Classification – Page 18

A Celebration of Roget’s Taxonomy

By Melody Smith | January 12, 2015

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.

99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall

By Melody Smith | January 5, 2015

Taxonomies and classifications are not only helpful, but critical to making your content findable. This is true regardless of the topic or data – even when it is beer.

Common Factors

By Melody Smith | January 2, 2015

What do legal jurisdictions and leprechauns have in common? More than one might think. In the world of classification, words like extinct and endangered could be applied to both and many more genres.

Seasonal Classification

By Melody Smith | December 30, 2014

In tune with the season, the American Museum of Natural History is featuring a scitification classification exercise where they are sharing one scientific find each day. On the first of the twelve days, a partridge in a book of taxonomy.

Raising a Glass to Rich and Complicated Words

By Melody Smith | December 29, 2014

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.

Book on Classification and Data Mining an Interesting Read

By Melody Smith | December 23, 2014

Every once in awhile we discover an interesting read that we think you might find interesting.

The Perfect Gift

By Melody Smith | November 26, 2014

Have you started your Christmas shopping yet? The book, Cultural Heritage Ethics: Between Theory and Practice, would be very relevant to the development of cultural and historical taxonomies and thesauri. The way the terms are chosen and organized can have a strong effect on people’s perception of cultures and historical events. So for the history buff or word geek on your shopping list, this might just be what you, or they, need.

Word of Another Kind

By Melody Smith | November 21, 2014

If you are like me, words intrigue and inspire you. I could be called a thesaurus nerd, reading and researching words synonymous with one another to add impact to my writing and tell my stories with more emotion, detail, and energy.

Contradictory Classification

By Melody Smith | October 30, 2014

In a series that features various resources with specific interests, this particular one caught our interest and irony. It provides the tables of contents of a selection of Classics, Near Eastern Studies, and Religion journals, both in text format and through a Web search program.

A Different Approach for Some

By Melody Smith | October 24, 2014

Perspective is key as we hear time and time again. How one person or group of people look at a situation is likely very different from those on the other side of the coin. This is true with taxonomies as well. Who builds them and the perspective they bring to the project is key to its success or failure. The Financial Times brought this topic to our attention in their article, “Where new ideas take root.”