The goal of the EOASP project is to increase the data flow into EOL, promoting the open access publishing model in taxonomy. Education is also part of the project as they value the importance of supporting and educating the next generation of taxonomists in open science principles.
Read MoreWe’re Going, Are You?
The annual Frankfurt Book Fair will take place October 9-13, 2013 and is considered the most important marketplace for books, media, rights and licenses worldwide. The trends in publishing change faster than it is sometimes possible to keep up. The Frankfurt Book Fair brings all the new technology and innovations together in one location.
Read MoreTerms and Style
Taxonomists like to view a vocabulary as a literary work, which is more artistic when the style is consistent and cohesive. Consistency – which leads to predictability when searching or browsing – also makes it easier to avoid unintentional inclusion of multiple preferred terms for a single concept.
Read MoreGovernment Agencies Looking for Big Data Solutions
The national archives for managing federal records, NARA, maintains more than 12 billion pages of physical records, 42 million photographs, and 500 terabytes of electronic records. Now that puts a new perspective on big data.
Read MoreTaxonomy of What?
This interesting and somewhat alternative taxonomy fell on my radar today and I couldn’t resist. Humor me. It is Friday, after all.
Read MoreHometown Memories Online
I was reading my hometown paper today online. I am from a small town in Seymour, Indiana. In fact, “the small town” referred to in John Mellencamp’s so-named 80’s hit. The leading story was about digitizing records to make search work faster and with more comprehensive results. These deja vu moments almost surprise me in a very pleasing sort of way. It is like the universe is saying, “you made the right choices.”
Read MoreSome Thoughts on Vocabulary Control
A large part of what we work on in taxonomy development is vocabulary control. Our classification of knowledge involves designing controlled vocabularies and getting them into a form that we can use many, many times. We also have to do some linguistic analysis of the data to make sure that our terms are working correctly.
Read MoreNew Release Increases Findability
Instem has released version 8.4 of its Sequence Retrieval System (SRS). This data integration platform is scalable and used in over 300 sites, both commercial and academic. Version 8.4 includes support for indexing data using Apache Lucene technology. Geeks World brought this news to our attention in their article, “Instem Releases Next Version of SRS Data Integration Platform.”
Read MoreA Different Perspective
What is better than one interesting and slightly humorous taxonomy? Two, you say? How about three?
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