There is a need to address issues related to conceptualisation and deployment of
knowledge organization tools for seamless and effective resource discovery in cultural
networks. Current efforts to address these issues include proposals for mapping
thesauri used by different cultural institutions (Nicholson et al., 2002), construction of
ontologies to provide a knowledge model for the cultural heritage sector (Gill, 2004) and
the use of faceted structures for retrieval (Tudhope and Binding, 2004; English et al.,
2002). This paper explores the use of taxonomies as a viable knowledge organization
system (KOS) for enhanced resource discovery of information on cultural networks.
Taxonomies are selected for this research as its characteristics and features currently
best fit the needs of organising diverse, unstructured and poorly described resources in a specific domain. Gilchrist (2001) finds that many organisations are increasingly
turning to taxonomies as the answer to the growing demand for knowledge discovery
tools in the face of information overload, inaccurate articulation of user needs and
inconsistent vocabulary