Collaboration

ISKO UK believes in collaboration, not just to spread our own message, but also to benefit from the expertise and accomplishments of colleagues working in related fields. We collaborate and have joint activities within our own community of ISKO Chapters and many other professional organizations and specialists groups.  We welcome future collaboration opportunities. Please contact any of our committee members (or chair@iskouk.org if you prefer) to discuss possibility of collaboration. 

British Computer Society (BCS)

• Joint events with IRSG (Information Retrieval Specialist Group of the BCS) include “I think, therefore I classify” in July 2012 as well as "Making Metadata Work" in June 2014. More recently both of us have been collaborating to organize the annual Search Solutions meetings, of which the latest was held in November 2020. IRSG also works with us and UKeiG to promote the annual Tony Kent Strix Award, which is presented annually in memory of the pioneering information scientist Tony Kent. This annual award recognises an outstanding contribution made to information retrieval - the prime application area for knowledge organization. All enquiries about the award should be sent to awards@ukeig.org.uk.

•  Joint events with KIDMM (Knowledge, Information, Data and Metadata), a discussion community of the BCS engaged with Knowledge, Information, Data and Metadata Management; it helped us organise a “Meta Knowledge Mash-up 2.0,” in 2008. The KIDMM discussion group was active from 2005-2009.

•  LISG, the Location Information Specialist Group of the BCS, shares our interest in organizing geospatial information and helped us arrange a meeting on this topic in 2012.

Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP)

• Collaboration with CIG (Cataloguing and Indexing Group)  is organic in nature and happens naturally through a shared interest in knowledge organization. Many ISKO UK members have been participating as speakers on CIG events.
• LIRG (Library and Information Research Group) is a special interest group of CILIP which promotes the value of information research and links research with practice - one of our own priorities. LIRG co-organized a special session during the 2013 ISKO UK conference.
• UKeIG (UK electronic information Group)  - partners with ISKO UK in organising Toni Kent Strix Award.

Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI)

DCMI worked with us and IRSG to arrange a very successful "Making Metadata Work" day in 2014, including a tutorial on metadata management in Sharepoint and a workshop on linking up vocabularies, as well as the main programme of presentations.

International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA)

IFLA Section for Subject Analysis and Access (SAA)  is our point of touch when it comes to organizing, promoting events and give visibility to ISKO UK activities within international library community. This is especially so recently and in relation to education and training in our field Many SAA section members are also members of ISKO and ISKO UK specifically are members and participate in the SAA working groups.

ISKO Chapters

Collaboration with regional Chapters of ISKO  is the most important aspect of our international presence. As a part of an international organization ISKO UK has an opportunity to closely collaborate in many projects, organizing events, conferences and exchange speakers. Our online events feature knowledge organization specialists and are attended by ISKO members from around the world.

NetIKX

NetIKX and ISKO UK collaborated on a seminar in June 2018 called Organising medical and health-related information. There is a blog posting about this event written by Conrad Taylor: Organising medical and health-related information.

Network Knowledge Organization Systems (NKOS)  

The NKOS community is concerned with the functions and data models for enabling knowledge organization systems/services (KOS). The European wing of NKOS co-organized a session in our 2011 and took the lead role in a joint workshop during the 2014 International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries (TPDL).

Taxonomies in the Public Sector (TIPS)

TIPS was a networking group for public sector colleagues working with Knowledge Organization Systems. It was operational from 2005 to March 2021. In May 2018 ISKO UK and TiPS joined forces to run a Linked Open Data Professional Development Workshop.

Taxonomy Bootcamp London (TBCL)

The Taxonomy Boot Camp London used to hold annuall events in London providing a great opportunity for KO practitioners to learn from each other’s experience. ISKO UK regularly worked with the organisers on aspects such as publicity and networking opportunities for members. The Taxonomy Bootcamp now runs virtual events throughout the year.

Universities in the UK

University College London (UCL) was among the first universities to provide venues for many of our meetings including several ISKO UK conferences.

City, University of London was the venue of the 2019 ISKO UK conference.

The University of Strathclyde was the venue of the 2023 ISKO UK conference in collaboration with Edingburgh Napier University.

As well as organizing events, ISKO UK is very keen to support education and research. We offer discounts to students (with free entry to most of our afternoon meetings) and hope to develop productive relationships with all the universities and colleges in the UK where Knowledge Organization is taught.