Laurie wrote: I am not certain the term Taxonomy is appropriate to what
we do in a Records Management environment. It is my personal opinion
that what we have ... is a ... BCS which is based on the Business
Processes of our organisation/s.

I have to disagree, just a bit, and argue that we are doing taxonomy
development (or at least I am!).  It seems to me that what you are
coining as "BCS" would be considered a portion of the overall taxonomy.
As Carol put forth, the taxonomy is typically at the organizational
level and is made up of department-specific information.  

Carol wrote: ... In our discipline, a taxonomy is a hierarchical
classification, normally made on an enterprise basis. It should be
traceable back to the files and documents in a department or workgroup.
So a departmental retention schedule or file plan is not a taxonomy if
it does not have a basis in the enterprise ...

In that context, I would argue that the "BCS" is more like a
departmental file plan (which can be used to develop the departmental
retention schedule), and is a portion of the overall corporate taxonomy.

So, I guess, we aren't disagreeing, really.  We both agree that a BCS is
not a taxonomy in, and of, itself - however I do disagree that we
don't/shouldn't be developing taxonomies, using the BCS concept as
department-level components.

In my situation, I am participating in developing a firm-wide taxonomy
which is made up of department-specific classification schemes relevant
to the work each department does day to day.  If I were only focusing on
developing department level classification schemes to facilitate
departmental operational functionality and not tying that back into the
overall organization's information management structure, I would be
missing the forest for the trees.

And I love this subject too!

Julie

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