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Prolegomena to Library Classification

About: The article was published on 1967-01-01 and is currently open access. It has received 431 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Library of Congress Classification & Dewey Decimal Classification.

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Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2016
TL;DR: This chapter begins with several strategies for developing the sort of general classification urged in preceding chapters, and first discusses strategies for reducing ambiguity in how to structure a phenomenon-based KOS.
Abstract: This chapter begins with several strategies for developing the sort of general classification urged in preceding chapters. It first discusses strategies for reducing ambiguity. It then addresses how to structure a phenomenon-based KOS. Integrative levels, dependence relationships, and general systems theory are explored. The chapter then looks in some detail at the practical classification of phenomena and relationships.
Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Discipline of Organizing is a kludge, a reasonable-looking framework that is actually deeply incoherent, festooned with many separate factlets, ideas, and even historical information that nonetheless fails to provide a coherent vision for the proposed discipline.
Abstract: The advent of the Internet has arguably revolutionized the information professions, opening up possibilities that were barely dreamed of a few decades ago. At the same time, we have decades of computer-based expertise in information science as well as centuries of paper-based experience in the business and practice of information to draw upon. A fundamental question going forward is how to integrate what we already know with what we need to know in this new era. Indeed, perhaps we should ask even more fundamental questions: Should we retain anything from the “old days” at all? Has the management of information changed so much in the digital, net-based context that we should start all over again and design a new field entirely? These questions come immediately to mind in reviewing The Discipline of Organizing, edited by Robert J. Glushko. Glushko is in the unusual position of being both editor and one of seven principal authors, along with 11 contributing authors, of this work. He is first author on eight chapters, second author on one chapter, and not an author on one of the 10 chapters; so he is the lead author and editor, with various mixes of coauthors on each chapter. Glushko wants to respond to the needs of the new era, and concludes that the organization of information needs to be completely reconstituted as a discipline, based on a systems analysis of the various elements involved in organizing information. In fact, note here at the beginning that Glushko’s idea of a discipline of organizing is about far more than what has conventionally been called the area of “information organization.” Instead, the discipline ostensibly covered in the book is much larger, a mix of information organization, information science, information management, business processes, and several other things. In effect, Glushko et al. are reinventing or reconfiguring several existing professional domains under the rubric of the “discipline of organizing.” It is clear throughout the book that the numerous authors of the composite text see this as a foundational volume in the construction of a new understanding of information organization. At the same time, the authors have drawn on the knowledge of other people as commentators who already have some understanding of the subject matter of the area (myself included) to bring to bear on the text what is already known in the various information professions about the organization of information. Regrettably, the effort is largely unsuccessful. The fundamental problem is that The Discipline of Organizing is a kludge, a reasonable-looking framework that is actually deeply incoherent, festooned with many separate factlets, ideas, and even historical information that nonetheless fails to provide a coherent vision for the proposed discipline. The fundamental problem is that one cannot crowd-source vision and intellectual rigor. Glushko was kind enough to provide me with a preliminary draft of the book, as he did likewise to others in the information professions. However, I gave up, finally, in my effort to provide useful feedback to the authors because the document could not be improved enough from the outside in to be a reasonable text. Some striking knowledge and stunning ignorance sat side by side in the text. For example, that earlier draft of the book referred to the information provided in databases such as Westlaw and LexisNexis as being “beyond the ‘bibliographic universe’” because they were produced by business rather than public service institutions. This statement is incorrect; the contents of these databases are bibliographic in nature, and being “bibliographic” has nothing to do with who produced the text. The current text does not make that mistake, but a text composed of after-the-fact fixes from the many people who provided input does not constitute a rigorous, coherent vision of a body of knowledge. It most certainly does not constitute a whole new discipline, an assumption embodied in the very title of the book. An organizing vision, informed by at least a reasonable amount of knowledge and theoretical rigor, has to come from within, from the lead author, and radiate out through every part of the text. Then, and only then, can the added input from outside experts add to and enrich the core ideas, instead of functioning as it does now, as a Procrustean overlay. I have many concerns about the book which I will address shortly, but let me first say what is good about it. The subject matter ranges far afield in covering many forms of paper and electronic information, from books to radio frequency identification tags and from cataloging rules to the Semantic Web. Here are the 10 chapter titles:

Cites background from "Prolegomena to Library Classificati..."

  • ...…be classified or described, given the unique character of information, as distinct from objects (see the works of Bliss, 1929; Wilson, 1968; and Ranganathan, 1957; such old references are cited because sometimes one must go back a ways to find things stated that are now taken for granted and…...

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper attempts to delve a state-of-the-art of library classification in the new computer age.
Abstract: Library Classification is constantly being influenced by multifaceted,multidimensional,and infinite growth of literature on one hand and the users needs on the other.Dewey pioneered in devising a scheme of classification for the documentation utility of the organised knowledge .Subsequent schemes of classification worked purely without any theoretical foundation , colon clasification being the expectation.With the emergence of computer technology the library classification is being metamorphised.This paper attempts to delve a state-of-the-art of library classification in the new computer age. http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dbit.19.3.3484
01 Jan 2003
TL;DR: The development of a prototype for a digital library visual query and discovery results presentation services and a teacher-centered Web-enabled lesson-design environment that integrates these services with cognitive and semantic outcomes within the educational practice is described.
Abstract: In this paper we describe the development of a prototype for: (a) a digital library visual query and discovery results presentation services and (b) teacher-centered Web-enabled lesson-design environment - Visual Knowledge Inquirer (VKI) - that integrates these services with cognitive and semantic outcomes within the educational practice. Acknowledgments. We wish to acknowledge Les Bro- kaw, Douglas Horn, Ronald Jensen, MaryAnn Varanka Martin and Michel Petraglia - chemistry teachers, who inspired this development. We would also like to thank Timothy Tierney for reading the entire text and check- ing it thoroughly.