The National Archives Taxonomy
Jone Garmendia, Head of Cataloguing
25 November 2011
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A taxonomy is a system for naming
and organising things into groups
that show similar characteristics.
Taxonomies in the Public Sector (TIPS)
http://www.nglis.org.uk/tipsben.htm
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A taxonomy is a collection of terms that
enable the classification and grouping of
content in order to support:
• information organisation
• searching
• information discovery/browsing
• website usability
• content reuse / serendipity
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Thesaurus:
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controlled vocabulary
structured hierarchically using BT, NT, RT
non-preferred terms to handle synonyms
they support:
o Information retrieval in controlled
bibliographic databases
o authority files
o expansion of search
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Ontologies
 High level intellectual frameworks to
organise information
 representing concepts, entities and their
relationships
 used in information science to support:
o software engineering
o the semantic web
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People
are active in
Places
create/own
Take part in
are located in
take place in
Events
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Records/Assets
are used in /
can trigger
A taxonomy is a system for
naming and organising things
into groups that show similar
characteristics.
Taxonomies in the Public Sector (TIPS)
http://www.nglis.org.uk/tipsben.htm
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http://labs.nationalarchives.gov.uk
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 We have not catalogued entries manually
 Subject research: words lists
 Building Boolean Queries within the Search
Engine
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Word Lists and ‘synonyms
marriage
marital
“marry” “marries” “married”
matrimony
matrimonial
jactitation
betrothal
dowry
jointure
alimony
curtesy
wedding
adultery, adulterous
nuptial
spouse
wedlock
conjugal
certificate of no impediment
re-marriage, remarriage…
mainenance order
Maintenance Order Acts…
bigamy, bigamous, polygam*
common law wife/husband
husband/wife
divorce,
decree nisi, decree absolute
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search
engine
index
new
index
taxonomy
management
software
tagging
process
xml
export
categorisation
engine
Data flow back
(with tags)
xml
tagged
data
new index
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taxonomist
generates query
Testing and tuning
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Beta release April 2011
Taxonomy testing
Multiple tagging
Precision and relevancy of subject tags
Recall: working to provide subjects for
the untagged
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