[Sigia-l] Question about the use of the term 'ontology'

[Lars Marius Garshol]

* ruth at ruthkaufman.com
| 
| Anecdotally, I think I won't use 'taxonomy' because I think we need
| to start using Topic Maps to manage our wide range of stuff in
| different contexts, and I think if I stick with our current generic
| term (which happens to be 'taxonomy') that people won't get that
| we're doing something new and improved. So I'm thinking of using
| 'onotology', but just want to double check that I don't misuse the
| term in a way that causes me to be dismissed by our library
| scientists.

I think I can summarize this with a taxonomy as follows:

  subject-based classification
    controlled vocabulary
    taxonomy
      thesaurus
    faceted classification
    ontology (in an IA context, anyway)
      topic map

So it may be useful to say that what you need is a "subject-based
classification", and that the approach you propose is a "topic map".

Or maybe not. :-)

-- 
Lars Marius Garshol, Ontopian         <URL: http://www.ontopia.net >
GSM: +47 98 21 55 50                  <URL: http://www.garshol.priv.no >