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 whose 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.

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The Ghost of Taxonomies Present

Wouldn’t it be splendid if, in the ‘spirit’ of Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Present, we could use taxonomies to accomplish lofty goals such as cure and eradicate sickness; promote international understanding; promote justice and social harmony; and lessen and eradicate poverty?

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Taxonomy Workshop Available

Before you sign off for the holidays, consider starting your new year out with some educational learning. Our own Margie Hlava will be the instructor for a workshop titled, Taxonomy Essentials. This will be held on January 21, 2014 in Denver, Colorado.

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PLOS Celebrates Milestone

Public Library of Science (PLOS) is celebrating the publication of its 100,000th article, an achievement that represents the efforts of authors, editors, reviewers and staff from more than 200 countries. This exciting news was found on the PLOS site in their post titled, “PLOS Celebrates Milestone.”

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A Thousand Terms of Light

Last week, my co-workers and I were discussing points of knowledge. The phrase “a thousand terms of knowledge” popped up. It was apparently an off-the-cuff mingling of “a thousand points of light” with “points of knowledge” and with one of the topics of the moment, thesaurus terms. I couldn’t resist following up on the mixture, which has a precedent of sorts in an earlier TaxoDiary blog posting by Marjorie Hlava.

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Access Innovations Celebrates 35th Anniversary

Albuquerque-based Access Innovations, a leader in semantic enrichment, celebrates its 35th anniversary this month.

Officially incorporated on November 8, 1978, Access Innovations began like many other entrepreneurial enterprises — with a great idea, a few energetic people, and a little bit of capital. The company’s first headquarters was the kitchen of president and co-founder Marjorie M.K. Hlava’s home.

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