Today’s ventures prompted me to think about vocabulary.
Until today “racking” and “rack-in” only had one connotation in my mind: Pool and I don’t mean water. Today I learned that racking and rack-in are terms used to describe a next to final step in a business process.
This added to my already deep thoughts about vocabulary. Librarians rule when it comes to organizing information. They put control into an uncontrolled environment and made it easy to retrieve data. I’m not very good at the history of libraries stuff so those avid readers who know deserves the credit for this first mean fete, leave a comment.
What is important to remember is that controlled vocabulary remains the power tool for organizing massive amounts of information. If a 3×5 card could provide enough cross-references and synonyms to locate a single item in a library then trusting those standards should work in the electronic world.
Ah, but in the electronic world it becomes so easy to add a term or rely upon tags or add an alternate spelling. Easy but confusing. It is not a bad thing to use a taxonomy in the structure of an information rich site. Industries have unique terms that must come into play but the more normalized your vocabulary the easier it will be for your users to find just the right thing.
So to rack-in this post, if you are creating a wiki or organizing an intranet or thinking about providing a wealth of information, consider using a structured taxonomy to increase that usability.
Constance Ard February 12, 2009 9:45 p.m.
