Creating Large Taxonomies
Developing large taxonomies is a balance between the content in the taxonomy and figuring out how users will try to use the taxonomy or find the content. Two discussions about creating large taxonomies from scratch have my head humming. A large part of my jobs over the last nine years has been dealing with taxonomies. One of which had been in existence for years and used as a finding aid for a collection of more than 20,000 files of newspaper clippings, magazine articles, biographical material, and other ephemera. Another I created from scratch and have been adding to for the last 5 or so years.
What kind of challenges are involved in creating and organizing a list of millions of objects that is only going to grow over the years? How do you build a taxonomy that can be understood by many people around the world who have no experience with such structured data? Add customizing for children to the mix. Now add lots of different languages and cultural differences.
Like I said: My head is humming.
