Taxodiary – Access Insights

Taxonomy’s Third Wave

By Melody Smith|December 27th, 2010|Access Insights, Featured, metadata, ontology, Taxonomy|Comments Off on Taxonomy’s Third Wave

I’ve heard it mentioned several times recently that “Taxonomies are hot again,” which leads to a couple of questions, namely, What is causing this renewed popularity? and, Why did they ever stop being “hot?”

Do our customers make buying decisions or purchasing decisions?

By Melody Smith|December 20th, 2010|Access Insights, Featured, metadata, Taxonomy|Comments Off on Do our customers make buying decisions or purchasing decisions?

One of the problems of information management, as represented by both Master Data Management and Metadata Registry efforts, is a confusion of terms. Have we always referred to "purchasing decisions" or has there been a shift in terms with the merger or the change in management or simply a cultural evolution so that now we're talking about "buying decisions".

Master Data Management

By Melody Smith|December 13th, 2010|Access Insights, Featured, metadata, Taxonomy|Comments Off on Master Data Management

There's a lot of discussion lately about Master Data Management; what it is and isn't. Why is this of interest to the taxonomy practitioner? To a large extent a controlled vocabulary is trying to accomplish the same thing at the conceptual level as MDM is at the data level. MDM removes ambiguity at the data level through a variety of means as described in the item referenced in the above link. The how and why of MDM can provide valuable insight into the data workings of an organization. This can lead to a much more powerful enterprise taxonomy - one that can truly span the vast store of enterprise content. An MDM initiative is an ideal place to insert a taxonomic strategy and implementation. Making the business case for a taxonomy initiative, getting it funded, approved, and implemented will be easier if you can align yourself with an MDM initiative. An MDM deployment to succeed must analyze and potentially process all of an organizations data stores. Resolving data and structural ambiguities is also a great time to resolve conceptual ambiguities.

Changing Ownership Patterns in the Information Industry

By Melody Smith|December 8th, 2010|Access Insights, Business strategy|Comments Off on Changing Ownership Patterns in the Information Industry

What is the Information Industry?

Offshore Keyboarding — How to Choose, What to Look For

By Melody Smith|December 8th, 2010|Access Insights, metadata, Standards|Comments Off on Offshore Keyboarding — How to Choose, What to Look For

As more and more people look into the computerization of their database, whether the internal files are bibliographic or full text, they quickly realize that building a database is highly labor-intensive.

Data Entry: The File Becomes a Reality

By Melody Smith|December 8th, 2010|Access Insights, indexing, metadata|Comments Off on Data Entry: The File Becomes a Reality

In previous columns, we have discussed many of the basics of preparing the data for a computerized file. We have stressed being sure that the editorial policy and individual rules are set consistently so that the data may be easily retrieved once it is entered into that big black box called the computer. The next and very important step is computerization of the data, or converting already-computerized data to match the specifications of the hardware and software system you are going to run your file on--an exciting but exacting task. The data can be made to match your machine by using photocomposition tapes, MARC tapes, floppies, hard disks, paper, forms, catalog cards, brochures, and any number of other information sources.

Hiring for Database Production

By Melody Smith|December 8th, 2010|Access Insights, Business strategy|Comments Off on Hiring for Database Production

How do you find good people to hire? What do you look for in new employees? What kinds of interview questions do you ask them?

Selecting Hardware and Software

By Melody Smith|December 8th, 2010|Access Insights, metadata, Technology|Comments Off on Selecting Hardware and Software

by Marjorie M.K. Hlava
First published in Information Today, Vol. 1, Issue 4 (April 1984).

People are talking endlessly these days about the selection of hardware and […]

Good Indexing Means Good Retrieval

By Melody Smith|December 8th, 2010|Access Insights, Autoindexing, indexing|Comments Off on Good Indexing Means Good Retrieval

by Marjorie M.K. Hlava
First published in Information Today

So far this column has covered design considerations for the building of a database. Editorial guidelines have […]

File Design: Those Important First Steps

By Melody Smith|December 8th, 2010|Access Insights, metadata, storage, Technology|1 Comment

By Marjorie M.K. Hlava
First published in Information Today

In my first column, we discussed general editorial and file size considerations. This column discusses the file […]