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The accidental taxonomist (2nd ed.)
Hedden H., Information Today, Inc., Medford, NJ, 2016. 472 pp. Type: Book (978-1-573875-28-8)
Date Reviewed: Dec 5 2016

The human urge to name and classify is ancient. According to the Bible, the first task ever performed by a human was the formation of a taxonomy, when Adam named the animals. But he left no documentation for others to use. Carl Linnaeus filled this gap in the 18th century, enabling the systematic development of the biological sciences. A century later, Mendel’s identification of critical characteristics of pea plants laid the foundation for modern genetics, while Mendeleev’s instincts for classification yielded the periodic table of the elements, enabling major breakthroughs in chemistry.

With the explosion of data in the digital age, achieving consensus on what to call things has become a cornerstone for managing all information, not just focused domains such as biology or chemistry. Perhaps because cataloging books offers a close parallel to assigning descriptors to digital documents, this demand provides a growth market for people with degrees in library science. But the demand is so intense that nearly half of the people working in this field come from backgrounds other than library science. As the title of this volume suggests, they are “accidental taxonomists,” working in a guild for which they have not directly trained. Hedden, with degrees in government and Near Eastern studies, falls into this category and has produced this volume (now in its second edition) to give shape and context to the emerging field.

Chapter 1 defines taxonomy (which for Hedden is a “knowledge organization system”), discusses other, more specific terms (including controlled vocabularies, hierarchical taxonomies, alpha-numeric classification systems, thesauri, and ontologies), broadly surveys their use, and outlines their history. Chapter 2 describes the people responsible for these structures, the taxonomists. This chapter and much of the rest of the book are based on a survey Hedden conducted of 150 practitioners in the field (whose results form Appendix A).

Two essential facets of a taxonomy are the terms it contains and the relationships among them. Chapter 3 discusses the discipline of creating appropriate terms, starting with the need to identify the concepts to which they refer and developing the critical distinction between preferred and nonpreferred or secondary terms. Chapter 4 systematizes relationships in terms of equivalence, hierarchy, and association, and alerts the reader to critical ambiguities that need to be resolved. These chapters emphasize conformity with the growing body of standards around knowledge organization systems.

Chapter 5, the longest in the book, reviews software that supports the creation and management of taxonomies. It includes both single and multiuser systems, both open source and commercial, and the creative use of general-purpose tools (such as Excel) for taxonomy.

Chapters 6 and 7 review the requirements imposed by two different applications of taxonomies: those in which people do the indexing, and those in which the indexing is automated.

Chapter 8 explores different underlying structures of taxonomies, including hierarchies, faceted structures, and the use of multiple concurrent taxonomies. Chapter 9 discusses how to display these alternative structures most effectively.

Chapters 10 and 11 focus on the process of taxonomy development, from the initial planning and design through implementation and the evolution of an existing taxonomy over time.

Chapter 12 steps back from the more technical details of the previous chapters to survey the profession of taxonomist.

Four appendices present the survey that underlies much of the book, a glossary of terms, a general reading list, and relevant websites. In addition to the reading list, each chapter has a list of specific references relevant to its content.

This volume will be an invaluable guide to its main audience, people who find themselves cast, often “accidentally,” into the role of taxonomist. It will also be useful to managers responsible for large bodies of information who need to understand the technology that is becoming available to help them organize it and the skills they need to cultivate in their staff or recruit from outside to gain the most benefit from their information endowment.

Reviewer:  H. Van Dyke Parunak Review #: CR144956 (1702-0103)
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