Christine Connors, writing on the TriviumRLG blog has written a brief history of classification. This paragraph about the history of taxonomies in the enterprise stood out specifically for me:
“Taxonomies in the enterprise reach back further than one thinks, but became known to researchers in 1858 when the NY Times began its index to the newspaper. It became such a valuable tool that publishers began indexing books and periodicals and publishing such – H.W.Wilson is a great publisher of indexes. The Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature is one that most school students are introduced to. Database providers and large academic/scholarly/professional publishers added this capability early on as well. Proquest/Gale/Cengage, Dialog, Factiva, Reuters, IEEE, ACM all have indexes. Large government organizations also have indexes organized by subject taxonomies or thesauri: NASA, DTIC, NIH, BLS, CIA, NAICS, SEC.” [Read More]
If you are interested in the origins of classification schemes (and the history behind many of the concepts most of us take for granted) then the article is well worth a read.