As someone who has been in the information business for 30 years, it was interesting to see how technology really doesn't change the need for good information practices. Over the years as indexing costs using a controlled vocabulary increased, managers in the information business looked to computers and the improved searching engines to rid them of the need of a controlled vocabulary. Unfortunately, the vast amounts of information now available has overwhelmed search engine ability. Although, like you stated, there will never be one vocabulary that we all use, just getting web sites to consider controlled vocabulary use will make them think about how their information is to be found. As I mentioned, we also use controlled subject categories to assist in the classification of web or database records.
Subject categories are simply a broader approach to a controlled vocabulary.
Whereas controlled vocabulary terms can be difficult to enter consistently, a broader approach using subject categories makes it easier to get consistency in subject assignment if more than one person is involved in the indexing process. Copyright 2001 INT Media Group, Incorporated All Rights Reserved.