In this concept paper I sketch these potential ameliorations at a high level and then work to address some foundational issues associated with attempts at communicating multiple perspectives in a single classification scheme. These include both Melanie Feinberg’s work on rhetorical stance of the classificationist (2010, 2012) and Birger Hjorland’s work on explicit philosophical grounding and classification scheme design (2013).

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Perspective, Voice, Reference, and Warrant: A Sample of Ameliorations to the Multi-Perspective Design Requirement and Some Arguments Against It

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background

Prolegomena to Library Classification

Subject Analysis: Principles and Procedures

Any ontological theory commits us to accept and classify a number of phenomena in a more or less specific way – and vice versa: a classification tends to reveal the theoretical outlook of its creator. Objects and their descriptions and relations are not just “given” but determined by theories. Knowledge is fallible and consensus is rare. By implication, knowledge organization has to consider different theories/views and their foundations. Bibliographical classifications depend on subject knowledge and on the same theories as corresponding scientific and scholarly classifications. Some classifications are based on logical distinctions, others on empirical examinations, and some on mappings of common ancestors or on establishing functional criteria. To evaluate a classification is to involve oneself in the research which has produced the given classification. Because research is always based more or less on specific epistemological ideals (e.g. empiricism, rationalism, historicism or pragmatism), the evaluation of classification includes the evaluation of the epistemological foundations of the research on which given classifications have been based. The field of knowledge organization itself is based on different approaches and traditions such as user-based and cognitive views, facet-analytical views, numeric taxonomic approaches, bibliometrics and domain-analytic approaches. These approaches and traditions are again connected to epistemological views, which have to be considered. Only the domain-analytic view is fully committed to exploring knowledge organization in the light of subject knowledge and substantial scholarly theories.

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Theories of Knowledge Organization—Theories of Knowledge

Purpose – This paper aims to examine how systems for organizing information construct rhetorical arguments for a particular interpretation of their subject matter.Design/methodology/approach – The paper synthesizes a conceptual framework from the field of rhetoric and uses that framework to analyze how existing organizational schemes present evidence in support of arguments regarding the material being organized.Findings – Organizational schemes can present logical arguments as posed in rhetoric, using two forms of evidence for their claims: relationship evidence from the category structure and resource evidence from the ways that items are assigned to categories.Research limitations/implications – This study does not attempt to identify all types of evidence that organizational schemes might use in argumentation. Further research may describe additional forms of evidence and argumentative structures.Practical implications – When creating organizational schemes, designers might develop a strategy to facil...

Perspective, Voice, Reference, and Warrant: A Sample of Ameliorations to the Multi-Perspective Design Requirement and Some Arguments Against It

References

Prolegomena to Library Classification

Subject Analysis: Principles and Procedures

Theories of Knowledge Organization—Theories of Knowledge

Two kinds of evidence: How information systems form rhetorical arguments

Documentation and its Facets: Being a symposium of seventy papers by thirty-two authors

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