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Re: RE Taxomomists
Extending the reply of my friend Dr. Stephenson via
historical footnote, Aristotle, the first of the great systematizers,
used terms like taxon and syntaxis to refer to
"organize," "putting things in order," or
"arrange." Syndesis, cross-referencing, was first
applied by A. within his own works. Darwin claims that A. was the
master of biological classification. A. is referred to by the geographer
Strabo as the first man to create a library and that he taught the
kings of Egypt (i.e., the Ptolemies) how to "organize" a
library. In fact, it was A.'s students who created the Library at
Alexandria and applied A.'s principles to collections of information
resources. These were among the first bibliophylakes
(librarians).
Ever since, librarians have been creating structured access tools like
catalogs and thesauri, which are taxonomical products. My guess is
that folks in the KM world would prefer not to use the term
"librarian." Hence, we have "taxonomists," who use
such principles to create a knowledge thesaurus for organizational
knowledge. To me, terms like this and "ontologist" don't do
justice to what they actually mean. This form of intellectual dishonesty
is in the same vein as "Chief Information [read
"computer"] Officer and "information management"
[read "computers"]. A thesaurus is a thesaurus is a
thesaurus.
Mike
At 01:21 PM 1/29/01 -0800, you wrote:
Hi,
I suspect the word you need is "ontologist" -- You might send a
message to
the Index-L discussion list. The address
is<index-l@listserv.unc.edu>. From time to time I've seen job
notices
there for specialists to construct thesauri.
Cheers,
Mary Sue Stephenson
Senior Instructor & Coordinator of Information Technology
School of Library, Archival and Information Studies
The University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1
604.822-6392 [voice] 604.822.6006 [fax]
On Mon, 29 Jan 2001, Barbara Weitbrecht wrote:
> <<I've done the web search thing and with little to no
luck....my area is
> pharmaceuticals, specifically cardiovascular and central nervous
system.
> Centering on disease states and research states. Looking at
these results
> as with the ones I've done, I come up with biology and plant
sciences
> mostly.>>
>
> Perhaps there is another name for the speciality you are
seeking. The most
> common meaning of "taxonomist" is a biologist who
identifies and classifies
> living or fossil organisms. Taxonomist specialize by taxon: a
plant
> taxonomist, an invertebrate taxonomist, a fossil fish taxonomist,
etc. Are
> you seeking an expert in pharmaceutical nomenclature? Or
something else
> entirely?
>
> Barbara Weitbrecht
> NASM Archives Divsion
> Smithsonian Institution
> bew@nasm.si.edu
>
> A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!
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