Fred Leise
Chief Operating Officer
Intuitect
fred.leise@...
o: 303.247.9000
c: 773.791.2849
www.intuitect.com

Hi all,

I have added most of your names (if I could verify you as an ASI or
affiliated indexing society member) to the members page of the new web
site of the Taxonomies & Controlled Vocabularies SIG:
http://www.taxonomies-sig.org/members.htm

Please check it and let me know if:

1) You want your name and contact information moved up to the section
"Taxonomists & controlled vocabulary editors available for contract
projects." I assume the majority of you will, but I did not start out
assuming so for each individual.

2) You want your name removed from the web site.

3) You want your contact information changed, e-mail added or removed,
URL link added or removed, etc. We are including name, business name,
city & state and, if not U.S., country, e-mail address, and URL link
from company or personal name. We are not including street address,
phone, fax, etc. That is not necessary here, except for adding phone
number for those offering contract services. (In case you are wondering,
I included e-mails if you had already listed your e-mail address on
another SIG site.)

Being listed as a member on this site is not an obligation to pay any
future membership dues. If we implement SIG dues, it will be at least
several months from now.

--Heather

Hi all,

I have added most of your names (if I could verify you as an ASI or
affiliated indexing society member) to the members page of the new web
site of the Taxonomies & Controlled Vocabularies SIG:
http://www.taxonomies-sig.org/members.htm

Please check it and let me know if:

1) You want your name and contact information moved up to the section
"Taxonomists & controlled vocabulary editors available for contract
projects." I assume the majority of you will, but I did not start out
assuming so for each individual.

2) You want your name removed from the web site.

3) You want your contact information changed, e-mail added or removed,
URL link added or removed, etc. We are including name, business name,
city & state and, if not U.S., country, e-mail address, and URL link
from company or personal name. We are not including street address,
phone, fax, etc. That is not necessary here, except for adding phone
number for those offering contract services. (In case you are wondering,
I included e-mails if you had already listed your e-mail address on
another SIG site.)

Being listed as a member on this site is not an obligation to pay any
future membership dues. If we implement SIG dues, it will be at least
several months from now.

--Heather

Hi all,

In order for the Taxonomies & Controlled Vocabularies SIG to become an
affiliated SIG of the American Society of Indexers (and by extension
its affiliated indexing societies in other countries), it must draw up
a mission statement:

"Each individual SIG shall develop a mission statement consistent with
the ASI mission statement. The mission statement shall be signed by
five ASI members in good standing."

(The ASI mission statement is at http://www.asindexing.org/site/goals.shtml)

I have made a start by drafting a missions statement below. Please
provide any and all comments for changes, additions, deletions, etc.
Please post to the list, not just to me, for an open discussion.


The draft statement is below within the body of this message, and also
available for downloading at:
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/taxonomies/files/

Thank you in advance for your feedback.

--Heather

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------------------------------------

Mission Statement  of the  Taxonomies & Controlled Vocabularies
Special Interest Group of the American Society of Indexers


The Taxonomies & Controlled Vocabularies Special Interest Group (SIG)
is a networking and educational forum for individuals with both a
professional interest or background in indexing and involvement, or
intentions to get involved, in creating or editing taxonomies,
thesauri, or controlled vocabularies used for indexing. They may
either be freelancers, contractors, or consultants, or work as
in-house developers of taxonomies, thesauri, or controlled
vocabularies, such as for publishers.

Members of the Taxonomies & Controlled Vocabularies SIG must be
members in good standing of the American Society of Indexers (ASI) or
its affiliated indexing societies:
- Indexing Society of Canada
- Society of Indexers (United Kingdom and Ireland)
- Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers
- German Network of Indexers  Deutsches Netzwerk der Indexer)
- Netherlands Indexing Network (Nederlands Indexers Netwerk)
- Association of Southern African Indexers and Bibliographers
- China Society of Indexers

The best people to create thesauri and controlled vocabularies used in
human indexing are those who have experience indexing themselves. By
supporting the work of professional indexers in controlled vocabulary
and thesaurus work, we support higher standards for controlled
vocabularies, which better serve the indexers who use them and the
indexing profession as a whole.

We recognize that some controlled vocabularies and taxonomies will be
used in automated rather than human indexing. By being willing to work
on all kinds of taxonomy projects, regardless of the indexing method,
indexing society members will bring a greater awareness and
appreciation of human indexers and the indexing profession to the
growing field of taxonomies.

Taxonomies, controlled vocabularies, and thesauri have been an area of
continued interest of members of the American Society of Indexers as
evidenced by the numerous articles on these topics in Key Words and
the presentations and workshops at ASI and chapter conferences over
the past years. The Taxonomies & Controlled Vocabularies SIG will
encourage its members to write articles, including reviews, and give
presentations in new areas, issues, and specialties in the field.

The Taxonomies & Controlled Vocabularies SIG will:

- Act as a forum for discussion of techniques, tools, standards and
practices relevant to creating or maintaining taxonomies, thesauri, or
controlled vocabularies.
- Provide information to indexers who want to expand their field and
apply their skills to work in taxonomies and controlled vocabularies.
- Make taxonomy owners and consultants aware that there exist skilled
indexing      professionals available who are qualified to take on
taxonomy projects.
- Serve Taxonomies & Controlled Vocabularies SIG members as a
centralized source for referring contract projects and jobs.
- Promote among indexers, vocabulary editors, taxonomists, taxonomy
owners, taxonomy      consultants, publishers, librarians and others
an awareness of and appreciation for good practices and standards used
in developing taxonomies and controlled vocabularies.

Services page "What We Do": http://www.taxonomies-sig.org/services.htm
I'd like to get input from all of you about the different kinds of taxonomy, controlled vocabulary, thesaurus work you do or have done, and what kinds of work, or categories of work we should list here. I think this will be interesting information for us to share.

Members list  "Who We Are" page: http://www.taxonomies-sig.org/members.htm
My plan is to divide the member list into those providing freelance services in taxonomies and controlled vocabularies and those who are not. Please indicate in which area you want your name, and what information you want included.
A volunteer to maintain the member list would be appreciated. Please let me know if you want to do this.

Resources: Books  http://www.taxonomies-sig.org/books.htm
Would anyone like to be responsible for the bibliography? The books list on the Taxonomy Community of Practice Wiki is a good place to start: http://taxocop.wikispaces.com/Books

Resources: Past presentations http://www.taxonomies-sig.org/presentations.htm
I made a start with this by listing presentations at the past four ASI conferences. But I also want to add past chapter events and other indexing society ,it can be off-line.

Resources: Links http://www.taxonomies-sig.org/links.htm
I have some ideas for these. The maintenance of this list should be the responsibility of the webmaster. But anyone is welcome to make suggestions.

Articles: The Indexer http://www.taxonomies-sig.org/the-indexer-articles.htm
I've compiled a bibliography of articles on taxonomies, controlled vocabularies, and thesauri from Key Words, but have not yet done it for articles from The Indexer. Topics of thesauri and taxonomies are listed in the journal's index, but there is still a bit of work to do, to come up with full citations. Who would like to be in charge of the articles list?

Articles: Additional articles by SIG members
Whoever is in charge of articles should also be the contract person for you all to inform of what you have written on the subject of taxonomies, controlled vocabularies, and thesauri that is not in Key Words of The Indexer.

Thanks Heather.  I'll be happy to provide a summary.  Probably after
the meeting.
Also thanks for giving the link to the website with more information.
  I am new to this discussion group business and I had cut and pasted
the announcement in my message, but it didn't show up in the posting.
  Here are the titles of my talks:
"The Unbearable 'Aboutness' of Periodical Indexing" and "Everything Is
Illuminated: the Mysteries of Controlled Vocabularies Explained."  As
Heather so helpfully pointed out there is more information at the
Heartland website:
http://web.spsp.net/jbealle/heartland/index.html
Sorry, I don't know how to make it a link either.
Linda Dunn

Thanks for mentioning this, Linda.
For those that are interested, details are on the Heartland chapter web
site home page http://web.spsp.net/jbealle/heartland/index.html

Linda, it would be nice to have a summary of your presentations
afterwards, but the Heartland Chapter does not seem to provide summaries
of its presentations to the same extent that the New England Chapter
does. Can you or someone else provide a one page summary so that we can
put it up on our taxonomies & Controlled Vocabularies web site once it
is up.

If anyone else has given presentations on taxonomies or controlled
vocabularies in the not too distant past, especially at ASI events but
not necessarily, we would like to collect summaries. Thanks

--Heather

Linda Dunn wrote:
> Hi,
> I thought any of you who might live nearby Richmond Indiana might be
> interested in the Heartland Chapter meeting on October 20th where I
> will be giving two talks--one of them on controlled vocabularies.
> Linda Dunn
>

Hi,
I thought any of you who might live nearby Richmond Indiana might be
interested in the Heartland Chapter meeting on October 20th where I
will be giving two talks--one of them on controlled vocabularies.
Linda Dunn

Hi Paula,

Thank you for your explanation of your work at ProQuest. I used to do
the same work at your competitor, Gale, until I got laid off  in early
2004. There the controlled vocabulary is also referred to as authority
files, and they also cover topics, products, companies, organizations,
people names, products, and geographic locations. Events is another
authority file.

I found it especially interesting to note that you at ProQuest use
Synaptica, because that is what Gale has been using since around 1999.
Gale then contracted out not merely the customization of the Synaptica
software, but also some of the controlled vocabulary work to
then-Synapse Corp. and continued to outsource to Factiva. The
outsourcing has tended to be on the name authorities or using Synaptica
for actually indexing of reference books. (A different, internally
developed software is used for indexing periodicals). I still do very
occasional contract work for Gale, but it tends to be either the name
authority maintenance or the reference book indexing. The real
controlled vocabulary work, such as approving new terms based on indexer
suggestion, etc., is still the work of the in-house vocabulary editors.

Like ProQuest, Gale has also moved to more automated indexing over the
years. It began with daily newswires, perhaps around 1997. What the
status is now, I don't know. I assume that some types of content, such
as scholarly journals, are usually indexed by humans, but I think that
Gale now outsources most of the human indexing.

I currently work as a taxonomist for a company developing enterprise
search software, that is especially in the area of "knowledge discover"
or "data mining". What I find interesting is the differences in creating
controlled vocabulary/thesauri/taxonomies for human indexing vs.
automated indexing. At Gale, the same controlled vocabulary is used both
for the automated-indexed content as for the human-indexed content, and
(at least when I left), we vocabulary editors were still thinking of the
needs of the human indexers. But now I am creating taxonomies where
there will be no human indexing, and I am finding I have to make certain
vocabulary development decisions differently.

--Heather


Heather Hedden
Hedden Information Management
http://www.Hedden-Information.com

Information Taxonomist
Viziant Corporation
http://www.viziantcorp.com



pmccoy@... wrote:
> Here's some information about ProQuest and the work I do with
> controlled vocabularies and taxonomies.
> First, here's the company website: www.il.proquest.com
> <http://www.il.proquest.com>
> You can read about the ProQuest Controlled Vocabulary and look at it
> on this page:
> http://www.il.proquest.com/products_pq/controlled-vocab/
> Where it says "download the latest version in pdf format," if you
> click that, it will come up pretty quickly and you can browse through
> it. It's not a large file, I don't think.
>
> My job is to manage that controlled vocabulary. I add new term almost
> every month, about 10 or so, based largely on what our indexers tell
> me they need. New concepts come up all the time--for example, Sept. 11
> created new terms like Information sharing and a term for the PATRIOT
> Act and other laws.
> Before I add any term, I do considerable research to make sure we
> really need it and that we don't already have a term that covers it. I
> also gather definitions of every term to enter in a Scope Note so that
> indexers know how to use the term properly. Sometimes this research
> leads me to other concepts being discussed in the publications we
> index for which we need yet another new term!
>
> The Controlled Vocabulary, or Thesaurus, is available on our search
> platform, so users can look for terms and use them to search. Thus, a
> regular part of what I do is making sure terms are being used
> correctly so that searchers do find the right articles. I can make
> corrections to records that have the wrong term on them; I also can
> replace old terms with new ones.
>
> Besides the subject-based Controlled Vocabulary, we also index
> company/organization names, people names, geographic locations, and,
> to a lesser extent, product names. Those names are maintained in what
> we call "authority files," because they're not hierarchical in nature.
> We add new names to those files every day, mainly the company and
> people name files.
>
> I use a software tool called Synaptica to manage the vocabulary and
> authority files. It's linked to our editorial system. I've used it for
> 3 years now--it replaces a very unwieldy system and a Word document I
> used to have to maintain.
>
> One more aspect of my job that has made it even more challenging is
> that we implemented an automated indexing system 2 years ago. It takes
> our subject vocabulary and assigns terms automatically, using a
> complex, intelligent software that we purchased. It does amazingly
> well at times, but I'm constantly working to improve it. Implementing
> this caused me to be more aware of our human indexing, which led me to
> add more cross-references and scope notes to the vocabulary.
>
> You've probably heard enough now! Feel free to email if you have any
> questions or want to know more.
>
> Paula
>
> <mailto:taxonomies-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com?subject=Unsubscribe>
>
>

Hello everyone,
I am Sue Dryer from Seattle, Washington. I just retired as a school librarian,
have done research for Microsoft's Encarta Encyclopedia, and constructed a
thesaurus for Expeditors' intranet. My specialities in back-of-the-book indexing
are theology, religion, education, the arts and humanities, and health. I am
currently the librarian for University Presbyterian Church, the largest
congregational library in the country, and I select keywords for a comic
strip/political and editorial cartoon database. I hope to eventually be able to
set up a taxonomy for that business.
I look forward to hearing your stories.

Sue

  -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Suzi Kaplan (Key Info Service)" <suzik@...>
> Welcome Paula to ASI and to the "Taxonomies" group.  I'd love to hear more
> about your work and ProQuest and I'm sure others would, too.  Is there more
> you can share with us here or should we wait for the annual conference next
> May?
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Suzi
>
>
>
>   _____
>
> From: taxonomies@yahoogroups.com [mailto:taxonomies@yahoogroups.com] On
> Behalf Of Paula McCoy
> Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2007 12:15 PM
> To: taxonomies@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [taxonomies] Introduction
>
>
>
> Hello everyone.
> I'm Paula McCoy, from Louisville, Kentucky. I've been working at the
> editorial offices of ProQuest for nearly 25 years, the last several of
> which I've spent managing our controlled vocabularies (thesauri) and
> authority files. I've expanded the thesaurus considerably during the
> time to cover scientific and medical areas. I've also created new
> taxonomies for ProQuest online database products.
> I just joined ASI this year, thinking it was mainly for book indexers,
> but I'm thrilled to find out it's more than that. I want to learn book
> indexing, so now I have that chance as well as a change to interact
> with other periodical indexers.
>
> Sincerely,
> Paula
>
>
>

Here is an update on the formation of the new ASI Taxonomies &
Controlled Vocabularies SIG.  We definitely have enough good interest
for the formation of the SIG. Unfortunately, our timing of forming the
SIG in the second half of 2007 is not so good.

At its next meeting in December, the ASI board will be conducting a
review of the guidelines for SIG formation and operations and
clarification of the role of SIGs within ASI's organizational
structure. Carolyn Weaver, the president of ASI has informed us that
this review is required in part by tighter post-9/11 banking
regulations that restrict the use of ASI's tax identification by its
affiliates. Within the next year or so neither chapters nor SIGs will
be able to use ASI's tax ID for their bank accounts, among other
things. Instead they would have to get individual EINs and file their
own annual tax reports. They would have to get individual EINs and
file their own annual tax reports. If you have any suggestions or
comments, you may contact Terri Hudoba, chair of the committee that
will be drafting revised SIGs policies and guidelines for
consideration at the December Board meeting.

Carolyn and Terri have both encouraged us to go ahead with our plans.
Although we may be an unofficial or "pending" SIG a little longer than
we thought, we can still continue our recruitment and organization
efforts as well as carry on with our discussion groups. Keeping in
mind the current SIG guidelines, we can work on meeting the approval
criteria so that we are ready when the process is opened up again.

So, welcome again! And I encourage you to introduce yourselves if you
haven't already done so.

--Heather


--------------------------------------
Heather Hedden
Information Taxonomist
Viziant Corporation
http://www.viziantcorp.com

Hedden Information Management
http://www.Hedden-Information.com

As a longtime indexer and online researcher I am looking forward to breaking
into
taxonomy development. I've been checking out various groups lately looking to
find a
way into this new field. With experience in both database indexing and online
searching, I feel I have the right background to get into this field. Improving
search
results is an obvious benefit to many companies and, I hope, a good sales pitch
to
attract clients.

I can at least point some people in the right direction to information outside
of
the SIG. Most of what I have is from other sources which might object to my
posting their files on the SIG's files directory.

I hope more people will introduce themselves.

Sincerely,
Linda Kenny Sloan
Writing, Research &
Indexing services for
Science and Technology at
http://informationuniverse.com
Lksloan@...
Phone 310-515-0618

Hello everyone.
I'm Paula McCoy, from Louisville, Kentucky. I've been working at the
editorial offices of ProQuest for nearly 25 years, the last several of
which I've spent managing our controlled vocabularies (thesauri) and
authority files. I've expanded the thesaurus considerably during the
time to cover scientific and medical areas. I've also created new
taxonomies for ProQuest online database products.
I just joined ASI this year, thinking it was mainly for book indexers,
but I'm thrilled to find out it's more than that. I want to learn book
indexing, so now I have that chance as well as a change to interact
with other periodical indexers.

Sincerely,
Paula

Hello!

Thank you, Heather, for getting this discussion group off the ground.

I'm Jean Jesensky from the heart of Massachusetts apple-picking
country, Bolton. I am a freelance indexer - new in 2006 to both
indexing and freelancing.

I have a varied background, with a B.A. in Music, more than 20 years
experience in Human Resources, and a Certificate in Technical
Communication. I became interested in indexing as a possible career,
and in 2006 I took an intensive 10-week indexing course (taught by Seth
Maislin), "Writing Indexes for Books and Websites."

I joined ASI, the New England Chapter, in 2006, and was "recruited" to
run for office for the following year. I am currently the VP (and Pres-
Elect for 2008).

I have done book indexing as well as some taxonomy related work editing
a controlled vocabulary for an internet directory search program. I'm
very interested in gaining more experience in this area and in learning
about building controlled vocabularies and taxonomies.

I'm pleased to join this group. I look forward to "talking" with you
all again soon.

Jean Jesensky
Endswell Indexing
http://endswellindexing.tripod.com

Hi everyone,
I'm Lucie Haskins and I index from Woodland Park, Colorado (elevation
8,435 feet). I've been a freelance indexer since 2000 and concentrate on
computer-related and business topics.

Prior to discovering indexing, I was a computer programmer for various
corporations for many many years. My interest in taxonomy and controlled
vocabularies comes from my love of programming -- especially creating
and maintaining databases.

Hi,
I'm writing from Albany, NY where it's a lovely fall day.  I have an
MLS and a MA in Film History and I was an editor and indexer for the
Film Literature Index for many years.  About a year ago I started
working as a freelance periodical indexer and have worked on several
different projects.  I "controlled" the vocabulary when I worked as the
editor of an index and I find it very interesting.  I am interested
esp. in meeting others with similar interests and also, as Heather has
suggested, in promoting our work to employers etc.

I also want to thank Heather for getting this discussion group going
and her help in starting a SIG for periodical/database indexing which
also has a Yahoo discussion group as of today (Group home page:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/periodical_indexing).

Linda Dunn
Dunn Information Information

Hi, I'm Cheryl Landes, writing from the beautiful Pacific Northwest. I
work full-time as a technical writer/editor/indexer for Phoenix
Controls Corporation in Acton, Massachusetts (25 miles northwest of
Boston). I worked onsite full-time for five years, and then in
September 2006, moved back to Seattle and became a full-time remote
employee.

I am Noalani Terry in Montrose, Colorado.  I have a background in
creating, adapting, maintaining and using classification systems and
controlled vocabularies for several special libraries in addition to
book and journal indexing.

Greetings All,

I'm Suzi Kaplan in Bethesda, Maryland, just over the border from
Washington DC.  I've chosen indexing and taxonomy work as my second
(or third) career, my first having been as a special Libraian, MLIS
(that a Master of Library and Information Science, not offered
anywhere anymore!), and my second having been as a stay-at-home wife-
mother-luncheons-volunteer.

In 2006 I decided to work again, I immediately joined ASI, signed-up
for a course and conferences to polish my skills, and started
rebuilding my "professional" library.  It was a great pleasure to
meet Heather and Fred, whose seminar I took, at ASI's annual
conference last May.

When I worked as a special Librarian, writing indexes and thesauri
(they'd be called taxonomies today) were by far my favorite task.  In
2007 I worked on one very large taxonomy project, but I'm now ready
for more.

I look forward to our online discussions.

Suzi Kaplan

Hi. In addition to back-of-book indexing since 1995, I have worked as
an information architect and taxonomy development consultant since
2001. In addition, I am currently chief operating office of Intuitect,
a software development company that creates tools to help people build
better websites. I also serve as president-elect for the American
Society of Indexers.

Hi all,

Jane Read from York (England) checking in here. Member of the (British)
Society of Indexers, degree in linguistics, 14 years experience in
university libraries, retrained as an indexer and qualified as an
Accredited Indexer in 2004. I now work from home as a freelance indexer
and specialist in controlled vocabularies (constructing vocabularies
for the Higher Education Academy and working on the next update of the
British Education Thesaurus).

Jane

Jane Read BA (Hons) PGCE
Accredited Indexer

Indexing and thesaurus construction

Tel: +44 (0)1904 470 017  Mobile: +44 (0)790 803 9958


       ___________________________________________________________
Want ideas for reducing your carbon footprint? Visit Yahoo! For Good 
http://uk.promotions.yahoo.com/forgood/environment.html

Hi everyone!
I am Emily Goodhue.  I work at EBSCO Publishing in Ipswich, Mass.
where I help manage the indexing vocabulary and create/edit several
subject-specific thesauri.  I received my MLS is from the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2006.
Thank you Heather for creating this group!  I'm sure we will all learn
a lot from each other.
Emily

-- Heather Hedden
Hedden Information Management
http://www.Hedden-Information.com
Viziant Corporation
http://www.viziantcorp.com

Hello, everyone!

My name is Nadine and I have been an indexer for just shy of ten
years now, 7 of those as a freelancer. I have an MLS, and a BS in
Environmental Science.

Until just recently, I have strictly been a database indexer, with
experience in taxonomy development and management. Just this summer,
I began BOB indexing, legal indexing, and embedded indexing (a very
busy summer!). I love it all.

I'm very grateful to Heather for pulling this SIG together, and I
look forward to being a part of making taxonomy development a strong
facet of ASI conferences and publications!


Warmly,
Nadine

Nadine-Rae Leavell, MLS
Summerland Information Services