2 - Choosing Taxonomy Software

Summary

Editor's note: I always advocate for getting hold of the best possible tool you can for the job of storing and managing a taxonomy. This is a good thing to get right from early in the project, as it is a hassle to move a taxonomy from one system to another later on. Joyce brings a wealth of experience of helping clients make the right selection for their particular needs. We taxonomists can be sniffy about using spreadsheets to manage a taxonomy, but Joyce argues that they can have their place in the toolbox. Other options discussed in detail are built-in modules, such as within SharePoint, and dedicated taxonomy tools.

Introduction

When it comes to creating and maintaining a taxonomy, you need some kind of tooling to store the taxonomy terms and relationships between these terms. In this chapter, ‘tooling’ is used in the broadest sense of the word, meaning the file or systems where you store taxonomy terms, relations and other attributes. In my work as a taxonomy consultant, I’ve created many taxonomies from scratch, but I’ve also worked with taxonomies and thesauri that have been around for some time. These taxonomies range from 50 up to 20,000 terms, and they vary from flat lists to complex knowledge graphs, being used by small local NGOs and large multinationals. Despite their differences there is always one question that arises: what is the best option to store and maintain this taxonomy? The answer is: it depends. In this chapter, I will describe these dependencies.

Taxonomy tools can be divided into three high-level groups: spread-sheets, built-in modules and dedicated taxonomy tooling. They differ from each other in terms of specific taxonomy functionalities, ease of use and integration with other systems, costs and more. I will elaborate on the different options and explain which option might be best for what situation. Also, I will describe what to take into account when choosing a dedicated taxonomy tool.

Spreadsheets

Although spreadsheets are of course not a taxonomy tooling by nature, they are used as such by many organisations. A spreadsheet is often a starting point for creating the first drafts of a taxonomy. The main benefit of using spreadsheets for your taxonomy is that spreadsheet tooling is available within every organisation and it comes without additional license fees. The possibilities of structuring data make spreadsheets a logical candidate for taxonomies.