Heather Hedden

Heather Hedden provides taxonomy consulting, editing, and training services through Hedden Information Management. She is the author of The Accidental Taxonomist (2010, 2016) and a blog of that name and is a frequent conference speaker and workshop leader. Heather is also a senior vocabulary editor at Gale, A Cengage Company. She can be contacted on: heather@hedden.net

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Articles by Heather Hedden:


Taxonomies for information professionals
Wednesday, 19th December 2018

Taxonomies connect users to content more accurately than search alone, and there are many business cases for implementing them. This article addresses choosing the right type of taxonomy to serve a particular set of content and users, finding sources and taxonomy terms, and using software for their management.


The care and feeding of taxonomies: Taxonomy management
Thursday, 13th September 2012

Taxonomy management is an important responsibility of any organization that owns a taxonomy, no matter the original source of the taxonomy. Taxonomies connect users to content, and as users, content or terminology may change over time, the taxonomy must adapt. This is a short version of a more detailed article published in the FreePint Subscription. 


Taxonomy management: Needs and considerations
Thursday, 13th September 2012

Taxonomy management is an important responsibility of any organisation that owns a taxonomy, no matter the original source of the taxonomy. Taxonomies connect users to content, and, as users, content or terminology may change over time, the taxonomy must adapt. Taxonomy management encompasses the issues of taxonomy change and maintenance, taxonomy system, taxonomy editorial policies, and taxonomy ownership roles and responsibilities.


Software for taxonomy creation and management
Monday, 1st November 2010

There are many tools that can be used to create taxonomies from Excel, for those that are simple, to large scale, multi-user thesaurus systems, for those that are complex. In addition, there are many systems which are built for one purpose (for example content management) but also offer some taxonomy functionality. To steer us through the maze, Heather Heddon looks at the pros and cons of a range of approaches to taxonomy creation and management.


Software for taxonomy creation and management [ABSTRACT]
Monday, 1st November 2010

There are many tools that can be used to create taxonomies from Excel, for those that are simple, to large scale, multi-user thesaurus systems, for those that are complex. In addition, there are many systems which are built for one purpose (for example content management) but also offer some taxonomy functionality. To steer us through the maze, Heather Heddon looks at the pros and cons of a range of approaches to taxonomy creation and management.