Taxonomies at Any Scale: Three Lessons for Archives, Corporations, and Anyone in Between

This article is a collaboration between the newest members of the Factor team, Jake Fatooh and Sam Stringer, who come from backgrounds in e-commerce and community archives, respectively. What could a community archive  and a global tech corporation possibly have in common? When it comes to taxonomy, more than you might think. Community archives focus on preserving specific slices of history, taking care to curate materials most relevant to the communities they’re designed to serve. Major technology corporations, on the other hand, aim to serve a vast audience at a massive scale. They want to curate as much information as possible, for as many users as possible.