TAXONOMY [tak-SON-uh-mee]: THE SCIENCE OR TECHNIQUE OF CLASSIFICATION
I'm a taxonomist. I was a taxonomist long before I had ever heard of the word. Many years ago - before the internet, before Craigslist, before the iPad - there was a local classified-ads newspaper called The Recycler. If you lived in Los Angeles during the 1980s, it was the first place you turned to look for an apartment, or a car, or adopt a pet, or even to find a bass player for your band. My first real job right out of high school was at The Recycler. I was hired to answer phones (wired phones! dial phones!) where people called in to dictate their classified ads, which I then typed into an amber-screen terminal connected to a Data General mainframe. I then had to categorize the ads in their proper place using three-letter codes for categories, and I caught on to this categorization scheme in no time at all. My entry-level job lasted only a matter of weeks before I was promoted to proofreader - which meant that in addition to checking for spelling, grammar, and editorial and legal compliance, my job was to ensure that everything I saw was correctly categorized. I was using a taxonomy for classification, but I didn't know it at the time - all I knew was that I found it entirely logical and immensely satisfying to put things where they belong. I haven't stopped since.
What, exactly, is taxonomy, and why do you need it? Taxonomy is the invisible superpower behind your website or CMS! You may have tons of great content, but can people find it without a taxonomy? Probably not. Taxonomy helps make your content findable. If your content is not findable, well - frankly, it’s useless.