As organisations across the globe commit to digital transformation, well-managed taxonomies are more critical than ever in supporting a wide range of business applications. Amidst growing industry uptake of controlled vocabularies, ontologies and knowledge graphs, taxonomists are at the forefront of helping organisations manage content and data of unprecedented breadth, depth and variety.

Taxonomies: Practical Approaches to Developing and Managing Vocabularies for Digital Information is a comprehensive guide to building, implementing and using taxonomies. Featuring contributions and case studies from some of the world’s leading experts from the UK government, the Associated Press, the BBC and many more, the book offer practical advice for the everyday realities of working with stakeholders, sponsors and systems to ensure that taxonomies remain useful and relevant. Addressing all the key stages of the process of building and implementing a taxonomy, including scoping, user testing and validation, and the creation of governance processes, the book is invaluable for the optimisation of systems for users and stakeholders alike.

Madonnalisa Chan, Product Management Director – Content and Taxonomy Services for Salesforce, said ‘Helen Lippell’s new book is a treasure trove of taxonomy practical best practices for any digital transformation initiative. Spanning a variety of use cases and industry applications of taxonomy, there are many nuggets to get you started on your taxonomy program, from business use cases, to taxonomy development and management, and integration into the user experience. Her book pulls from a wide variety of industry experts who have preserved their wisdom in those pragmatic case studies, real stories from the frontline. Many of the scenarios definitely resonated with me in my own experiences in information architecture and taxonomy development. I also appreciated the wealth of tips and tools provided, so be sure to also peruse the appendix for jumpstarting your taxonomy development work.’

This book will be available from the American Library Association in North America and Canada from Taylor & Francis in Australia and New Zealand.