Introduction. This paper examines and synthesizes previous research in scientific collaboration, scholarly communication, scientific collaboratories, scientific disciplines, invisible colleges and virtual communities to identify factors that may impact the design, adoption and use of a collaboratory within librarianship and information science. Results. A taxonomy of factors that appear to impact the design, adoption and use of a collaboratory emerged from the synthesis. Six types of factors were identified: factors that impact a researcher's career advancements; factors concerning aspects of doing science which affect researchers on a personal level, other than their career; factors focusing on whether the benefits of submitting to and using a collaboratory is worth the cost for the individual; disciplinary and factors focusing on science and disciplines in general, such as the development of new methodology within a discipline; factors that affect the community of researchers; and factors that are the costs of developing and sustaining a collaboratory for a community or discipline. Conclusions. The taxonomy provides a concise overview of explanatory factors concerning the adoption and use of collaboratories. The taxonomy provides a theoretical framework to guide future research which explores the adoption and use of a collaboratory in disciplines not yet studied, e.g., library and information science.