Happy New Year to the Taxonomy Community! I know this year is starting off a bit bumpy – I liked a blurb on Facebook that characterized 2022 as "the boyfriend you took back because he said he really really had changed" – but it marks a fresh start, and many new beginnings here in the SLA Taxonomy Division, with new leaders, a new newsletter format, new resources, and hopefully many new friends and contacts.

In my position as Taxonomist at the American Psychological Association (APA) in Washington, DC, I work to maintain and update our Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms. First published in 1974, its role has grown from a simple tool for retrieval in one database, to being used to index our diverse catalog of databases and products, as well as our website. I began my career in knowledge management way back in 1987 as an indexer at APA (and we wrote on computer printouts! In pencil!). While we've come a long way with technology and metadata, there has continued to be a strong need for a robust and responsive taxonomy. I have been a member of SLA and the Taxonomy Community since 2017 and met some of you when I spoke at the 2019 Annual Conference in Cleveland. As your President this year, I hope to continue the tradition of this community – one of career development, learning resources, volunteer opportunities, and, most importantly, connection.

If you have an interest in getting more involved, now is the time! If you are a writer or an aspiring writer, please consider contributing to the Taxonomy Times. We're looking for all kinds of content – blogs, interesting features, member profiles, and new ideas. Please contact either me or Shelly Ray if you would like to try your hand at writing or simply have an idea.

Enjoy the rest of this new edition of the Taxonomy Times and be on the lookout for new opportunities and resources coming your way. I very much look forward to working with you this year to make the Taxonomy Community stronger, and please feel free to reach out with any thoughts or suggestions for how this community can best serve you as we move forward.

Stay healthy and be sure to find time for you!

Best,
Marisa Hughes

Bulletin Committee

The New Year brings a new format to the Taxonomy Times! This issue marks the beginning of a new newsletter, using an email management platform that will allow for fresh content and resources, with plenty of room for contributions from our members. A huge thank you is in order for Teresa MacGregor, who has been managing the co-editor helm since January 2010, with the help of Amanda Roberts, Diane Silver, Paula McCoy, and Natalia Fitzgibbons. They left a pretty high bar, and we'll do our best to match it.

Moving forward, we'll be in good hands, with a great team working on our new format (thanks to Shelly Ray, Kathy Berry, Seleen Suleiman, Amanda Bloom, Natalia Fitzgibbons, and Paula McCoy). If you are interested in volunteering for this engaging and important role, please contact Taxonomy Community President, Marisa Hughes.
 

Taxonomy Community Professional Development Webinar

For those who weren't able to attend Paula McCoy's excellent November 2021 webinar on combining search with indexing and career development, the meeting recording is available by clicking the button below.

Seek and Find: Combining Search with Indexing--and Finding Taxonomy Careers in the Process: A Panel Discussion

Access Passcode: zXz=7B7*

Data Governance and Its Role in Data Integrity

Sereen Suleiman

The journey into discovery about data governance started through a simple blog from TaxoDiaries, published on January 10, 2022. Although brief, it is packed with insightful information about the concept of data governance, which is the "collection of processes, roles, policies, standards and metrics that ensure the effective and efficient use of information in enabling an organization to achieve its goals" (Smith, 2022). In other words, data governance is a set of controls used to ensure quality data throughout all cycles of a project, no matter what that project may be. These controls include data security, promoting consistency, designating who has access to which portions of data, and even workplace strategies. All of these procedures are pieces of the pie for the umbrella term, data governance. In turn, data governance is a part of the umbrella term, data management. This is how data governance shares features of taxonomy, and its organization of standards is also why many business organizations utilize its standards.

Submit a Session Proposal to the SLA 2022 Conference

Submission Deadline

Welcome to the members who recently joined
the Taxonomy Community!

• Wendy Lyon

• Katie Blake
• Sarah Holsapple
• Valerie Kittell
• Julia Parker

• Michelle Malone
• Eden Morris
• Shelby Morrow

• Maribeth Theroux
• Michelle Urberg

The Knowledge Manager's Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Embedding Effective Knowledge Management in your Organization (Second Edition)

Milton, Nick and Lambe, Patrick. (Kogan Page, 2019)

ISBN  978-0749484606
 

Reviewed by Marisa Hughes

This is the second edition of The Knowledge Manager's Handbook and includes a complete update of the first edition along with additional chapters on new KM standards and the role of AI and digital transformation. It's an easy-to-read, practical book by two well-known authors that presents the features of and steps in implementing a KM framework. I admit that I skipped ahead to the seven case studies in the final section, which provide interesting looks at KM implementation at a diverse group of organizations, including NASA, a public-sector sports organization, and two different oil companies.

I also admit that I'm a fan of Patrick Lambe's – I participated in his educational session on "Defining & Pitching the Business Case for a Taxonomy" at Taxonomy Boot Camp London 2019, and found it to be very thought provoking and useful. In the materials for this book, I was happy to find Patrick's website greenchameleon.com, where he posts blogs, articles, and a few slides from previous talks (check out "Taxonomy and Search Patterns for Enhanced Search and Discovery").

Landscape of Disinformation

A Taxonomy of COVID-19 Disinformation is a project created during the 2019-2020 Assembly Student Fellowship at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University. The Assembly Student Fellowship convenes Harvard students from various schools and discipline to tackle the spread and consumption of disinformation.

After compiling a dataset of COVID-19 disinformation from a list of sources compiled in March and April 2020, the team categorized the content based on (1) the target of the campaign and (2) the motivation of the agent spreading it. Each piece of information was also color coded by content of its message.

If you need a laugh, check out these cartoons!