Taxonomies: Practical Approaches to Developing and Managing Vocabularies for Digital Information. Edited by Helen Lippell. London: Facet Publishing, 2022. 258 pgs. $81.99 softcover (ISBN: 978-1-78330-481-3).

The importance of taxonomies has been visible in recent years, whether it is with organizations that oversee describing communities of people or how to sell on the importance of taxonomies to the stakeholders of a company. There have been conversations within the Library of Congress on whether to change the search terms defining marginalized groups; universities are dealing with similar issues when they are faced with students questioning why a book has been categorized or shelved in a certain way; and if someone is trying to start a business that involves helping people with their travel needs, they need to consider who their targeted audience is, what terms that audience would be using and tailor the business model to suit those needs for prime optimization. These are just some of the examples of how taxonomies can help organizations and it is important to be able to identify and show this potential to colleagues and stakeholders.

Taxonomies are not only for e-commerce but also for marketing, technical documentation, and even matchmaking; they are the support for “both search[ing] and brows[ing] for information retrieval in addition to enabling consistent tagging” (xxi). Taxonomies are especially important to the success of an organization because of how the vocabularies work in enhancing the ability of the digital information to reach the user; it is increasingly seen as important to the necessary stakeholders, from taxonomy project managers to owners to any other digital asset managers, data scientists, etc.

Editor Helen Lippell is a taxonomy consultant with over fifteen years’ experience; the companies she has collaborated with include the BBC, the Department for International Trade, and the Metropolitan Police. Her objective with the book is to provide a useful resource for the reader at any level. She collaborates with eighteen other contributors responsible for the subsequent chapters. They include professional taxonomy consultants, librarians, career and information consultants, and others. The book is divided into four sections and includes figures and tables, notes, four appendices, as well as a glossary and index.

The first part of the book is titled “Getting Started” and covers business buy-in and scoping in addition to choosing the appropriate software. Readers are told to “ensure you can quickly explain the goals of the project in a meaningful way to stakeholders . . . your first sentence should explain what you are doing and why” (7). Stakeholders do not always understand the importance of investing in taxonomy, and it should be part of the goal to impress on them the need for a taxonomy plan. Readers are also cautioned to remember that no two taxonomies are the same and that there is no single best choice when it comes to any taxonomy tool.

Part 2 is entitled “Building Taxonomies” and it covers structure and scaling; learning about respect for culture and how to avoid bias; relationships; testing and validation of the taxonomies; interoperability; and everything that can go wrong. Chapter 4, “The Diversity of Terms,” is particularly relevant. There is an ongoing conversation about respecting cultures and being sensitive about what terms are used to describe these groups. An awareness of personal bias is also important to have because that could influence decision making in this regard. The author of that chapter, Bharat Dayal Sharma, stressed that organizations should not assume anything about who they are describing but that more importantly, “we should be adaptable and open to feedback about what terms we use” (63). Chapter 7 on interoperability is about ensuring metadata can be shared across databases and organizations. It is useful to remember that “when metadata terms differ between systems, extra work is required to make sure any data that is imported from one system to another ends up in the proper metadata field” (100).

Part 3, “Applications,” deals with enterprise search, digital asset management, powering structured content, and information architecture and e-commerce. It stresses the importance of the metadata associated with the object. Most of the chapters are read in a typical fashion but chapter 10 reads more like a conversation between the editor and the two contributors. It stresses that the reader needs to always be thinking about the future and how to keep the taxonomies useful now and in the future. Questions to ask include whether the content is intuitive? Will it be adaptable and scalable? Will another user be able to understand it if you are not present to answer questions?

Business adoption is the topic of part 4. Readers should keep in mind the necessity of adding the right metadata at the right place in the workflow; this should reflect the organization’s goals. The idea is to be an asset to your organization and to deliver on what you promise in the first place—to make the process easy! The workflow should be simple and reflect the organization as time goes on. Chapter 15, “Taxonomy Maintenance,” cautions the user to remember the taxonomy is only as useful as the last time it was used to describe content and to have this as a performance objective. The user should also work with subject matter experts to come up with the most current, up-to-date terms and to remember that we are working for the user and what they need to navigate the content. Finally in chapter 16, titled “The Taxonomist’s Role in a Development Team,” that role is to be adaptable and flexible; expect to have to make changes!

In summary, the reviewer has a better idea of how to approach a new taxonomy program and the challenges and expectations that one would encounter in their taxonomy journey. The figures and appendices are helpful, as is the glossary, but the reviewer wishes the chapter that pertains to the terms would be referenced in the entries. The book will be easily understood by readers of all levels of familiarity with taxonomies; they can pick up at any chapter they or section they feel is appropriate and continue as they feel needed.—Julia C. Ricks (jricks@umass.edu), University of Massachusetts Amherst