Taxonomies help people make connections
Taxonomies can improve data retrieval by providing people with a browsable structure. Exposing taxonomies to your audience has the benefit of educating them about the relationships between concepts and terms.This is no small matter as people gain a better understanding of a subject when they see the interconnection between terms.There are three types of relationships within a taxonomy:
- Equivalence: USE/ UF (use/ use[ d] for)
- Hierarchical: BT/ NT (broader term/ narrower term)
- Associative: RT (related term)
Hierarchical relationships are defined by one term being broader or more encompassing than other. For example the NBA is a broad term. The Cleveland Cavaliers is a smaller term that would fall under the larger term.
Equivalent relationships are when two terms are of equal standing in the hierarchy. Equivalent terms synonymous or equivalent nonpreferred terms pointing, as a kind of cross-reference relationship, to the desired preferred terms (Hedden 2010).
Associative relationshipsThe associative relationship functions in a similar manner to See also cross-references in a book-style index (Hedden, 2010).
