Enhance your records management program with a taxonomy
Marjorie Hlava:
Records are the history of the business and the living records of the business.
There are legal restrictions on what we can do with them, unlike most library materials.
Unstructured or some kind of document management, but need to have access.
One of the tools is a taxonomy.
Master data: tightly controlled, people’s names, business units, etc.
Controlled reference sources: including thesaurus, etc.
High-quality metadata is needed for acceptable access to business records.
Not every taxonomy is a hierarchy:
- Faceted: metadata
- Flat: controlled vocabulary, picklists
- Hierarchical: classification schemes
- Networked: thesaurus
- Ring taxonomy: synonym rings
Full-text search [alone] doesn’t work very well: too often we put a dumb search engine on top of smart metadata.
Rachel Lurie, Lurie Information:
Worked with VA hospitals in New York. Had to comply with federal regulations, National Archives rules, VA rules. Schedules come and go.
When people were told, “You will be audited,” then they got interested in taxonomy and retention schedules.
Water Librarian's Blog 