Ontology, in its philosophical meaning, is the discipline investigating the structure of reality. Its findings can be relevant to knowledge organization, and models of knowledge can, in turn, offer relevant ontological suggestions. Several philosophers in time have pointed out that reality is structured into a series of integrative levels, like the physical, the biological, the mental, and the cultural, and that each level plays as a base for the emergence of more complex levels. More detailed theories of levels have been developed by Nicolai Hartmann and James K. Feibleman, and these have been considered as a source for structuring principles in bibliographic classification by both the Classification Research Group (CRG) and Ingetraut Dahlberg. CRG's analysis of levels and of their possible application to a new general classification scheme based on phenomena instead of disciplines, as it was formulated by Derek Austin in 1969, is examined in detail. Both benefits and open problems in applying integrative levels to bibliographic classification are pointed out.

Levels of reality and levels of representation

Interdisciplinary Knowledge Organization

In free classification, each concept is expressed by a constant notation, and classmarks are formed by free combinations of them, allowing the retrieval of records from a database by searching any of the component concepts. A refinement of free classification is freely faceted classification, where notation can include facets, expressing the kind of relations held between the concepts. The Integrative Level Classification project aims at testing free and freely faceted classification by applying them to small bibliographical samples in various domains. A sample, called the Dandelion Bibliography of Facet Analysis, is described here. Experience was gained using this system to classify 300 specialized papers dealing with facet analysis itself recorded on a MySQL database and building a Web interface exploiting freely faceted notation. The interface is written in PHP and uses string functions to process the queries and to yield relevant results selected and ordered according to the principles of integrative ...

Freely faceted classification for Web-based information retrieval

Claudio Gnoli has been working as an academic librarian since 1994. His main interest is classification theory. He has published papers on this subject in several international journals and conference pro- ceedings. He is a member of the scientific advisory boards of the Universal Decimal Classification Con- sortium (UDCC) and of the journal Knowledge Organization, and vice-president of the International Society for Knowledge Organization (ISKO). Gnoli, Claudio. Metadata About What? Distinguishing Between Ontic, Epistemic, and Documental Dimensions in Knowledge Organization. Knowledge Organization. 39(4), 268-275. 37 references. ABSTRACT: The spread of many new media and formats is changing the scenario faced by knowledge organizers: as printed monographs are not the only standard form of knowledge carrier anymore, the traditional kind of knowl- edge organization (KO) systems based on academic disciplines is put into question. A sounder foundation can be provided by an analysis of the different dimensions concurring to form the content of any knowledge item—what Brian Vickery described as the steps "from the world to the classifier." The ultimate referents of documents are the phenomena of the real world, that can be ordered by ontology, the study of what exists. Phenomena coexist in subjects with the perspectives by which they are considered, pertaining to epistemology, and with the formal features of knowledge carriers, adding a further, pragmatic layer. All these di- mensions can be accounted for in metadata, but are often done so in mixed ways, making indexes less rigorous and interoperable. For example, while facet analysis was originally developed for subject indexing, many "faceted" interfaces today mix subject fac- ets with form facets, and schemes presented as "ontologies" for the "semantic Web" also code for non-semantic information. In bibliographic classifications, phenomena are often confused with the disciplines dealing with them, the latter being assumed to be the most useful starting point, for users will have either one or another perspective. A general citation order of dimensions— phenomena, perspective, carrier—is recommended, helping to concentrate most relevant information at the beginning of head- ings.

Metadata About What? Distinguishing Between Ontic, Epistemic, and Documental Dimensions in Knowledge Organization

Most existing knowledge organization systems (KOS) are based on disciplines. However, as research is increasingly multidisciplinary, scholars need tools allowing them to explore relations between phenomena throughout the whole spectrum of knowledge. We focus on the dependence relationship, holding between one phenomenon and those at lower integrative levels on which it depends for its existence, like alpinism on mountains, and mountains on rocks. This relationship was first described by D.J. Foskett in the context of CRG's work towards a non-disciplinary scheme. We discuss its possible status and representation in three kinds of KOS: thesauri, classification schemes, and ontologies. In thesaural structures, dependence could be one of the subtypes of associative relationships (RT) which have been wished to enrich their semantic functions. In classification, it could act together with hierarchy as a structuring principle, providing a way of connecting and sorting main classes based on integrative levels. In ontologies, it could be defined as a dependsOn direct slot, expressing the fact that through it a class does not inherit all properties of the other class on which it depends. We argue that providing search interfaces with cross-disciplinary links of this kind can give users more adequate tools to examine the recorded knowledge through creative paths overcoming some limitations of its canonical segmentation into disciplines.

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A new relationship for multidisciplinary knowledge organization systems: dependence

The Integrative Level Classification (ILC) research project is experimenting with a knowledge organization system based on phenomena rather than disciplines. Each phenomenon has a constant notation, which can be combined with that of any other phenomenon in a freely faceted structure. Citation order can express differential focality of the facets. Very specific subjects can have long classmarks, although their complexity is reduced by various devices. Freely faceted classification is being tested by indexing a corpus of about 3300 papers in the interdisciplinary domain of bioacoustics. The subjects of these papers often include phenomena from a wide variety of integrative levels (mechanical waves, animals, behaviour, vessels, fishing, law, ...) as well as information about the methods of study, as predicted in the Leon Manifesto. The archive is recorded in a MySQL database, and can be fed and searched through PHP Web interfaces. Indexer's work is made easier by mechanisms that suggest possible classes on the basis of matching title words with terms in the ILC schedules, and synthesize automatically the verbal caption corresponding to the classmark being edited. Users can search the archive by selecting and combining values in each facet. Search refinement should be improved, especially for the cases where no record, or too many records, match the faceted query. However, experience is being gained progressively, showing that freely faceted classification by phenomena, theories, and methods is feasible and working.

Freely faceted classification for a Web-based bibliographic archive : the BioAcoustic Reference Database

Negli anni Sessanta il Classification research group studio la possibilita di uno schema di classificazione generale "a faccette libere", basato sulla teoria dei livelli di integrazione. Uno schema di questo tipo e stato da noi sperimentato per indicizzare una bibliografia di cultura locale. Sono presentate in particolare le caratteristiche della notazione, progettate per facilitare il recupero di descrizioni bibliografiche in ambiente digitale. Il sistema e stato sperimentato realizzando un'interfaccia di ricerca via Web scritta in linguaggio PHP, che estrae i dati registrati in una base-dati MySQL. La struttura a livelli permette di esprimere le relazioni fra concetti sia per semplice giustapposizione dei corrispondenti simboli, sia in modi piu sofisticati, compresa la relazione di dipendenza che sussiste tra fenomeni di livelli di integrazione diversi, quali "piante" e "boschi" o "montagne" e "alpinismo". ...

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Notazione e interfaccia di ricerca per una classificazione a livelli

Recently, there is a need to move knowledge organization systems (KOS) to online applications, by using Semantic Web technologies, in order to optimize indexing and searching. The present paper reports the representation of the Integrative Levels Classification (ILC) as a networked KOS, through conversion of its second edition into the W3C standard SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System) format.

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Gabriele Merli

Papers

Freely faceted classification for a Web-based bibliographic archive : the BioAcoustic Reference Database

Notazione e interfaccia di ricerca per una classificazione a livelli

Integrative Levels Classification as a Networked KOS: A SKOS Representation of ILC2