Understanding and managing taxonomies as economic goods and services
Denise Bedford · Bulletin of the Association for Information Science and Technology · 2014
EDITOR'S SUMMARY As pervasive as taxonomies have become in knowledge management, their economic value is not often scrutinized, documented or fulfilled. Taxonomies range in cost and sophistication from flat lists through thesauri, semantic nets and faceted systems. Each can be an asset or liability to varying degrees relative to the resources expended to design, manage and implement it. A well‐designed taxonomy produces value by enabling consistent information management, facilitating records management and compliance, building domain understanding and saving time through efficient access to information. Yet numerous potential liabilities can rise from a taxonomy generating poor search results or being incomplete, out of date, confusing to users or simply not used. Taxonomies must be viewed from a perspective informed by economics, considering assets and liabilities, actual and indirect costs, external effects on third parties, their value as a public good and the opportunity costs of resources invested. As advocates for taxonomies, we should present the case as knowledge and information economists, fully aware of the range of economic decisions and effects involved.