This reprisal of a longer webinar (originally given for the SLA Taxonomy Community) was given as a SCELC Lightning Talk and discusses how to analyze shared file stores to discover the "folksonomies" hidden in the structure of folders.

1. Finding Folksonomy
in Folder Structures
Presented
byCam
illeM
athieu
SCELC
LightningTalks,09
Nov2020

2. your
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framing the
discussion
page
02
Organisms organize….
We sort the mail, build sand castles, solve jigsaw
puzzles, separate wheat from chaff, rearrange
chess pieces, collect stamps, alphabetize books,
create symmetry, compose sonnets and sonatas,
and put our rooms in order, and all this we do
requires no great energy, as long as we can apply
intelligence.
James Gleick, The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
Finding Folksonomy
in Folder Structures

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dual role of
knowledge workers
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03
versus
content consumer
… performing analyses,
aggregating data across silos,
searching for content, learning and
training.
content creator
Taking notes, designing
presentations, communicating,
writing documentation, producing
deliverables…
Finding Folksonomy
in Folder Structures

4. your
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focus on
folksonomy
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04
who?
Folksonomy tags are created
and applied by an enterprise’s
knowledge workers; any
standardization is
accomplished by info pros.
what?
Folksonomy is “a
user-generated system of
classifying and organizing
online content into different
categories by the use of
metadata such as electronic
tags” (Oxford Dictionary).
why?
Taxonomies and other KOSs
are top-down and costly
upfront; folksonomy is
bottom-up, and distributes the
work across the organization.
how?
Folksonomies come about
when users tag content at the
item- or collection-level,
frequently using free-text tags
and natural language.
Finding Folksonomy
in Folder Structures

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the value of
folder structures
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05
File names are frequently unhelpful – but sometimes, knowledge
workers use the required file name field to provide descriptive
information about files. This information can help add depth to
high-level folder structures.
file names as descriptive metadata
In enterprise settings, many folder titles and structures are
collaborative, often developed on shared drives and cloud-based file
stores. The organization and naming of folders in spaces like these
can be considered a consensus from users as to proper terminology
for their work.
folder titles as collaborative organization
Subfolders that are nested under higher-level folders indicate a
hierarchy which can be retained in the folksonomy to add additional
value,
folder structure as implied hierarchy
Finding Folksonomy
in Folder Structures

6. FIND, READ, &
NORMALIZE
FOLDER
STRUCTURES

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folder structure to
folksonomy
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07
01
step 01 develop text list of folder structure
Finding Folksonomy
in Folder Structures
✔ Automatic: print text list of folders/files and all sub-folders
✔ Web applications; varies
✔ PC; dir /s >listmyfolder.txt in Command Line
✔ Mac; find ~/[PATH]/ -type f > FilesWithPaths.txt in Terminal
✔ Manual: develop click-through in Excel or other text editor

8. step 01 develop text list of folder structure

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folder structure to
folksonomy
page
09
02
Finding Folksonomy
in Folder Structures
step 02 clean up text output
✔ Clean-up tasks include:
✔ Removing unnecessary text while preserving hierarchy
✔ Setting similar values to reflect a standard term
✔ OpenRefine is more powerful, but Excel will do
✔ Specifics of clean up will depend on the parameters of output, as well as the
desired final format of the text file

10. step 02 clean up text output

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folder structure to
folksonomy
page
011
03
Finding Folksonomy
in Folder Structures
✔ For this step, use whatever taxonomy management system your organization
typically uses
✔ Protégé ontology manager is a free option, but there is a learning curve and must
convert content to OWL format prior to import
✔ Import into taxonomy platform to establish hierarchy
step 03 import into taxonomy platform

12. step 03 import into taxonomy platform

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next
steps
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013
Open your folksonomy up for use,
and see how knowledge workers
use it.
experiment
The folksonomy derived from the
folder structure is a jumping-off
point – plan to extend!
augment
Folder structures are useful for
folksonomy, but the translation
won’t be 1-to-1, so be flexible.
expect pitfalls
The visibility of search is not a
reason to forget about folders; be
strategic when setting up new
folder structures or
dispositioning old ones.
(re)design
Finding Folksonomy
in Folder Structures

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final
reflection
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014
Ofer Bergman, The Science of Managing our Digital Stuff
...despite intuitive advantages of emerging
technologies, it seems that
unfashionable folders are still preferred.
Finding Folksonomy
in Folder Structures

15. thank you.
Camille Mathieu
camille@cairnway.co
@searchbrarian
/camillemathieu