Constitutive Elements of the Taxonomy Concept

Abstract

This work started with the observation of the manifold meanings of the term taxonomy, in many different sources. It is known that this concept is being used in many different scientific and technological domains, and among those, the Information Science. The main goals of this work were to shed light on the meaning of the term taxonomy in different scientific fields, comprehend how taxonomies are being used as an information classification and retrieval tool in the Information Science. Many definitions were found and analysed, and the results are presented sintetically, followed by a discussion about the true statements about taxonomies.