KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION KO Contents

Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3

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Official Quarterly Journal of the International Society for Knowledge Organization ISSN 0943 – 7444 International Journal devoted to Concept Theory, Classification, Indexing and Knowledge Representation

Contents

Editor’s Message ...... 133 Report

Williamson, Nancy J. Eighth International Obituary: Dr. Arthur Steven Pollitt ...... 134 ISKO Conference, London UK, 13-16 July, 2004...... 188

Book Review Articles SATIJA, M.P. A Dictionary of Knowledge López-Huertas, María José, and Evaristo Jiménez Organization. Amritsar, India: Guru Nanak Dev Contreras. Spanish Research in Knowledge University, 2004. (248 p.) ISBN 81-7770-101-0...... 196 Organization (1992-2001)...... 136 Gnoli, Claudio, and Roberto Poli. Levels of Reality Letter to the Editor and Levels of Representation...... 151 Nicolaisen, Jeppe, and Birger Hjørland. Coleman, Anita S.. A Code for Classifiers: A Rejoinder to Beghtol (2004)...... 199 Whatever Happened to Merrill’s Code?...... 161 Thellefsen, Torkild L., and Martin M. Thellefsen. Knowledge Organization Literature Pragmatic Semiotics and Knowledge Organization...... 177 31 (2004) No.3...... 202

Personal Author Index 31 (2004) No.3...... 210

Knowl. Org. 31(2004) No.3

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Contents page

López-Huertas, María and Evaristo Jiménez Contreras. Coleman, Anita S.. (2004). A Code for Classifiers: What- (2004). Spanish Research in Knowledge Organization ever Happened to Merrill’s Code? Knowledge Organiza- (1992-2001). Knowledge Organization, 31(3). 136-150. 15 tion, 31(3). 161-176. 32 refs. refs. ABSTRACT: The work titled Code for Classifiers by Wil- ABSTRACT: This study gives an initial appraisal of re- liam Stetson Merrill is examined. The development of search activity in Spain surrounding “knowledge organiza- Merrill's Code over a period of 27 years, 1912-1939 is tion.” The sample comprises articles, monographs and traced by examining bibliographic, attribution, conceptual PhD. dissertations identified in the following data bases: and contextual differences. The general principles advo- ISI, LISA, ISOC, REBIUN, RUECA and TESEO. In cated, the differences between variants, and three contro- Spain, “knowledge organization” is a consolidated subject versial features of the Code: 1) the distinction between area that shows increasing productivity, although it cannot classifying vs. classification, 2) borrowing of the biblio- be considered well developed by any means. A small num- graphic principle of authorial intention, and 3) use of ber of highly productive authors are responsible for the Dewey Decimal class numbers for classified sequence of bulk of output. Most research activity stems from univer- topics, are also discussed. The paper reveals the importance sity departments and schools of library science, in particu- of the Code in its own time, the complexities of its presen- lar the Universities of Madrid and Zaragoza. A general in- tation and assessment by its contemporaries, and it’s status terest in the theoretical aspects of classification systems, today. documentary languages and thesauri can be seen.

Thellefsen, Martin and Torkild Thellefsen. (2004). Prag- Gnoli, Claudio and Roberto Poli. (2004). Levels of Reality matic Semiotics and Knowledge Organization. Knowl- and Levels of Representation. Knowledge Organization, edge Organization, 31(3). 177-187. 18 refs. 31(3). 151-160. 45 refs. ABSTRACT: The present paper presents a philosophical ABSTRACT: Ontology, in its philosophical meaning, is approach to knowledge organization, proposing the prag- the discipline investigating the structure of reality. Its find- matic doctrine of C.S. Peirce as basic analytical framework ings can be relevant to knowledge organization, and mod- for knowledge domains. The theoretical framework dis- els of knowledge can, in turn, offer relevant ontological cussed is related to the qualitative branch of knowledge or- suggestions. Several philosophers in time have pointed out ganization theory i.e. within scope of Hjørland’s domain that reality is structured into a series of integrative levels, analytical view (Hjørland and Albrechtsen 1995; Hjørland like the physical, the biological, the mental, and the cul- 2002; Hjørland 2004), and promote a general framework tural, and that each level plays as a base for the emergence for analyzing domain knowledge and concepts. However, of more complex levels. More detailed theories of levels the concept of knowledge organization can be viewed in at have been developed by Nicolai Hartmann and James K. least two perspectives, one that defines knowledge organi- Feibleman, and these have been considered as a source for zation as an activity performed by a human actor e.g. an in- structuring principles in bibliographic classification by formation specialist, and secondly a view that has the per- both the Classification Research Group (CRG) and spective of the inherent self-organizing structure of a Ingetraut Dahlberg. CRG’s analysis of levels and of their knowledge domain the latter being investigated in the pa- possible application to a new general classification scheme per. 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.

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KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION Dr. Rebecca GREEN, College of Information Studies, Hornbake Bldg. (So. Wing), Room 4105, University of Maryland, College This journal is the organ of the INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY Park, MD 20742-4345 USA. Email: [email protected] FOR KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION (General Secretariat: Dr. Gerhard RIESTHUIS (Literature Editor), Liendenhof 60, Dr. Norbert HENRICHS, Im Luftfeld 80, D-40489 Düsseldorf, NL-1108 HB Amsterdam, Netherlands). Germany Dr. Roland HJERPPE, Dept. of Computer and Information Sci- ence, Linköping University, S-58183 Linköping, Sweden Editors Dr. Barbara H. KWASNIK, Professor, School of Information Studies, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244 USA, (315) 443-4547 voice, (315) 443-4506 fax. Email: [email protected] Dr. Richard P. SMIRAGLIA (Editor-in-Chief), Palmer School of Dr. Ia MCILWAINE, Director, School of Library, Archive & In- Library and Information Science, Long Island University, 720 formation Studies, University College London, Gower Street, Northern Blvd., Brookville NY 11548 USA. London WC1E 6BT U.K. Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Prof. Dr. Francis MIKSA, Graduate School of Library and Infor- Dr. Clément ARSENAULT (Book Review Editor), École de bib- mation Science, University of Texas at Austin, SZB 564, Austin, liothéconomie et des sciences de l’information, Université de TX 78712-1276 Montréal, C.P. 6128, succ. Centre-ville, Montréal (QC) H3C 3J7, Canada. Email: [email protected] Ms. Joan S. MITCHELL, Editor in Chief, Dewey Decimal Classi- fication, OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc., 6565 Dr. Gerhard RIESTHUIS (Literature Editor), Liendenhof 60, Frantz Road, Dublin, OH 43017-3395 USA. NL-1108 HB Amsterdam, Netherlands. Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Dr. Widad MUSTAFA el HADI, URF IDIST, Université Charles Dr. Nancy WILLIAMSON (Classification Research News Edi- de Gaulle Lille 3, BP 149, 59653 Villeneuve D’Ascq, France tor), Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto, 140 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G6 Canada. Dr. Giliola NEGRINI, Consiglio Nazionale della Ricerche, Ist. di Email: [email protected] Studi sulla Ricerca e Doc. Scientifica, Via Cesare De Lollis, 12, I- 00185 Rome, Italy Hanne ALBRECHTSEN (Communications Editor), Risø Na- tional Laboratory, Roskilde, Denmark. Dr. Hope A. OLSON, School of Information Studies, 522 Bolton E-mail: [email protected] Hall, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53201 USA. Email: [email protected] Matthew F. AINSWORTH (Editorial Assistant), Palmer School of Library and Information Science, Long Island University. Ms. Annelise Mark PEJTERSEN, Systems Analysis Dept., Risoe National Laboratory, P.O. Box 49, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark Dr. M. P. SATIJA, Guru Nanak Dev University, School of Li- brary and Information Science, Amritsar-143 005, India Consulting Editors Dr. J.F. (Jos) SCHREINEMAKERS, Section Business Informat- ics, School of Computer Science, Faculty of Sciences, Vrije Uni- Prof. Dr. Ulf G. BARANOW, Rua Ubaldino do Amaral 580, versiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Email: [email protected] Apto. 51, BR-80060-190, Curitiba - PR, Brazil Dr. Otto SECHSER, In der Ey 37, CH-8047 Zürich, Switzerland Prof. Clare BEGHTOL, Faculty of Information Studies, Univer- Dr. Winfried SCHMITZ-ESSER, Rothenbaumchaussee 3, D – sity of Toronto, 140 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 20148 Hamburg, Germany 3G6, Canada. Email: [email protected] Dr. Dagobert SOERGEL, College of Information Studies, Horn- Dr. Gerhard BUDIN, Dept.of Philosophy of Science, University bake Bldg. (So. Wing), Room 4105, University of Maryland, Col- of Vienna, Sensengasse 8, A-1090 Wien, Austria. lege Park, MD 20742 Email: [email protected] Dr. Eduard R. SUKIASYAN, Editor-in-chief, Library Biblio- Mr. Christian GALINSKI, Director: Infoterm, Simmeringer graphical Classification (LBC), National Classification System of Hauptstr. 24, A-1110 Wien, Austria Russia, Russian State Library. Email: [email protected]. Dr. Francisco Javier GARCÍA MARCO, Area de Bibliotecono- Dr. Martin van der WALT, Department of Information Science, mia y Documentacion, Facultad de Filosofia y Letras, Universidad University of Stellenbosch, Private Bag X1, Stellenbosch 7602, de Zaragoza, E-50.009 Zaragoza, Spain. Email: [email protected] South Africa. Email: [email protected] Dr. M.A. GOPINATH, 7604 Sandy Lake Ct., Raleigh, NC- Prof. Dr. Harald ZIMMERMANN, Softex, Schmollerstrasse 31, 27613, USA, (919) 788-9099 voice. Email: [email protected] D-66111 Saarbrücken, Germany Knowl. Org. 31(2004) No.3

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The more scientific data is generated in the impetuous Thus, KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION is a forum for present times, the more ordering energy needs to be expended all those interested in the organization of knowledge on a uni- to control these data in a retrievable fashion. With the abun- versal or a domain-specific scale, using concept-analytical or dance of knowledge now available the questions of new solu- concept-synthetical approaches, as well as quantitative and tions to the ordering problem and thus of improved classifica- qualitative methodologies. KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZA- tion systems, methods and procedures have acquired unfore- TION also addresses the intellectual and automatic compila- seen significance. For many years now they have been the fo- tion and use of classification systems and thesauri in all fields cus of interest of information scientists the world over. of knowledge, with special attention being given to the prob- Until recently, the special literature relevant to classifica- lems of terminology. tion was published in piecemeal fashion, scattered over the KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION publishes original numerous technical journals serving the experts of the various articles, reports on conferences and similar communications, fields such as the Newsletters of the International Society for Knowledge Organization (ISKO News) and the Committee on Classifi- cation Research of the International Federation for Informa- philosophy and science of science tion and Documentation (FID/CR News) as well as book re- science policy and science organization views, letters to the editor, and an extensive annotated bibliog- mathematics, statistics and computer science raphy of recent classification and indexing literature, covering library and information science some 500 items in each issue. archivistics and museology KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION should therefore be journalism and communication science available at every university and research library of every coun- industrial products and commodity science try, at every information center, at colleges and schools of li- terminology, lexicography and linguistics brary and information science, in the hands of everybody interested in the fields mentioned above and thus also at every office for updating information on any topic related to the Beginning in 1974, KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION problems of order in our information-flooded times. (formerly INTERNATIONAL CLASSIFICATION) has KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION was founded in been serving as a common platform for the discussion of both 1973 by an international group of scholars with a consulting theoretical background questions and practical application board of editors representing the world’s regions, the special problems in many areas of concern. In each issue experts from classification fields, and the subject areas involved. From many countries comment on questions of an adequate struc- 1974-1980 it was published by K.G. Saur Verlag, München. turing and construction of ordering systems and on the prob- Back issues of 1978-1992 are available from ERGON-Verlag, lems of their use in opening the information contents of new too. literature, of data collections and survey, of tabular works and As of 1989, KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION has be- of other objects of scientific interest. Their contributions have come the official organ of the INTERNATIONAL SOCI- been concerned with ETY FOR KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION (ISKO) and is included for every ISKO-member, personal or institutional in the membership fee (US $ 55/US $ 110). (1) clarifying the theoretical foundations (general ordering Rates: From 2004 on for 4 issues/ann. (including indexes) theory/science, theoretical bases of classification, data € 103,00 (forwarding costs included). Membership rates see analysis and reduction) above. (2) describing practical operations connected with index- ERGON-Verlag, Grombühlstr. 7, GER-97080 Würzburg; ing/classification, as well as applications of classification Phone: +49 (931) 280084; FAX +49 (931) 282872; E-mail: systems and thesauri, manual and machine indexing [email protected]; http://www.ergon-verlag.de (3) tracing the history of classification knowledge and methodology The contents of this journal are indexed and abstracted in Refera- (4) discussing questions of education and training in classi- tivnyi Zhurnal Informatika and in the following online databases: fication Information Science Abstracts, INSPEC, Library and Information (5) concerning themselves with the problems of terminol- Science Abstracts (LISA), Library Literature, PASCAL, Sociologi- ogy in general and with respect to special fields. cal Abstracts, and Web Science & Social Sciences Citation Index. Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 133 R. P. Smiraglia: Editor’s Message

Editor’s Message

It is an honor to welcome you for the first time as you will now submit, we will editor-in-chief of Knowledge Organization. I under- continue the tradition of excel- take this task with high hopes for continued excel- lence that is the reputation of lence in the international pursuit of the advancement this journal. of our field. It is a privilege to have been entrusted With those simple words I with the care of this journal by the executive board submit to you my first issue – of the International Society for Knowledge Organi- it is an exciting mixture of re- zation. search and report. I want to begin by acknowledging the very fine work of my predecessor, Dr. Hope Olson, who has left me a working journal of very high quality. I trust Richard P. Smiraglia that, together with you readers and the manuscripts Editor-in-chief

134 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 A. Tinker: Dr. Arthur Steven Pollitt †

Dr. Arthur Steven Pollitt †

Company Director, former information on high density microform…This Reader in Information Science was a rich area for research and development…” and UK ISKO Coordinator Steve Pollitt died, after a short Following brief periods of employment as a Research illness, on the 15th of Novem- Assistant at the University of Leeds and then Lec- ber 2004, aged 53. turer at Leeds Polytechnic, Steve was given the op- Steve Pollitt is no doubt portunity to pursue his keen research interests at the best known for his innovative University of Huddersfield, where he spent much of and visionary research in com- his working life. Dave Watson, a friend and col- puter science, information retrieval and knowledge league, recalls their early days there: organisation, spanning more than thirty years. Like the practice of classification he so avidly promoted, “There are three words which keep coming to his work was characterised by establishing relation- mind when I think of Steve at the University; ships and connections, realising the potential of tra- passion, enthusiasm and commitment. Steve ditional knowledge organisation tools in new infor- showed all of these qualities throughout his mation environments. Deeply inspired by the pio- University Career and beyond. He and I started neering work of S.R. Ranganathan and the Classifica- together at the University in 1979, and I can tion Research Group, Steve recognised a parallel be- remember his enthusiasm in abundance even in tween relational database management systems and those early days of our teaching careers. Steve faceted classification, and the value of exploiting always showed a passion for teaching and re- such knowledge structures at the system interface search.” for “navigating in-dimensional space.” This marrying of his early beginnings and expertise in computer This passion for research resulted in him completing and, subsequently, information science and retrieval an influential PhD, under the supervision of Profes- with later interests and a focus on knowledge organi- sor Karen Sparck Jones, entitled “An expert systems sation culminated in his View-based Searching tech- approach to document retrieval,” in which he devel- nology and its progression from innovative research oped the CANSEARCH system for cancer therapy to successful commercial product. clinicians, and a subsequent year’s sabbatical as a Steve was born in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, on Special Expert in Information Retrieval at the Na- November 23rd 1950 and brought up in the tional Library of Medicine, Maryland, USA. This in- neighbouring village of Thornhill. After studying at terest in interfaces for medical databases was to per- Dewsbury Wheelwright Grammar School, he pur- meate much of his career. Upon his return to Uni- sued his interest in computing by gaining a BSc. versity of Huddersfield, Steve established and be- (Hons) degree in Computer Science from Hatfield came Director of the Centre for Database Access Polytechnic, UK, in 1973. His study at Hatfield in- Research (CeDAR), producing a prolific research cluded a period of industrial training at the Marconi output throughout the 1990s. He was promoted to Research Laboratories and subsequent employment Reader in Information Science in 1997, allowing as Computer Applications Technologist to which he more time for his insatiable interest in research. attributed the genesis of View-based searching: In addition to pursuing his own research interests, Steve was always keen to participate in the wider re- “The seed which grew into View-based Search- search community. Before his sabbatical in the USA, ing was probably planted way back in 1973 in he was very active within the British Computer Soci- the early days of online searching. The Marconi ety, notably chairing the Information Retrieval Spe- Research Laboratories at Great Baddow in Essex cialist Group between 1979-1984 and becoming a had developed an Automated Ultrafiche Termi- Fellow in 1987 and a Chartered Information Systems nal capable of storing enormous quantities of Engineer in 1990. However, in later years, although Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 135 A. Tinker: Dr. Arthur Steven Pollitt †

not forgetting his computer science roots, Steve It was this strong belief that, in 1999, led Steve to sought out groups such as ISKO that specifically fo- leave the University of Huddersfield and establish his cused on knowledge organisation, becoming its UK own company, View-based Systems Limited, with fel- Coordinator in 1995, shortly afterwards acting as low Director Howard Lockwood and programmers consultant and joint editor for several conferences, Patrick Braekevelt, who had worked with Steve as a and serving on its Executive Board. Steve enjoyed researcher since 1995, and Pat Woods, also from the seeking out “like-minded people” and felt a particu- University of Huddersfield. The VBS team further lar affinity with library science and its traditional developed Steve’s View-based Searching technology knowledge organisation tools. Although he pub- for the commercial arena, including workforce plan- lished a book (Information, storage and retrieval sys- ning and profiling systems for the UK National tems: origin, development and applications), numerous Health Service. Despite transferring his work to a journal papers and reports, including three funded by commercial context, Steve still kept abreast of and in- the British Library, his real enjoyment was present- volved in academic research, described by fellow Di- ing this work in person at conferences and meetings. rector, Howard Lockwood, as a “true academic.” Those who have seen and undoubtedly remem- Steve loved life, grasping every opportunity and bered his presentations will recall his energy and exploiting it to the full. Whether academic or social, sheer enthusiasm. Steve was passionate, almost evan- his interests were diverse and wide-ranging, and he gelical, about his work. His presentations were lively enjoyed sharing these with his family. From leisurely and always entertaining, once incorporating the reading (although he would always observe a connec- theme from Star Trek and, on another occasion, tion to incorporate into his own research) about lan- Hepworth Brass Band (he himself being a musician guage, evolution, psychology or philosophy to play- and brass band music one of his many interests out- ing in a brass band, fervently supporting his beloved side work). He loved to debate, often (depending on Huddersfield Giants rugby league team, sailing his the audience) gleefully questioning the merits of the catamaran or skiing down a mountain. Steve relished traditional information retrieval paradigm – of exact, being busy, and that’s how I will remember him, to- near match and specification-based interfaces – in gether with his energy, warmth, boundless optimism favour of selection, browsing and discovery. This and sense of humour. single-mindedness and commitment is also recalled Our thoughts are with Steve’s wife, Pam (whom by former colleague, Dave Watson: he married in 1978), and children, Daniel and Amy.

“Steve always had a high degree of commitment to all that he undertook and believed in. He in- Amanda Tinker volved himself in debates at University level Research Student about the direction of information systems, always putting over his particular views, from Senior Assistant Librarian and Academic Skills Tutor which he never wavered…no one will ever University of Huddersfield doubt his belief in what he was doing.”

136 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 M. J. López-Huertas and E. Jiménez Contreras: Spanish Research in Knowledge Organization (1992-2001)

Spanish Research in Knowledge Organization (1992-2001)‡

María José López-Huertas*, Evaristo Jiménez Contreras**

Facultad de Biblioteconomía y Documentación, Universidad de Granada (Spain), *E-mail: [email protected], **E-mail: [email protected]

Dra. López-Huertas is president of the ISKO Spanish Chapter since 1998 and professor at the Faculty of Library and Informa- tion Science of the University of Granada (Spain). She teaches knowledge organization, indexing languages and classification. Her research interests are related to the design and construction of knowledge structures for information retrieval and terminology and knowledge organization in interdisciplinary subjects.

Dr. Jiménez-Contreras is former director of the Library and Information Science department at the University of Granada (Spain). At the present he is professor at the same university and manager of the “Assessment of Science and Scholarly Communication” research group. His main interest in Science is Bibliometrics/Scientometrics and Science assessment. In recent years he has written some papers on this subject published in Scientometrics, Research Evaluation or Journal of Medical Library Association, among others.

‡An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Spanish ISKO Conference held in Salamanca (Spain) 2003, and published in the ISKO Proceedings.

López-Huertas, María and Evaristo Jiménez Contreras. (2004). Spanish Research in Knowledge Organization (1992-2001). Knowledge Organization, 31(3). 136-150. 15 refs.

ABSTRACT: This study gives an initial appraisal of research activity in Spain surrounding “knowledge organization.” The sample comprises articles, monographs and PhD. dissertations identified in the following data bases: ISI, LISA, ISOC, RE- BIUN, RUECA and TESEO. In Spain, “knowledge organization” is a consolidated subject area that shows increasing productivity, although it cannot be considered well developed by any means. A small number of highly productive authors are responsible for the bulk of output. Most research activity stems from university departments and schools of library science, in particular the Universities of Madrid and Zaragoza. A general interest in the theoretical aspects of classification systems, documentary languages and thesauri can be seen.

I. Introduction & García Marco, 1995; Frías & Romero, 1998). For this reason, we believe it necessary to look into this Research activity in Library and Information Science subject area with an updated and more comprehen- (LIS) in Spain can be said to have reached a state of sive analysis. maturity, after some decades of university studies in this area. There has also been qualitatively and quan- 1.1. Justification and Objectives titatively important scientific output, as shown by a There are three reasons why we focus on the period number of studies (Moya & Jiménez Contreras, January 1992 to December 2001: 1998; Delgado López-Cózar, 2000, 2002; Jiménez Contreras, 2003). Limited attention has been given – A ten-year period is long enough to allow us to to the situation of the research carried out in Spain observe the evolution of the subject of study. specifically regarding Knowledge Organization, the – This is considered to be a period of maturity in most recent study being in 1998 (Sánchez Casabón this discipline. Other authors also argue that li- Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 137 M. J. López-Huertas and E. Jiménez Contreras: Spanish Research in Knowledge Organization (1992-2001)

brary and information science emerges as a scien- more, the comparison between what is published and tific domain in Spain around the year 1990 (Pérez what is true research will help us appraise the situa- Álvarez-Osorio, 1997). tion overall. – A previous study of similar characteristics covered the analysis of contents and documentary lan- 1.2. The state of the art guages from 1982 to 1994 (Sánchez Casabón & García Marco, 1995), and will serve as a case for Studies on LIS research are relatively recent in Spain. the comparison of results. Overviews are provided by Jiménez and Moya (1997), Moya and Jiménez (1998, 1999), and Delgado López- “Knowledge organization,” on the other hand, is a Cózar (2000). Meanwhile, Cano (1999) focuses his field whose boundaries are not always clearly de- study on only two sources of information: the Span- fined. It stands as a broad concept, and not all au- ish Journal of Scientific Documentation, and the thors make their understanding explicit. Bliss coined Documentation of Information Sciences. Frías and the expression in 1933, in his book the “Organiza- Romero look at the period 1992-1993 (1998), and fi- tion of Knowledge in Libraries” and described it nally Jiménez (2002) studied the international output along semantic lines as a specific area that “studies of Spanish authors from 1992 to 2002. A study by laws, principals and procedures by which the special- Moya (2000) emphasizes the retrieval of information ized knowledge of any discipline is structured.” It with specific reference to documentary languages, has since been defined in more functional terms as and Sánchez Casabón and García Marco (1995) look “the representation and organization of documents at content and documentary language analysis in in information systems” (Andersen, 2002). Either Spain from 1982 to 1994. There is therefore little way, its outline is not easy to trace within LIS. It suf- overlap in the literature, and the period of study we fers from low visibility in bibliometric studies, as it have chosen clearly requires further attention. usually appears subordinated to other categories and may be overlooked when searching with a reference 2. Methodology to the contents of research. Hjørland speaks of this problem and traces it to a lack of instruction in spe- When assessing scientific output in a special field, cific methods to be used in research on knowledge the most usual approach is to collect the articles organization, above all concerning classification from international databases. However, as our disci- (Hjørland, 2002). pline involves other documentary forms such as In this study, we restrict the realm of KO to those monographs, conferences, etc., these forms were also systems that are built on a structure of terms and included in our search. The documentary types stud- concepts, such as classifications, thesauri, subject ied, then, are: monographs, dissertations, conference headings, etc. Algorithmic and quantitative systems papers (national or international), and articles of any were not considered in this study. The notion of length published in all journals indexed by the data- structure is essential, as we focus on research involv- bases specified below. It is important to note that ing any theoretical, methodological, practical or pro- publications dealing with KO from an exclusively fessional attempt to elaborate structures for the con- quantitative perspective and related more directly ceptual organization of knowledge, in specialized or with information retrieval were excluded from this encyclopedic settings. Documentary analysis and in- preliminary analysis, though they will be addressed dexing in a strict sense are therefore excluded from in a related study of publications dealing with quanti- our realm of observation. Moreover, we shall only tative or algorithmic methods. consider the output of researchers born in Spain or naturalized as Spanish citizens or those working in a 2.1 Databases: challenges and limitations Spanish Institution at the time they publish a paper. We should also discern between research and pub- The sources chosen to identify publications were the lication. There is a need to know what is published in ISOC (Centro de Información en Ciencias Sociales y a certain topic area without applying overly restrictive Humanidades del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones criteria a priori, so as to later evaluate which part Científicas), LISA (Library and Information Science thereof actually qualifies as scientific research. This is Abstracts) and ISI for articles and conference papers; an important distinction, as other authors have TESEO (Bases de Datos de Tesis Doctorales) for dis- pointed out (Delgado López-Cózar, 2002). Further- sertations; and REBIUN (Red de Bibliotecas Univer- 138 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 M. J. López-Huertas and E. Jiménez Contreras: Spanish Research in Knowledge Organization (1992-2001)

sitarias Españolas) and RUECA (Red Universitaria In the opinion of Hjørland, this means that re- Española de Catálogos Absys), for books. searchers in classification are not as visible on the The first objective was to attain optimal exhaus- bibliometric maps proposed for LIS output (for in- tivity on a national level (ISOC) and on an interna- stance by White & McCain); and he believes that tional level (ISI and LISA). In applying this criterion this lack of formal recognition is related with the to books, TESEO was consulted for dissertations, type of research methodology taught at most LIS and the collective catalog of the Spanish Universities Schools (Hjørland, 2002). Standard behavioral REBIUN, complemented by RUECA for other methodology, qualitative or quantitative, would be monographic works. An ISBN search would have more appropriate for a study of users than for a been less reliable, as well as more complicated for study about classification, because the notion of “us- reasons of a structural nature, as retrieval by subject ers” is compatible with the social sciences. There is a is difficult. dire need to develop and teach scientific methods In searching the data bases five basic questions geared to the field of research in question. were in mind: The lack of visibility is a tendency seen for Spain, but not limited to our territory. Other causes of poor – Who researches and publishes? visibility are related with the objective productivity – How much research is published? of the authors who conduct research in the area of – Where is the research published? KO, and the productivity of those investigating other – When was the research published? aspects of LIS. – What was the topic of the research and publica- b) Database design and structure. There is no doubt tion? that the lack of homogeneity in the design and structure of databases has undesirable effects on informa- Some familiar problems arose in the identification of tion retrieval, especially in the subsequent processing relevant publications: of data for bibliometric purposes. Whereas the struc- a) Poor visibility of KO among bibliometric studies. ture and the formats used by the ISOC, ISI and The tags are not explicit enough in describing the LISA include fields such as the institutional origin of area, and effectively subordinate it to other subject the authors, in REBIUN this field does not appear. headings or topical areas. Publications tended to It is therefore impossible to group authors by origin elude the search strategies used. in the case of books. We acknowledge that our study In the field of LIS in general, KO, classification, might suffer from a lack of consistency in this sense. thesauri and certain other topics do not appear with a c) The heterogeneity of the tools of thematic descrip- distinctive tag, but are mixed in among the array of tion in the databases, and the inconsistencies and or im- categories proposed for the study of research con- precisions of indexing. These problems are familiar and tents. This is well documented by Delgado López- greatly affect sample selection. If the indexing policy Cózar (2000, 2002) and Cano (1998). At best, KO is of a database is not known, and the indexing language included as a subcategory. The authors of bibliomet- cannot be consulted at the time of the search, the de- ric studies, however, do not consistently subordinate tours and losses of information can be considerable, these contents to the same categories, which further even when there is no error on the part of the party increases the difficulty of their identification (Del- responsible for indexing itself. It is not easy to find gado López-Cózar, 2002). For instance, we may find tags that ensure pertinent retrieval. In TESEO, very KO under information storage and retrieval, tagged generic descriptors are used, resulting in extremely as classification and indexing, leading us to assume noisy searches, requiring many hours of work to cut that thesauri and KO in general are included. Or we through the jungle of irrelevant references. might find it under bibliographic control, which em- d) Recall. It is one of the most common com- braces classification, indexing, thesauri and catalogu- plaints about databases and information systems ing, thereby introducing a great deal of noise. More (López-Huertas, 1997). Recall rates are known to be precision can be seen when the scope is limited to low, and this hampers bibliometric-related work, in- IR-related themes (Moya, 2000) including a category evitably reliant upon databases. Solid familiarity with for the analysis of documentary languages, or when the databases used will enhance the exhaustivity of a there is an almost exclusive focus (Sánchez Casabón search, in addition to making unnecessary the a pos- & García Marco, 1995). teriori distillation of references. For example, with REBIUN we opted to search by “classification” Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 139 M. J. López-Huertas and E. Jiménez Contreras: Spanish Research in Knowledge Organization (1992-2001)

alone after we observed that other terms like “classi- Citation Index (SCI). We also adopted the restriction fication system” or “bibliographic classification” did that they be Spanish authors, as in the study by not retrieve the expected information. Jiménez (2002). Table 1 shows a list of retrieval terms that is based, in part, on the expressions iden- 2.2. Obtaining and managing the data tified in a study of terminology used for the concept of documentary languages (López-Huertas, 1991). For the selection of documents, thematic searches The LISA query was done using the a priori list of were done by terms or by classification codes. The Table 1. The results of both searches had then to be databases were queried with a previously established filtered, as most of the authors were not Spanish. The list of terminology, although some formulations and search strategy in the ISOC database was based on strategies had to be modified. the classification given by the database in its interface. International output was identified by consulting This interface was later modified and improved, but the ISI database. Two subgroups were defined – that in this description we limit ourselves to its search po- of specialized journals, under the category “Library tential at that time. An ad hoc numerical and hierar- and Information Science,” and another with the rest chical classification was used, so that the sequences of the journals and categories. When we refer to the selected related more generally with the topics related LIS output and aspects such as the origin of the arti- to KO, as defined in this study. The codes used in the cles or the subjects of research, we refer to the works searches are given in Table 2 below. Because the hier- of the first subset. When we refer to the exportation archical classification was used, the main numerical of our methodologies to other realms, we refer to the values are given, along with their generic meaning, remaining journals. To locate the works, two differ- and whether searches were complete (that is, if all the ent strategies were used. In the case of the work pub- classified documents among the maximum and the lished in LIS journals, we qualified the field “ad- minimum values indicated were retrieved) or partial. dress=Spain” with all the journals belonging to the We also distinguish between the documents retrieved category Library and Information Science, according and those we finally used in this work. to the lists of the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) for the last four years. The items located would fulfill Monographs were selected from searches in RE- the dual condition of being published in LIS journals BIUN and RUECA. We discarded the idea of search- and being produced by Spanish authors, though not ing in the ISBN database because its structure makes necessarily from a LIS setting. This combination en- retrieval by theme impossible. No distinction was tails the drawback that it might ignore journals that made between authors, publishers and compilers, so were included in the JCR before 1997 and later dis- that all served as units for computation. Table 3 gives appeared. For the relevant articles published in non- the list used for search by topic. LIS journals, the only possible strategy was a subject The result of these searches had to be filtered be- category search. The procedure followed in this case cause these catalogues do not allow the combination was to look for meaningful words that describe our of searches by subject with the author’s origin as do activity and appear in the “BASIC INDEX” of the the journal article databases. There was therefore Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and the Science considerable noise in the retrieval set. Once selected, the references were exported to Table1. List of terms used in ISI and LISA Procite for processing. There, they were subjected to an authorship control process to correct for repeated

entries and names in the wrong order, problems that CLASSIFICAT* LANGUAG* CLASSIFICAT* SYSTEM* are common in ISI and other international databases DESCRIPTOR LANGUAG* (Ruíz Pérez, 2002). Normalization presented some DOCUMENT* CLASIFICATION additional problems because the first surname of the DOCUMENT* ORGANIZATION* authors in international databases usually comes after DOCUMENT* LANGUAG* the initials of the first and middle name, yet Spanish INDEX* LANGUAG* authors may be listed under their second surname, KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION KNOWLEDGE STRUCTUR* we had to resort to other sources, such as the au- LIBRAR* CLASSIFICAT* thors’ personal webpages, to resolve practically all SUBJECT HEAD* doubts. THESAUR*

140 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 M. J. López-Huertas and E. Jiménez Contreras: Spanish Research in Knowledge Organization (1992-2001)

Table 2. Search codes in the ISOC database

Clasificación Contenido genérico Búsqueda completa o parcial 200100 Scientific output 200104 (Basic and applied research)

200200 Documentation and Information Policies 200200 al 200299 200300 Information Resources 200300 al 200399 200400 Information Analysis 200400 al 200499 200500 Information Management, Information torage and Information 200500 al 200599 retrieval 200600 Información Indistry and Tecnology development 200604 (Automatic Indexing) 200700 Library System 200700 al 200799 200800 Archives and Museums Documentation 200802 (Archives Management) 200900 Information Management 200900 (Information Management); 200901 (Services Planning) 201001 Docencia Restricted to Knowledge Organization

3. Results Table 3. List of terms used in REBIUN and RUECA The heterogeneous nature of the collections com- prising the sample of our study meant that different LENGUAJE* DOCUMENT* types of documents had to be analyzed in an isolated LENGUAJE* DE INDIZ* LINGÜÍST* DOCUMENT* manner at first. That is, we studied the articles, the CLASIFICAC* BIBLIOGRAF* monographs and the dissertations separately. Each SISTEMA*DE CLASIFICAC* group has its own characteristics, which may affect CLASIFICACION* DE BIBLIOTECA* not only the type of study done, but also the material CLASIFICACIÓN* DE LIBRO* dealt with. For instance, the descriptive model of the INDIZACION monographs does not indicate the origin or the insti- CLASIFICACION tutional setting of the authors’ work (this informa- ESTRUCTURA* CLASIFICAT* ESTRUCTURA* CONCEPTUAL* tion does not usually appear in a book). Similarly, ENCABEZAMIENT* DE MATERIA* monographs have particular features we will discuss LISTA* DE ENCABEZAMIENTO* below. The final section under Results includes an ORGANIZACIÓN DEL CONOCIMIENTO appraisal of the data altogether, which would reflect THESAUR* the general patterns of Spanish research in the field TESAUR* of KO. The contribution of each database to the

sample used in the present study in the number of references is shown in Table 4. After normalizing the records using Procite, we generated the indexes needed for the analysis of research Table 4. Records in the databases consulted. output. These were exported to Excel to generate the corresponding tables and the graphics. Data base Records

– Who researches and publishes? ISOC 171 – How much research is published? LISA 51 – Where is the research published? ISI 17 – When was the research published? – What was the topic of the research and publica- REBIUN/RUECA 145 tion? TESEO 15

Total: 399

Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 141 M. J. López-Huertas and E. Jiménez Contreras: Spanish Research in Knowledge Organization (1992-2001)

LISA gave a greater yield of pertinent references at Moreiro González, J.A. 5 first, but was largely reduced later on when we de- Moreno Fernández, L.M. 5 tected duplications in the ISOC and ISI. It was Tramullas Saz, J. 5 therefore decided to leave in LISA only those re- Caro Castro, C. 4 cords that were not repeated in either of the other Martín Pradas, A. 4 two databases. Rodríguez Muñoz, J.V. 4 Velasco, M. 4 3.1 Authors and the quantification of their output Autores con 3 publicaciones 6 Autores con 2 publicaciones 25 When articles, monographs and theses were analyzed Autores con 1 publicación 152 (separately, as explained earlier), we obtained the following results. Table 6. Number and percentage of authors and publications 3.1.1 Authors of articles and their production No. of % of No. of % of authors authors articles articles There were 201 article authors identified, producing 5 2,5 45 13,6 330 articles in national and international journals in 4 2 24 7,3 the decade 1992-2001. Only a small number pub- 5 2,5 25 7,6 lished more than four articles in the period of study. A summary of the most productive authors is given 4 2 16 4,8 in Table 5. 6 3 18 5,4 The total number of authors – 201 – might seem 25 12,4 50 15,2 high at first, but in view of the production of every 152 75,6 152 46,1 single author, we see that about three-fourths have Total: 201 100% Total: 330 100% made only one contribution over the decade of study. This sort of testimonial presence might mean that It is thus apparent that 9% of the researchers identi- these authors study other subjects related to the area fied are responsible for 33.3% of total output in arti- of LIS, and that they sporadically touch upon sub- cles. The most productive authors (5, with 9 each) jects related with KO. However, it may also point to a show a Lotkian distribution, with a reduced percent- lack of research activity. It would be interesting to age concentrating the bulk of output. Also apparent cross these data with the institutional affiliations of upon comparison of these authors with their centers the authors to detect any association with low output. of production is that the active Spanish researchers Table 5 clearly shows that only 18 researchers of come almost exclusively from the university setting. the 201 identified can be considered “productive” in It is interesting to note that professionals who are developing and diffusing KO in our country. This active in Documentation centers or services are not stands as 9% of the total. Table 6 shows the number identified as authors in the area of KO, although they of authors of articles in comparison with their pro- would be in other LIS-related subjects. duction by percentages. 3.1.2. Authors of monographs and their production Table 5. Most productive authors of articles.

The production of monographs is lower than that of Esteban Navarro, M.A. 9 articles. The 141 total authors produce a total of 278 Garcia Marco, J. 9 books. The idiosyncracies of this group led us to deal Izquierdo Arroyo, J.M. 9 separately with the individual authors and the collec- López Alonso, M.A. 9 tive authorships. From the research standpoint, indi- López-Huertas, M.J. 9 vidual contributions are more significant, but we did García Gutiérrez, A. 6 not wish to ignore the work destined to the produc- Gil Urdiaciaín, B. 6 tion of tools for the processing of information, or Martínez Méndez, F.J. 6 normative work on elaboration (the subject matter San Segundo Manuel, R. 6 of most collective publications), as there are inter- Currás, E. 5 relations of feedback. Llorens, J. 5 142 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 M. J. López-Huertas and E. Jiménez Contreras: Spanish Research in Knowledge Organization (1992-2001)

The group corresponding to the individual au- España. Dirección General del Libro y 3 thors is represented by 100 researchers who produce Bibliotecas a total of 116 monographic works. This means that Estudio de Técnicas Documentales Madrid 3 70.5% of the total authors are behind 41.7% of the ISKO 3 works. Productivity can be broken down as shown in Grupo de Trabajo de Archiveros 2 Municipales de Madrid Table 7. This Table, like Table 5, shows that that few Collegi Oficial de Bibliotecaris 2 authors have more than two publications on KO Documentalistes de Catalunya from the period of study. Only 11% of authors pro- Instituto de Consumo 2 duced two or more books. It is interesting to note 27 autores colectivos 1 that many of these books are manuals, or are spe- cially geared toward teaching, though others cover Total authors: 41 Total: 116 more general aspects of KO.

There is clearly a difference from the group of indi- Table 7. Individual authors of monographs and their output. vidual monograph authors. Nearly all these publica-

tions focus on the systems of classification, thesauri,

subject headings, and norms for their elaboration, Benito, M. 4 while few involve their didactic presentation. It is Currás, E. 4 logical that CINDOC (Centro de Información y García Marco, J. 4 Documentación Científica) is at the lead, because it is Moro Cabero, M. 3 highly active in the production of thesauri and the Arana Montes, M. 2 organization of some instructional courses. The pub- Chacón Pérez, E. 2 lications stemming from the professional practice, Gil Urdiciain, B. 2 then, seem quite different from those proceeding Ortego de Lorenzo Cáceres, P. 2 from the university sector when it comes to KO, Pastor, A. 2 something that is not necessarily seen in other LIS Rey Rocha, J. 2 subject areas. San Segundo, R. 2 Finally, we made a joint list of the most productive Zapico Alonso, F. 2 individual monograph authors and article authors to 89 autores 1 get an integral view of the group in terms of total productivity, seen in Table 9. Total authors: 100 Total: 116

Table 9. Most productive authors of monographs and articles. The number of collective or institutional authors of monographs is 41 (29% of the total monograph au- Artí- Mono- Total thorship), with a contribution of 116 publications culos grafías (41.7% of the total). The most productive groups are García Marco, J. 9 4 13 Izquierdo Arroyo, J.M. 9 1 10 shown in Table 8. López-Huertas, M. J. 9 1 10 López Alonso, M. A. 9 1 10 Table 8. Most productive collective authors of mono- Esteban Navarro, M. A. 9 0 9 graphic works. Currás, E. 5 4 9 Gil Urdiciaín, B. 6 2 8 21 San Segundo , R. 6 2 8 CINDOC García Gutiérrez 6 1 7 Universidad Carlos III 19 Martínez Méndez, F. J. 6 1 7 Asociación Española de Normalización y 8 Martín Pradas, A. 6 0 6 Certificación Madrid Moreno Fernández, L. M 5 1 6 Universidad Complutense de Madrid 7 Moreiro González, J. A. 5 0 5 Centro de Estudios y Experimentación de 6 Llorens, J. 5 0 5 Obras Públicas Tramullas, J. 5 0 5 Consejo Superior de Investigaciones 5 Benito, M. 1 4 5 Científicas Moro Cabero, M. 2 3 5 Universidad de Sevilla 4 Velasco, M 4 0 4 Instituto de la Mujer España 4 Zapico Alonso, F. 2 2 4 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 143 M. J. López-Huertas and E. Jiménez Contreras: Spanish Research in Knowledge Organization (1992-2001)

Artí- Mono- Total (Delgado López-Cózar, 2002, p.88). Nine centers culos grafías were responsible for these dissertations, with the Rey Rocha, J. 1 2 3 University of Valencia at the head, and Granada, Chacón Pérez, E. 0 2 2 Complutense and Carlos III tied for second place. Arana Montes, M. 0 2 2

Ortego de Lorenzo 0 2 2 Cáceres, P. 3.1.4. Most cited authors Pastor, A. 0 2 2 The current design of databases consulted allowed us Altogether, 26 authors can be considered as the most to study only international publications included in productive ones; this includes all the authors that the Web of Science, as only they dispose of the in- have published more than one monographic work or formation needed to carry out such a study. The most article. It is worth noting that seven authors of frequently cited articles on an international level are monographs have no output in the form of articles, identified with the following results. Of the 17 publi- and are therefore not included in the databases con- cations identified, only seven were cited. The number sulted. Likewise interesting, however, is that the top of citations according to country of origin is given in producers of monographs are top producers in arti- Table 10. The number of citations from Spain is rela- cles. Taken as a basis the complete data for produc- tively high, as to be expected, yet Spanish output also tion by authors, a Lotkian table can be calculated, the has substantial international visibility, with two-thirds index –1,792 (See Table 10) of total citations coming from abroad.

Table 10. Most productive authors according to a Table 10. No. of citations by countries Lotkian diagram Spain 6 USA 4 1000 y = 84,386x-1,7924 France 3 R2 = 0,9051 Reino Unido 2 100 Noruega 1 10 Chile 1 Italia 1 China 1 documents 1 110100 Grecia 1 0,1 3.2. Institutional affiliations and city of origin of the authors authors

3.2.1. Authors by city of origin This productivity is, nevertheless, tentative, given the mediocre correlation coefficient that has been ob- The spatial distribution of the authors reflects the tained. This is confirmed by the fact that the K-S test, geography of Spanish research on KO. The results used in these cases, yields a deviation much higher (Figure 1) of our search show the cities to be the than the maximum allowed: 0,512 being Dmax = 0,19. most important. The shortage of works population, below 400, is probably the main reason of these results. Even so Figure 1. Authors by cities and taken the mentioned precautions, two facts associated with these data can be noted: there are no very 70 productive authors, and there are a considerable 60 group of medium sized producers who are the ones 50 40 that explain this surprising high Lotka index. 30 20 10 3.1.3. Authors of PhD Theses 0

s rid na d o evilla Jaén Ma Murcia S Others Only 15 dissertations dealing with KO were identi- Zaragoza alamanca Granada Valencia S Barcel fied in the TESEO database. This is a low proportion Without addres of the 270 dissertations seen for LIS in general 144 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 M. J. López-Huertas and E. Jiménez Contreras: Spanish Research in Knowledge Organization (1992-2001)

Figure 2. Authors by institutional affiliation

0 Univ. Univ. Univ. Instº CINDOC Univ. Univ. Univ. De Biblioteca Univ. Univ. Univ. Zaragoza Carlos III Murcia Patrimonio Granada Salamanca Sevilla Nacional Autónoma Valencia Barcelona Madrid

3.2.2. Authors by institutional affiliation. Though held in Madrid in 1993 and 1995, actual publication of both took place in the same year, 1995. As seen in Figure 2, nearly 80% of researchers with The appearance of the journal SCIRE, dedicated publications about KO are affiliated with a Univer- mainly to topics related with KO, also occurred at sity. The Complutense of Madrid and the University this time. The year 1999, similarly, saw the publica- of Sevilla have a notable presence here, largely due to tion of the acts of the ISKO-Spain conference held in the activity of their respective libraries in relation Granada that year. Other years show a fairly steady with the publication of material Headings. The rest of flow of output, with a slightly increasing trend. In the centers that are not LIS schools owe their pres- view of these results, we must give due credit to the ence mainly to the publication of Heading lists and ISKO conferences for their impact. Thesauri (such is the case of the CINDOC and the The evolution of dissertations on KO was on the Instituto del Patrimonio) or to the publication of rise until 1996, then came to a standstill (Figure 4). It monographs that are actually courses on some docu- is interesting to note that the most productive au- mentary language. thors in this field (Table 9) made their dissertations in areas other than Knowledge Organization. 3.3. Chronological evolution of productivity Figure 4. Ph.D dissertations by year In general, a growing trend is seen over the decade studied, with a remarkable peak in 1995, and a more 4,5 discrete one in 1999 (Figure 3). The reason for the 4 pronounced increase in 1995 would be the publication of the conference papers of the first two ISKO- 3,5 Spain conferences. 3

Figure 3. Production by year. 2,5

90 2 80 70 1,5 60 50 1 40 30 0,5 20 10 0 0 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 no date Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 145 M. J. López-Huertas and E. Jiménez Contreras: Spanish Research in Knowledge Organization (1992-2001)

3.4. Research topics the specific topic addressed, which might explain the absence of authors from the non-university setting. All the records included in this study were indexed, When we reduce this sample to major groupings which facilitated a regrouping of the material to ob- to improve the visualization of results (Figure 6) we serve the subject matter. The results of this analysis see that the thesaurus stands out as the subject mat- will be discussed by sectors (articles, monographs ter of 36% of publications. These thesauri can be and dissertations). broken down into more specific topic areas, as shown in Figure 7. The elaboration of thesauri can 3.4.1. Thematic distribution of the articles be identified as a main interest of Spanish researchers. It represents just over 20% of the total. Deserv- The variety of subject matter is evident, though it ing mention is the manifest interest in specialized appears greatly summarized into categories to facili- thesauri seen in the different areas of knowledge. If tate its representation. It is shown in Figure 5. The all these publications are put together, thesauri fact that most authors dealing with these topics are loom ahead as the topic of 42% of total output. from the university setting, not from libraries or More general subjects such as the use of thesauri in documentation centers, is noteworthy. Indeed, the databases, or theoretical aspects of thesauri, show focus of contents is largely theoretical, regardless of less presence.

Figure 5. Thematic distribution of Knowledge Organization

a . s l. C ri d. ry c ie gy a ssif. ea aria rnet o tion ie UD hing dings eory hives e c nit stems/V ac la a H Lang./V aching c uc S /Varia y e C t y g. /Th nt r /Theoryl i T d c r n rg./Varia i i/Cultureur f. S / thodologye a /Te g rg./TheO /Generalia ur a stems g. n rg./I i a /Data BasesTechnolo aur y liz ubje n rg./ArO O ur /Const i i//Huma ia O rg. by subjectsdge a i i /Sociaur s& Thes f. S stems ubjectal He S O dge ur Thes a ur nt, Softw. Eva r Classi y S r ntary La dge a ur a Thes ssi ocumente dge wle Thes a me a f. S Speced D entary La dge wle Thes d ntary La wle wle Thes Othe Cl ssi f. Theory/Meliz Genee e Kno Thes Thes /Science a ia iz Kno wle Kno i Cl ssi l Docum Kno ur a ia Docum Kno a i/Manage Cl Spec Docum ur Spec Thes a Thes

146 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 M. J. López-Huertas and E. Jiménez Contreras: Spanish Research in Knowledge Organization (1992-2001)

Figure 6. Major categories of Knowledge Organization Figure 8. Thematic contents of Classification (LISA, ISI, ISOC)

Studies involving the UDC and classification theory can be seen to make up about half of the sample. Theoretical studies are substantially more important here (27%) than in the context of thesauri (4%), un- It is interesting to note that both in theory and in derlining “classification” as a very important nucleus the other subject areas included in the graph under of research activity in knowledge organization in “varia”, systemic and cognitive approaches predomi- Spain. Topics related with “teaching” are also quite nate. important, which may indicate a higher degree of difficulty of the classifications with respect to other Figure 7. Major topics in thesauri languages such as the thesaurus. Figure 9 shows the importance of theoretical approaches in documentary languages and in KO (simi- 25 lar to what was seen earlier in the case of classifica- 20 tion). Didactic aspects of documentary languages are 15 important, as they are in other areas of LIS. The con- 10 tents in the “varia” category refer mainly to general studies of the subject. KO on the Internet, and the 5 rise of archives as one of its settings for application, 0 are also noteworthy. y ri i e ri alia ion au ar heor w Varia uct hes hesaurihesaur ft ener tr T t t t o 3.4.2. Thematic distribution of monographs G c. s S ns S es e ti ent/ ture Thesau i co al bas a ani Sciencee thesaurim at Cul Soci D nag The subject areas of monographs present the peculi- hesaur Hum T Ma arity of belonging to two major groupings: the structures of knowledge themselves (classifications, subject headings and thesauri) which we call “texts” The second most important thematic group is that of (44%); and studies of any aspect of KO and of any classification. While the focus of attention of a num- documentary language, which we call “studies” ber of researchers it seems to have fallen behind (56%). Figure 10 shows the breakdown. The group since 1994 (Sánchez Casabón & García Marco, “texts” is included because we are dealing with publi- 1995). Figure 8 gives the picture in greater detail. cations, it has a considerable volume, and because it is an evidence of the professional contribution to

Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 147 M. J. López-Huertas and E. Jiménez Contreras: Spanish Research in Knowledge Organization (1992-2001)

Figure 9. Contents of Documentary Languages and Knowledge Organization (ISI, LISA, ISOC)

Figure 10. Monographs

Figure 11. Breakdown of monographic works (texts)

148 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 M. J. López-Huertas and E. Jiménez Contreras: Spanish Research in Knowledge Organization (1992-2001)

this sector. The most prevalent subject area, at the topics are also important in the general account of core of 66% of the monographic “texts” is the the- publications. The PhD Theses published are mostly saurus, as seen in Figure 11. The second most impor- dedicated to thesauri, classification, documentary tant are the general subject headings, followed by languages, semantic relationships, control of vocabu- UDC and special subject headings. lary and documentary linguistics, in that order. The group of monographic “studies” presents the The topics of all the sources consulted are given in topics seen in Figure 12. Again, the most prevalent the graph of Figure 13. Again, the most frequent are the thesaurus, followed by documentary lan- topic is the thesaurus, followed, at considerable dis- guages, the UDC and other classification codes, and tance, by classifications, documentary languages and Knowledge Organization. Manuals on any of these KO. The UDC and the Subject Headings are last.

Figure 12. Topics of monographic works (studies)

Figure 13. Most relevant topics in knowledge organiza- testimonial presence. This is seen very clearly in the tion (articles and monographs) production of articles, where the sporadic presence of authors stands for 75% of the total. It would be interesting to study the total output of these authors to see what other subjects are in the realm of their interest and the relationships they might share with KO. No collaborations are registered in the group of articles that make up our sample. The international presence of Spanish research is very scarce, and its influence limited, given that only five publications out of the 17 identified are ever cited. The number of citations is symbolic. The presence of collective or institutional authorships in the case of some 30% of the total monographs stands out as a distinctive phenomenon in the Conclusions overall panorama. The bulk of these publications deals with conceptual structures themselves (thesau- In view of the results presented here, we may con- ri, classification systems, subject headings, norms for clude that a small nucleus of authors is largely re- their elaboration) and courses on any of these lan- sponsible for the development of this discipline in guages. The collective authors represent information Spain, whereas the pool of other contributors has a and documentation centers and the libraries of vari- Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 149 M. J. López-Huertas and E. Jiménez Contreras: Spanish Research in Knowledge Organization (1992-2001)

ous organisms. For this reason we conclude that this edge Organization and Documentary Languages. is the best way to incorporate the professional LIS Cognitive and systemic approaches are the most fre- sector into the area of publications on KO. quent, but not the only ones. The use of other disci- The limited visibility of Spanish KO researchers plinary models – including linguistics and, more im- showed in bibliometric studies devoted to LIS sug- portantly, Terminology – also contribute to the de- gests that even authors who have outstanding pro- velopment of the area. ductivity were not identified in these studies. The A cross-disciplinary inclination is reflected in the fact that the topics related with knowledge organiza- applications outside the professional setting. Medi- tion probably appear in these works subordinated to cine is one discipline where this is evident. Likewise, other categories such as the storage and retrieval of there is a close conceptual proximity between Knowl- information, bibliographic control, etc., veils the ref- edge Organization and knowledge management in the erences in databases specific to these subject areas. business sector. This finding is described by other authors in the in- The study of concrete structures is also a mainstay ternational context (Hjørland, 2002). of publications. The thesaurus is the basic focus of Clearly the most important locus of activity is 41% of the articles published. Bibliographic classifi- Madrid, followed by Zaragoza, Murcia and Granada. cations make up 42% of the output, and the UDC is It is natural for Madrid to head the list as it holds a 22% thereof. The only clearly downward trend can number of centers belonging to the different univer- be seen with respect to Subject Headings, in which sities and schools of Library and Information Sci- there is decreasing research interest. Teaching is an ence, as well as other institutions. The University of important source of interest, above all when it in- Zaragoza is followed by Carlos III of Madrid as the volves classifications or documentary languages in institution producing most research, then by the general. Manuals conform to 5% of publications. Yet Universities of Murcia and Salamanca. Intermediate the elaboration of thesauri is one of the most popular positions are occupied by the Universidad Com- topics for Spain’s KO-related researchers. plutense and by two non-academic institutions: the Other recurring themes are the use of languages in CINDOC and the Instituto del Patrimonio. Their databases, mostly thesauri, the organization of publications revolve around documentary languages, knowledge on the Internet, and aspects related with norms and courses. the structure, semantic relationship, descriptors and As a general conclusion we can state that the categories, represented as Varia or Other in the Spanish universities are the centers of the universe of graphics. publication. The rest of the centers do not generate In short, it can be said that Knowledge Organiza- research in the strict sense, but contribute with pro- tion is taking shape as a research area in our country, fessional manuals, documentary languages, etc. For and exhibits a positive, rising trend. Still, in general instance, the CINDOC has limited output in KO as terms, above all considering the lack of visibility on opposed to other LIS topics, and much of it consists the international forefront, we need to publish more, of thesauri and courses. and branch out more. Research is too limited to the Average output is quite low if we bear in mind Universities of Zaragoza, Madrid, Murcia and Gra- that the top contributors have published nine articles nada. within the decade of study. Still, a slightly positive trend is seen, suggesting that KO is on the road to References consolidation as a research area. The ISKO conferences would appear to be largely responsible, directly Andersen, Jack (2002). Communication technologies or indirectly, for our output and interest in this area, and the concept of knowledge organization. as productive peaks can be traced to the meetings in Amedium-theory perspective. Knowledge Or- 1995 and 1999. ganization, vol. 29 (1), p. 29-39 There is quite a variety of specific topics in the Cano, V. Bibliometric overview of Library and In- material published, though the predominating cate- formation Science in Spain (1999). Journal of the gories are Thesauri, Classification, Knowledge Or- American Society for Information Science, 50(8), ganization, Documentary Languages and Material pp. 675-680 Headings. Delgado López-Cózar (2002), E. La investigación en Theoretical aspects draw the most attention, seen Biblioteconomía y Documentación. Gijón, Trea, above all in the contexts of Classification, Knowl- 2002 150 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 M. J. López-Huertas and E. Jiménez Contreras: Spanish Research in Knowledge Organization (1992-2001)

Delgado López-Cózar, E. (2000). Diagnóstico de la López-Huertas, M. J. (1996). Thesaurus structure investigación en Biblioteconomía y Documenta- design: a conceptual approach for improved in- ción en España (1976-1996) Revista de Investiga- teraction. Journal of Documentation, 52, 2, pp. ción Iberoamericana de Ciencias de la Información 139-172, y Documentación, 1, pp. 79-93 Moya Anegón, F. y Jiménez Contreras, E. (1998). Frías, J. A. y Romero Gómez, P. (1997) ¿Quiénes Research fronts in Library and Information Sci- son y qué citan los investigadores que publican en ence (1985-1994) Scientometrics, 42(2), pp. 229- las revistas españolas de Biblioteconomía y Do- 246 cumentación? . Revista Española de Docu- Moya Anegón, F. y Jiménez Contreras, E. (1999). mentación Científica, 1, pp. 29-53 Autores españoles más citados en Bibliotecono- Hjorland, Birger (2002). The methodology of con- mía y Documentación. El Profesional de la Infor- structing classification schemes: A discusión of mación, 8(5), pp. 28-29 the state of the art. In Challenges in knowledge Pérez Álvarez-Osorio, J. R. (1997). Cobertura temá- representation and organization for the 21st century. tica y procedencia institucional de los artículos Integration of knowledge across boundaries. Pro- publicados en la Revista Española de Documenta- ceedings of the 7th International ISKO ... Ed. by ción Científica en sus veinte años de existencia. Maria J. López-Huertas. Ergon, 2002, p. 450-456 Revista Española de Documentación Científica, 20 Jiménez Contreras, E. (2002). La aportación españo- (4) p. 290-298 la a la producción científica internacional en bi- Ruiz Pérez, R.; Delgado López-Cózar, E.; Jiménez- blioteconomía y documentación: balance de diez Contreras, E. (2002). “Spanish personal name años (1992–2001). Biblioteconomia y Documenta- variations in national in international biomedical ciò, 9, p. 979 databases: implications for information retrieval Jiménez Contreras, E. y Moya Anegón, F. (1997). and bibliometric studies”. Journal Medical Libra- Análisis de la autoría en revistas españolas de Bi- ry Association, vol. 90, no. 4, p. 411–30. blioteconomía y Documentación, 1975-1995. Re- Sánchez Casabón, A. I. y García Marco, Javier vista Española de Documentación Científica, (1995). La investigación sobre el análisis de con- 20/3), pp. 252-267 tenido y los lenguajes documentales en las publi- López-Huertas, M. J (1991). Lenguajes documenta- caciones periódicas españolas de Información y les: Terminología para un concepto. Boletín de la Documentación (1982-1994). Revista Española de ANABAD, (1991), XLI, no. 2, pp. 171-188 Documentación Científica, 18 (2) p. 155-171

Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 151 C. Gnoli and R. Poli: Levels of Reality and Levels of Representation

Levels of Reality and Levels of Representation

Claudio Gnoli* and Roberto Poli**

*University of Pavia. Mathematics Department Library, via Ferrata 1, I-27100 Pavia, E-mail: [email protected]

**University of Trento and Mitteleuropa Foundation, E-mail: [email protected]

Claudio Gnoli has been working as a librarian since 1994, and is currently at the Mathematics department of University of Pavia, Italy. His main interest is in theory of classification and its digital applications. He is chair of the ISKO Italy chapter.

Roberto Poli (1955) is Assistant Professor at the University of Trento (Italy). He obtained a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Utrecht. Poli is editor-in-chief of Axiomathes (Springer), a peer- reviewed journal in ontology and cognitive systems, and co-founder of the Mitteleuropa Foundation (http://www.mitteleuropafoundation.it), a recently established research centre in ontology and cognitive analysis.

Gnoli, Claudio and Roberto Poli. (2004). Levels of Reality and Levels of Representation. Knowledge Organization, 31(3). 151-160. 45 refs.

ABSTRACT: 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.

1: Introduction between such levels and their possible representation in classification. As a traditional tool to organize The events and objects of our experience are classi- knowledge, bibliographic classifications are especially fied in many different ways: some forms of classifica- considered, and their relation with the theory of lev- tion depend on the way in which events and objects els is examined. are described, according to either our perceptions or The ontological approach is perhaps the most dis- our conceptualizations (e.g., in terms of salient fea- tant from the contemporary scientific perspective. tures); while other classifications depend on general For this reason, some brief words of clarification are patterns, or “universals”, wholly intrinsic to the advisable. It should first be noted that for some time events and objects of the world. We may call these the term and idea of “ontology” have begun to enjoy two opposite forms of classification epistemological currency in various sectors of artificial intelligence, and ontological. The purpose of this paper is to show and particularly in (1) representation of knowledge; that both ontological and epistemological analyses (2) theory of databases; (3) natural language process- unfold in degrees or levels, and to explore relations ing; and (4) automatic translation. In short, those 152 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 C. Gnoli and R. Poli: Levels of Reality and Levels of Representation

who most frequently talk about ontology are re- the shopkeeper who displays the pen on his shelves searchers in the acquisition, integration, sharing and and seeks to sell it to customers, it is again different. re-utilization of knowledge. Ontology comes into To return to myself, the pen is also an object of play as a viable strategy with which, for example, to which I grew especially fond because it reminds me construct robust domain models. An ontologically of the person who gave it to me. grounded knowledge of the objects of the domain All these different descriptions are correct: each should make their codification simpler, more trans- of them expresses a facet of the object. Yet they are parent and more natural. Indeed, ontology can give all descriptions of the same object. Hence, one of the greater robustness to models by furnishing criteria main tasks of information science is to find ways to and categories by which to organize and construct integrate different descriptions of the same object. them; it is also able to provide contexts in which dif- Some of these descriptions have an ontological basis ferent models can be embedded and recategorized to (the pen has a given length, is made of a given mate- acquire greater reciprocal transparency (Poli, 1996; rial, etc.); others have an epistemological basis (to Poli & Mazzola, 2000; Poli, 2001a; Poli, 2002). Fur- my taste the pen is beautiful, I find it useful, etc.). thermore, it may be proved that ontological analyses ground epistemological analyses (Poli, 2001c). 3: Levels and creativity of reality

2: How much information is there? Ontologically, the example of the pen teaches us two important lessons: (1) reality is organized into strata Let’s consider the pen in front of me on my desk. (material, psychological, social); (2) these strata are What type of object is this pen? How should I model organized into layers (the physical and chemical lay- it? First of all, I may say that the pen is an object ers of the material stratum; the intentional and emo- made in a certain way, with its own shape, colour and tive layers of the psychological stratum; the produc- material. In saying this, I am using concepts that de- tive, commercial and legal layers of the social stra- scribe the physical world of things. The pen must tum). For every (type of) object, there must be a also perform functions: it has been designed to write. schema (or template) which coordinates and synthe- This reference to function introduces a different di- sizes the admissible descriptions of it; and for every mension into the analysis: writing, in fact, is not object, the template that best characterizes it must something that I can model using only concepts de- be elaborated. In the case of my pen, this might be scribing the physical world. Writing is an activity the template “artefact,” which implies the fact that typically performed by humans. By virtue of being the object is above all social in nature, and conse- constructed to fulfil the function of writing, the pen quently has social components (“is made by,” “for,” is in some way connected with this aspect of the “costs so much”). However, these dimensions do not world. But when I observe the pen, it tells me many account for the ontological structure in its entirety: other things. For example, that it has been con- most if not all of the artefacts also have a material structed by somebody, and that this somebody is my basis, and there may be also components embedded contemporary: this pen is not an object from the in its structure which evoke psychic components Roman age or from ancient China. The material (the affordances proposed by Gibson, 1979). An on- from which it is made, its manufacture, the way it tology must find a way of coordinating these aspects; works tell me that there must be somewhere an or- a wider description of the structure of an ontology is ganization producing things like pens. If we now provided by Poli (2001a; 2002). shift our focus to this organization, the pen must be Most researchers agree that our universe has a sin- an object designed, manufactured and distributed so gle common origin, often described as the “Big that it can be sold and end up on someone’s desk. In Bang.” The deep meaning of this thesis is that all the their turn, the points of view of the designer, of the varieties, diversities and structures of the universe are production department and of the distribution de- derived. Not only are flowers and universities department are different, and they describe my pen us- rived objects, but so too are molecules, and atoms ing different concepts. For the designer the pen is es- and any particle thereof. All reality – better, all reali- sentially an aesthetic and functional object; for the ties – springs from that initial singularity. At this production department it is the outcome of materials point there are two possibilities: either the whole of processed in a certain way, etc. For the company reality is somehow, at least implicitly, stored in such a producing the pen it is all these things together. For singularity, or reality continuously grows and builds Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 153 C. Gnoli and R. Poli: Levels of Reality and Levels of Representation

new structures. Besides complexity issues, we simply guishing the specific categories of the material world cannot imagine any way in which the information from, for example, those of the psychological world, concerning the whole of reality can be compressed or from those of the social world. Each of these within a singularity. The only remaining option is to broad domains displays further categorical articula- accept the idea that reality is creative, and that new tions (e.g., the categories of physics are not those of realities constantly arise. If so, why should we con- chemistry, not those of biology, etc.). If the set-up fine our sense of reality to only a few of its struc- just described is at least partly plausible, a series of tures? The first structures to have emerged may be problems immediately arises. With no claim of com- basic, in the sense that later structures require former pleteness, these concern: structures, and are built upon them or developed from them. This means that an order of emergence is – forms of dependence among levels; embedded in the world, and that it unfolds by stages. – forms of autonomy (independence) among levels; A theory of the levels of reality is therefore required – coordination (integration) among the categories to clarify many of the still unknown connections be- governing some or other level of reality; tween the various levels of emergence. It may also be – categorical closure (completeness) of levels. reasonable to ask whether the deepest and most valuable layers of reality are the older or the newer ones While few ontological contributions are available on (Poli, 2001b). these points, we will try to gain some understanding of the problem of levels “the other way round.” In- 4: Philosophical contributions to the theory of stead of starting from the most general (ontological) levels viewpoint, we will start from the concrete problems posed by bibliographic classification. In short, the Not many thinkers have systematically worked on latter has to face the same problems of the over- the theory of levels of reality. We may conveniently abundance of information and its proper coordina- distinguish the “English-writing” camp from the tion. We will see the bibliographical problem from “German-writing” one. The former comprises, the viewpoint of the categories that can be used for among others, thinkers such as Spencer, Alexander, organizing information. and Lloyd-Morgan (possibly the most profound among those quoted). Blitz (1992) provides a reliable 5: Integrative levels in bibliographic classification synthesis of their main contributions. The “German- writing” camp comprises thinkers as relevant as In bibliographic classifications, the sequence of main Husserl, Ingarden, Plessner, and Hartmann. Even if classes has been based mostly on traditional discipli- some of them are very well known names, there is no nary divisions. Such are, for example, Dewey Decimal academic work summarizing their contributions to Classification (DDC)’s 10 main classes; it has been ontology in general and to the theory of levels in argued that they can be referred back to three super- particular. Some of the ideas advanced by Hartmann classes, corresponding to Francis Bacon’s tri-partition have recently been discussed in a conference for the of knowledge into Memory (History), Imagination 50 years since his death (see Poli, 2001d). A thor- (Arts and Literature), and Reason (Philosophy and oughgoing comparison between the “English” and sciences) – listed by Dewey in the reversed order; the “German” camps is nevertheless lacking. these in turn can ultimately be related to Aristotle’s The situation shortly described explains why no tri-partition of philosophy into theoretical, practical, generally accepted criterion is available by which to and poietical – again rearranged in order (Dahlberg, define, describe or at least sketch the idea of level of 1978, p. 29). Even after the introduction of faceted reality. Among the various proposals that can be put classification by Ranganathan, main classes remained forward, the most general one seems to adopt a cate- based on disciplines: Colon Classification has 29 main gorical criterion: the levels of reality are character- classes, arranged in a somewhat more natural order, ized (and therefore distinguished) by their (onto- from Mathematics and Physics to Sociology and Law. logical) categories. Applied disciplines are intercalated after the corre- The next step is to distinguish between universal sponding pure ones: Engineering follows Physics, categories that pertain to reality in its entirety (e.g., Agriculture follows Botany, etc. Within each main whole/part) and categories that pertain solely to one class, subjects are organized according to the facet or some levels of reality. We may begin by distin- formula typical of that class. It is worth mentioning 154 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 C. Gnoli and R. Poli: Levels of Reality and Levels of Representation

that there is no mandatory principle for the order of (Foskett, 1978; Austin, 1998; Broughton, personal subjects valid through the whole classification, al- communication). The theory of integrative levels was though “later in time,” “later-in-evolution,” “spatial introduced by Douglas Foskett, and its possible appli- contiguity,” “quantitative measure,” “increasing com- cation to classification was analyzed in detail by Derek plexity,” “canonical sequence,” and “literary warrant,” Austin (1969a, 1969b). Austin starts from the 12 in the given order, are acknowledged as good general natural “laws” of integrative levels, and the 5 related criteria (Ranganathan, 1967, part F). “rules of explanation”, as Feibleman formulated them; The problem of the sequence of the main classes however he reorganizes them in a new order, possibly was studied by Henry Evelyn Bliss. His main pro- more useful for classification purposes (Table 1). posal is the principle of gradation in speciality, according to which disciplines dealing with phenomena Table 1: Feibleman’s laws and rules as resorted by Austin in a more general and basic way, such as physics, (1969a); in brackets the original position of should precede those dealing with more specific laws and rules according to Feibleman; captions synthesize Austin’s exposition. phenomena, such as biology, sociology, etc. (Bliss,

1929). The Bibliographic Classification proposed by Laws to identify and sort levels: Bliss was subsequently updated and revised accord- – The time required for a change in organisation short- ing to the theory of facets by members of the Classi- ens as we ascend the levels. (7) fication Research Group (CRG): the new edition is – The higher the level, the smaller its population of instances. (8) known as BC2 (Mills & Broughton, 1977). – Complexity of the levels increases upward. (2) As another major reference pattern, CRG had the – Each level organises the level or levels below it plus theory of integrative levels (Spiteri, 1995), as devel- one emergent quality. (1) oped by positivistic philosopers Comte and Spencer, Laws related to parts of an organization (sublevels): and formalized in a more scientific way by Novikoff – It is impossible to reduce the higher level to the lower. (1945) and Feibleman (1954). British materialistic (9) scientists J.D. Bernal and Joseph Needham (1976) – For an organisation at any given level, its mechanism were especially influential in the transmission of such lies at the level below and its purpose at the level ideas to CRG, as it has been shown by Justice above. (5) – In any organisation the lower level is directed by the (2001); anyway, all progress in science at the time higher. (4) suggested a trend towards the interconnection and Rule to determine the right level of representation: unity of all knowledge, so that traditional boundaries – The reference of any organisation must be at the low- between disciplines could become inadequate to clas- est level which will provide sufficient explanation. sify objects (Coates, 1969). Thus the need for a new (R1) general classification was comprehended, and the Laws relevant when an organisation is destroyed: idea of integrative levels could have been a unifying – In any organisation the higher level depends upon the criterion to arrange subjects unambiguously and lower. (3) naturally in a global scheme. Actually, integrative lev- – A disturbance introduced into an organisation at any els are acknowledged as a reference criterion in BC2: one level reverberates at all the levels it covers. (6) – Events at any given level affect organisations at other levels. (11) “Gradation is a theoretical order of the sub- disciplines of science. It correlates quite Other laws and rules: – An organisation at any level is a distortion of the level strongly with another theoretical order, that of below. (10) integrative levels, which has proved of consid- – Whatever is affected as an organisation has some effect erable value in classification theory in the last as an organisation. (12) decade or so and may be said to give additional – The reference of any organisation must be to the high- point to the theory of gradation” (Mills & est level which its explanation requires. (R2) Broughton, 1977, section 6.213.32). – An organisation belongs to its highest level. (R3) – Every organisation must be explained finally on its

own level. (R4) A considerable effort was also made by the CRG to – No organisation can be explained entirely in terms of build the bases of a brand new general classification a lower or higher level. (R5) based on integrative levels (Classification Research Group, 1969; Foskett, 1970), though no such project A number of ideas are implied in Table 1. The first was ever completed due to contingent reasons and possibly most relevant one is the following: since Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 155 C. Gnoli and R. Poli: Levels of Reality and Levels of Representation

higher levels appear later in evolution (7th law), their Given a certain degree of granularity, aggregates may time of appearance can be used as an objective crite- be distinguished in heterogeneous, such as iron fil- rion for establishing the position of levels within ings and sulphur, and homogeneous, such as steel. their series. Moreover, higher levels are less popu- For Austin, heterogeneous mixtures (aggregates) are lated (there are less planets than atoms) (8th law); not levels: rather they are interlevels, namely some higher levels are more complex than lower ones (2nd intermediate stage from which it may originate either law), because the former organize the latter and give an aggregative level, consisting of homogeneous mix- rise to emergent qualities beyond them (1st law). tures, or an integrative level, such as a chemical com- Austin goes beyond Feibleman, not only by reor- pound (Austin, 1969a, p. 85-86). ganizing the order of his laws, but also by adding Austin continues claiming that higher levels are new definitions and distinctions (Table 2). Most formed with elements of lower ones, but they have relevant is the introduction of the difference between irreducible special properties not possessed by the integrative levels and aggregative levels. Aggregates – single elements (9th law). Many objects can there- such as gas mixtures, wolf packs, crowds, research fore be seen as organizations, in which a given level groups – are composed by elements that maintain directs his parts, such as organs of a body, battalions their identity and can therefore be recognised; on the of an army, parts of a car (5th and 4th laws). Unlike other hand, the elements that compose integrative Feibleman, Austin argues that such parts are not lev- levels can no more be individually recognized (Aus- els lower than that of the whole: rather they are sub- tin, 1969a, p. 85). It can be observed that, in many levels, originated at the same time of the whole or- concrete cases, the distinction between integrative ganization, without which they have no sense, not and aggregative levels may be difficult to manage: is a before or after it (1969a, p. 87-89). This is another coral colony an integrate or an aggregate? Moreover, kind of branching from the main series of integrative integration may proceed in steps or there may be a levels, different from the interlevel branching. It is continuum of integrations between parts (the phe- worth noticing here that functional parts (organs) nomenological concept of fusion comes to one’s only appear since the biological level. They exist in mind). Complex forms of connections between inte- higher levels as well, but not in lower ones, such as grative and aggregative components may occur as the physical and chemical. In other words, the cate- well. Austin himself recognizes that “aggregative lev- gory of function is specific of the biological and els spring from the integrative series” (Austin, 1969a, higher levels. In the same way, the category of pur- p. 86-87). In spite of all these difficulties, the distinc- pose (of actions, tools, institutions etc.) character- tion between integrative and aggregative items refers izes even higher levels. It seems that researchers on to a genuine problem. classification based on levels have failed to take no- tice of this. Table 2: Examples of the various kinds of levels The properties of a given level must be described (rearranged from Austin 1969a, p. 86 and 90) in terms of the lowest level needed to explain them

... (1st rule). Previous stages of evolution within the integrative level: Elements (e.g. iron, sulphur) same level cannot be used as explanations (e.g., the interlevel (e.g. iron and suphur mixed) kidney of a toad to explain that of a mammal: these aggregative level: Homogeneous mixtures (e.g. steel) are just successive species within the same level (Aus- disaggregative level (e.g. filings) tin, 1969a, p. 89-91)). integrative level: Compounds (e.g. iron sulphide) ... Each level depends on the lower ones (3rd law); integrative levels: [Organisms] (e.g. man) events at one level can have effects on both higher interlevel (e.g. crowd) and lower ones (6th and 11th laws). When any struc- aggregative level: Families ture of a given level is destroyed, e.g. when an organ- interlevel aggregative level: Communities ism dies, the level disintegrates in elements of the lower levels. However, these elements can differ sublevel: Needs (e.g. metabolic) from the original lower level elements which gave sublevel: Systems (e.g. digestive, respiratory, circulatory) birth to the structure (“a dead person is clearly more sublevel: Organs (e.g. stomach, lungs, artery) than a collection of decaying cells”), in keeping some sublevel: Parts (e.g. lining, sacs, valves) tracks of the higher level from which they have re- disintegrative level (e.g. corpse) gressed: so they deserve the status of disaggregative ... interlevel. Anyway, only one disintegrative stage can

156 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 C. Gnoli and R. Poli: Levels of Reality and Levels of Representation

be recognized, not a series of them (Austin, 1969a, p. We have proposed above to adopt a categorical 91-95); the term “disintegrative” is preferred here to viewpoint. This means that levels are complexes of “disaggregative” where its meaning is the reverse of categories. Levels of reality (ontological levels) result “integrative”. Sometimes, disintegrative processes from ontological categories; and levels of representa- can give origin to some new entity, like fossils: this tion result from combinations of ontological and situation has not been considered by Austin. epistemological categories. In order to avoid misun- derstandings, the expressions “theory of integrative 6: Levels and wholes levels” and “theory of integrative wholes” (and variations) should be used as appropriate. Austin’s work-in-progress lacks any exact definition of the terms adopted; this would instead be desirable 7: Benefits of applying levels to classification in order to build a more complete theory. As for integrative vs. aggregative levels, they seem to be dis- The distinction between integrative levels can serve tinguishable in that the former are systems in which as a valuable reference in applying facets to specific the whole prevails on their parts, while in the latter subjects. For example, Tomlinson notices that Ran- the parts are still largely independent from each ganathan’s principle of analogy between facets of dif- other; parts in turn can consist of lower integrative ferent disciplines, such as botany and medicine, can levels (see also Poli, 1996). In this respect, Berta- be difficult to apply (Tomlinson, 1969a). By referring lanffy – another reference author for the CRG – facets to integrative levels, the situation becomes points out that systems can be thought of as having more clear: facets correspond to properties appearing been placed along a continuum, from the highly in- at given levels; while general facets, such as time, tegrated ones, whose behaviour depends on the in- space, and energy appear at very early stages in the teractions between all the parts, to the more “me- evolution of the universe, others such as purpose chanic” ones, made of completely independent parts, only appear at the mind level, so they can be applied whose behaviour is described just by the sum of the to human activities like medicine but not to sponta- behaviour of the individual parts (Bertalanffy, 1969). neously growing objects like plants. Indeed, such The last passages make clear that the analyses by misapplication would be a case of the ontological er- Feibleman and Austin mean level either as whole or ror of attributing to a given level a category typical as part. However, it is worth mentioning that the of a higher one, an error clearly recognized by theory of levels has been intended by most of the Hartmann (1942) and Lorenz (1973). In a classifica- scholars who have elaborated its details as a way to tion based on integrative levels, a basic rule should be improve both the (traditional) theory of being and that the codes for properties emerging at a given the theory of wholes. This was the case of Husserl, level be only “applicable at that and higher numbered Ingarden and Hartmann, to mention but a few. The levels” (Coates, 1969, p. 21). interpretation of “level” as either whole or part runs Both the order of main classes and the citation or- into serious troubles as soon as psychological and der of facets, which as it was seen above are partially social items are taken into account. Also it comes at arbitrary in traditional classification, would be re- a price, namely, it makes impossible to discover lated to a more precise and objective criterion when whether a properly developed theory of levels, as dis- based on integrative levels (Coates, 1969, p. 20): in- tinct from the theory of wholes and their parts, has deed, on the basis of Feibleman laws, a level is de- something to add to our understanding of reality. In fined as lower than another, and hence must be ex- order to mark as clearly as possible the difference be- pressed by a lower number in classification, if it has tween the theory of wholes and the theory of levels, appeared before in natural evolution, has a greater let us boldly claim that levels are internal to items but population of instances, is organized by higher levels, not as their parts (more details from Poli, 2001a; etc. For example, wooden artifacts should be listed 2001b). The last sentence can be taken as the main after trees, because they only exist after human tech- principle of the theory of levels (as different from nology has modified trees to serve its own purposes. the theory of wholes and their parts). Claiming that A classical problem in bibliographic classification levels are not parts means that levels are not elements is that documents dealing with a given object can be of entities. Therefore, they cannot be detached from scattered in several points of the scheme, even sepa- their entities. rated by large distances, according to the disciplines studying them: e.g., sunflowers can be found as a Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 157 C. Gnoli and R. Poli: Levels of Reality and Levels of Representation

spontaneous plant under Botany, as an ornamental authors, like Farradane (1950), Foskett (1970), and plant under Gardening, as a source of oil under Dairy Dahlberg (1978), highlight the search for objective science, as a subject of pictures under Arts, etc. The criteria of classification of the content of documents, first rule of Feibleman, however, allows to state a making it more adherent to knowledge as it is devel- place of unique definition for each phenomenon oped by science: e.g., the structure of a classification (Tomlinson, 1969b, p. 29), which will be located at should be based on levels, because reality itself has a the level in which the phenomenon first appears: in levelled structure. On the other hand some authors the case of sunflowers, that will be the biological also belonging to the CRG, though working in the level; so the code for the object will be numbered ac- same direction of a more flexible, efficient and mod- cording to that level, and will be reused as a sub- ern classification, appear to be concerned with it only string in compound concepts at higher levels, such as as a practical tool, giving up the hope that it reflect “sunflowers in 19th century painting”. faithfully the structure of reality: in their view, bib- Unambiguous rules for such place of unique defi- liographic classification is a completely different nition are especially relevant for predictability of the thing from scientific classification. This difference position of a phenomenon in the scheme (Coates, was emphasized in identifying the “Chinese plate 1969, p. 20), clearly a major feature for an efficient syndrome” (CRG, 1978, p. 23): a system allowing to use of classification by both classifiers and users. classify books about Chinese plates is not intended This would also allow that different parts of a classi- to be applied to the classification of Chinese plates fication, developed at a given detail for special pur- themselves. Kyle (1969) plans to divide each main poses, be later reconnected in a consistent general class by a different sequence of properties, according scheme, as the structure of all the special parts would to the pragmatic requirements of the field, much like be based on shared stable principles – a feature much Ranganathan in Colon Classification, so still admit- needed today in order to achieve interoperability be- ting a prevalence of disciplines on phenomena. tween great amounts of documents of various ori- Fairthorne’s approach is that of an officer at the Brit- gins. Such a possibility of shifting from disciplines to ish aircraft, considering classification as a very tech- phenomena as the base unit for the structure of clas- nical tool to manage knowledge (Fairthorne, 1961): sification has been remarked in recent decades by “because human beings are essentially involved – e.g. several researchers on classification, among which they create the documents the scheme is supposed to the editors of BC2 (Mills & Broughton, 1977, sec- deal with – any scheme at any time can be no more tion 5.55), Dahlberg (1978, p. 29-30), Beghtol than a tool” (Fairthorne, 1969, p. 9). (1998), Hjørland & Albrechtsen (1999). Gnoli So, which is the true status of bibliographic classi- (2005) suggests that phenomena and disciplines fication? Actually, the two points of view are not in- could coexist in an “accordion-like” relation within a compatible: documents are concrete instances to ar- general scheme. range in the practical environment of libraries and The approach based on phenomena makes classifi- other institutions, still it is possible that a classifica- cation more naturalistic (Gnoli, 2004): in this way, a tion based on consistent and scientific principles subject is located in the scheme according to its place make their arrangement and retrieval more effective. in the structure of the world, rather than bound to a In turn, organization of knowledge has always been specific discipline, which in time could develop, necessary both to use it and to outline syntheses and change, become more or less fashionable (Gnoli, connections which are the starting point for further 2003). In fact, changes in the ways of scientific progress: Needham (1969), in his vast survey of the communication, or of research itself, could make history of science and technology in China, indeed classifications based on disciplines partially inade- notices that the traditional Chinese term to mean quate, while they seem less likely to affect in impor- “science” (kho hsüeh) literally means “classification tant ways a classification based on the natural order of knowledge”. of phenomena. As examples of levels in nature, usually physical, chemical or biological entities are taken. Many au- 8: Problems in applying levels to classification thors, however, feel less confident about how to apply their schemes to entities of higher levels, which Among the aforementioned researchers concerned the CRG calls artefacts and mentefacts (the latter term with bibliographic classification, two apparently con- being coined by Kyle). According to Coates (1969, flicting attitudes can be observed. On one hand some p. 21) artifacts, namely technological objects, though 158 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 C. Gnoli and R. Poli: Levels of Reality and Levels of Representation

reflecting human properties, don’t possess them, so library shelves. The linear sequence may imply a par- their location at the same level of man is not com- tial loss of the correct structure: e.g., as noticed by pletely satisfying. One would suppose indeed that Tomlinson (1969a, p. 25), putting animals after plants they form a separate technological level. Huckaby in the sequence does not mean that animals are made (1972) wrote a strong criticism to the applicability of of plants, unlike the case of atoms and molecules. integrative levels to a general classification scheme, Branching structures are treated by several mathe- one of the main arguments being that it would be in- matical techniques: bifurcation theory describes sys- appropriate for humanistic disciplines. However, tems branching in many dimensions, like it happens Tomlinson (1969b, p. 31) was confident that abstract when a qualitative novelty occurs in a new level; statis- concepts and mentefacts, though requiring further tical methods for classification allow to represent study than the typical examples of concrete entities, similarities by tree-like schemes called dendrograms; would also fit a general scheme by levels. Dahlberg coding theory provides ways to order and name the (1978, p. 35) too believes that a simple solution to nodes of a tree, including cases of absorption where this problem is adding further levels to those listed several nodes converge into same node of higher by Hartmann and Feibleman. More experimentation level. Such tools can be considered in order to de- would help to clarify the whole question. velop more precise models of structures based on in- Two important categories appear to be the func- tegrative levels (Gnoli & Doldi, submitted). tion of a biological structure, and the purpose of a Once an adequate model has been found, it must technological product. However, traditional lists of be reduced to a linear sequence through notation. So categories do not include them, and even classifica- the question arises of how notation can represent tionists applying integrative levels have often failed branching. For instance, one could state that main to recognize them: as it was shown above, their rela- levels are represented by a first letter (N = pluricel- tion to sublevels is not made explicit by Austin; lular organisms), main branches in them are repre- Coates (1969, p. 22) believes that purpose should be sented by a second letter (Nq = animals), and so on, a supplementary principle to be used along with in- so reproducing a system similar to that of traditional tegrative levels in deciding the main class order, in- hierarchical classification, but which also express the stead of considering it as a category to be included relative position of the various levels (Gnoli & Merli, among the levels themselves. 2005). In doing so, hospitality for future develop- Another manifest question is that of branching in ments in knowledge must be kept in mind the sequence of levels. As mentioned above, aggrega- (Tomlinson, 1969b, p. 31): so free symbols should be tive levels, sublevels, and disaggregative levels are all left available for new levels, both low and high. After different types of branching from the main series of some years of research on these lines, Austin (1976) integrative levels. Austin also recognizes that branch- believed that a notation preserving the same code for ing can occur between main levels themselves: the a given phenomenon through the whole scheme, prototypical example is that of inorganic bodies such while offering benefits in machine search and re- as planets and organic living entities, which both trieval, could be unsuitable for arranging books on originate from the level of crystals but evolve along shelves, and that these two tasks should be consid- two separate lines, into galaxies etc. on one hand and ered independently. into societies etc. on the other hand (Austin, 1969, p. In a sequence according to integrative levels, the 83). Furthermore, higher levels can interact between position of the objects of logical, methodological and them in complex tangled ways: e.g., limestones ap- auxiliary disciplines, such as mathematics, informa- pear to be located on the inorganic line, as they are tion science, epistemology etc., deserves special dis- rocks, but they are formed after accumulation of cussion. Indeed, as a product of human intellectual skeletons of living organisms. Similarly, the level of activity, they could be listed with higher levels, so ideas seems to depend both on the mental and the taking a high-value code in notation; however, as social ones, so suggesting more a rhomboidal than a such disciplines try to find general forms valid for all tree structure. aspects of the world, their objects could be rather When trying to represent levels in classification, considered as universal properties and placed before we are faced with a difficult task: to find ways of ex- all levels, or in very low levels. This problem is iden- pressing such branching and tangled relations in a lin- tified by Coates (1969, p. 22) too. The question is re- ear sequence – which is necessary at least to display lated to whether logic and mathematics are only hu- symbols in alphabetical order and to arrange books in man constructions, or they reflect real properties of Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 159 C. Gnoli and R. Poli: Levels of Reality and Levels of Representation

the world as claimed by Platonism. Most biblio- as Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 25(2-4). graphic classifications list bibliographic and auxiliary 23-66. disciplines before all other classes; however, this Beghtol, C. (1998). Knowledge domains: multidisci- looks more a self-referential bias than an ontological plinarity and bibliographical classification sys- choice, as mathematics instead is listed within the tems. Knowledge organization, 25(1-2). 1-12. sequence, before physics, as one of the “scientific” Bertalanffy, L. von. (1969). General system theory. disciplines. Foundations, developments, applications. New Finally, once the main sequence of classes has been York: Braziller. defined according to integrative levels, rules must be Bliss, H.E. (1929). The organization of knowledge and given about how to compose notation for complex the system of sciences. New York: Holt. concepts. Relations between objects occurring at dif- Blitz, D. (1992). Emergent evolution. Qualitative ferent levels can be of various nature. We could dis- novelty and the levels of reality. Dordrecht, Bos- tinguish at least between substantial and occasional ton, London: Kluwer. relations. Classification Research Group (1969). Classification and information control. London: Library associa- 9: Conclusion tion. Coates, E. (1969). CRG proposals for a new general As has been shown, the idea of levels has appeared classification. In Classification Research Group, in various contexts as a promising model for such 1969. 19-22. wide fields as ontology, epistemology, and knowledge Dahlberg, I. (1978). Ontical structures and universal representation. However, it has not coalesced in a classification. Bangalore: Sarada Ranganathan en- unitary school; rather it is spread into different dowment for library science. streams, so that a full analysis of its aspects, prob- Fairthorne, R.A. (1961). Towards information re- lems, and potential of explanation is still to be com- trieval. London: Butterworths. pleted. Fairthorne, R.A. (1969). ‘Browsing’ schemes and Furthermore, the application of the levels-model ‘specialist’ schemes. In Classification Research to the different fields, of course, implies different Group, 1969. 9-11. specific problems, such as that of representing Farradane, J.E.L. (1950). A scientific theory of classi- branching in classification. This does not exclude the fication and indexing and its practical applica- fact that problems in application to a given field can tions. Journal of documentation, 6(2). 83-99. teach lessons which can be fruitful for other fields: Feibleman, J.K. (1954). The integrative levels in na- representation issues can stimulate clarification of ture. British journal for the philosophy of science, ontological questions, and inversely, ontology can of- 5(17). 59-66. Also in B. Kyle (Ed.). Focus on in- fer more robust and lasting foundations for knowl- formation. London: Aslib, 1965. 27-41. edge representation. Foskett, D.J. (1970). Classification for a general index language. London: Library association. References Foskett, D.J. (1978). The theory of integrative levels and its relevance to the design of information sys- Austin, D. (1969a). The theory of integrative levels tems. Aslib proceedings, 30(6). 202-208. reconsidered as the basis for a general classifica- Gibson, J.J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual tion. In Classification Research Group, 1969. 81- perception. Boston: Houghton. 95. Gnoli, C. (2003). Mezzo o messaggio? Le classifica- Austin, D. (1969b). Prospects for a new general clas- zioni all’inseguimento delle conoscenze in evolu- sification. Journal of librarianship, 1(3). 149-196. zione. Biblioteche oggi, 21(1). 17-19. Austin, D. (1976). The CRG research into a freely Gnoli, C. (2004). Naturalism vs. pragmatism in faceted scheme. In Maltby A. (Ed.). Classification knowledge organization. In I. McIlwaine (Ed.). in the 1970s: a second look. Rev. ed. London: Bing- Knowledge organization and the global information ley; Hamden: Linnet books, p. 158-194. society. Proceedings of the 8th International Austin, D. (1998). Derek Austin: developing PRE- ISKO conference. Würzburg: Ergon. 263-268. CIS, PREserved Context Indexing System. In C. Gnoli, C. (2005). BC2 classes for phenomena: an Myall, R.C. Carter (Eds.). Portraits in cataloging opportunity to apply the theory of integrative and classification. Haworth press. Also published levels. Bliss classification bulletin, 47. 160 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 C. Gnoli and R. Poli: Levels of Reality and Levels of Representation

Gnoli, C. & Doldi, V. (submitted). Modeling integra- Novikoff, A.B. (1945). The concept of integrative tive levels for knowledge organization. levels and biology. Science, 101. 209-215. Gnoli, C. & Merli, G. (2005). Notazione e interfac- Poli, R. (1996). Ontology for knowledge organiza- cia di ricerca per una classificazione a livelli. tion. In R. Green (Ed.). Knowledge organization AIDA informazioni, 23. and change. Proceedings of the 4th International Hartmann, N. (1942). Neue Wege der Ontologie. Ber- ISKO Conference. Frankfurt: Index. 313-319. lin. English tr.: New ways of ontology. Westport: Poli, R. (1998). Levels. Axiomathes, 9(1-2). 197-211. Greenwood, 1952. Poli, R. (2001a). ALWIS: ontology for knowledge Hjørland, B. & Albrechtsen, H. (1999). An analysis engineers. PhD thesis, Utrecht University. of some trends in classification research. Knowl- Poli, R. (2001b). The basic problem of the theory of edge organization, 26(3). 131-139. levels of reality. Axiomathes, 12(3-4). 261-283. Huckaby, S.A.S. (1972). An enquiry into the theory Poli, R. (2001c). Foreword. Axiomathes, 12(1-2). 1-5. of integrative levels as the basis for a generalized Poli, R. (2001d). The legacy of Nicolai Hartmann classification scheme. Journal of documentation, (1882-1950). Axiomathes, 12(3-4). 28(2). 97-106. Poli, R. (2002). Ontological methodology. Interna- Justice, A. (2001). A historical and critical exploration tional journal of human-computer studies, 56. 639- of the Classification Research Group of London, 664. England. Thesis for the master of Library and in- Poli, R. & Mazzola, G. (2000). Semiotic aspects of formation science at University of California Los generalized bases of data. In E. Kawaguchi et al. Angeles. (Eds.). Information modelling and knowledge bases Kyle, B.R.F. (1969). Lessons learned from experience XI. Amsterdam: IOS Press. 1-11. in drafting the Kyle Classification. In Classifica- Ranganathan, S.R. (1967). Prolegomena to library tion Research Group, 1969. 11-15. classification. 3rd. ed. Bangalore: Sarada Rangana- Lorenz, K. (1973). Die Rückseite des Spiegels. Piper: than endowment for library science. München. English tr.: Behind the mirror. Spiteri, L. (1995). The Classification Research Group Methuen: London, 1977. and the theory of integrative levels. The Katharine Mills, J. & Broughton, V. (1977). Bliss bibliographic Sharp review, 1. . auxiliary schedules. London, Boston: Butter- Tomlinson, H. (1969a). Notes on initial work for worths. NATO Classification. In: Classification Research Needham, J. (1969). The grand titration. Science and Group, 1969. 24-28. society in East and West. London: Allen & Unwin. Tomlinson, H. (1969b). Report on work for new Needham, J. (1976). Integrative levels. In G. Werk- general classification scheme. In Classification sey (Ed.). Moulds on understanding. A pattern of Research Group, 1969. 29-41. natural philosophy. London: Allen & Unwin; New York: St. Martin’s press.

Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 161 A. S. Coleman: A Code for Classifiers: Whatever Happened to Merrill’s Code?

A Code for Classifiers: Whatever Happened to Merrill’s Code?

Anita S. Coleman

School of Information Resources & Library Science, 1515 E. First St., University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA, E-mail: [email protected]

Anita Sundaram Coleman is an Assistant Professor in the School of Information Resources and Li- brary Science, University of Arizona, Tucson. Her areas of interest include knowledge organization in educational digital libraries and the history of classification.

Coleman, Anita S.. (2004). A Code for Classifiers: Whatever Happened to Merrill’s Code? Knowl- edge Organization, 31(3). 161-176. 32 refs.

ABSTRACT: The work titled Code for Classifiers by William Stetson Merrill is examined. The development of Merrill's Code over a period of 27 years, 1912-1939 is traced by examining bibliographic, attribution, conceptual and contextual differences. The general principles advocated, the differences between variants, and three controversial features of the Code: 1) the distinction between classifying vs. classification, 2) borrowing of the bibliographic principle of authorial intention, and 3) use of Dewey Decimal class numbers for classified sequence of topics, are also discussed. The paper reveals the importance of the Code in its own time, the complexities of its presentation and assessment by its contemporaries, and it’s status today.

Introduction tee on a Code for Classifiers issued in mimeograph form “A Code for Classifiers: A Collection of Data There appear to be at least four printed versions, in Compiled for the Use of the Committee By William English, of a work by William Stetson Merrill with Stetson Merrill, Chairman.” [3]. In November 1928, the short title, Code for Classifiers [3, 4, 5, 6]. The fourteen years later, the ALA published what is gen- first appeared in 1912 [6] and is essentially a descrip- erally considered the first edition of the “Code for tion of the problems in classification arguing the Classifiers: Principles Governing the Consistent Placing need for a classifier's code, a code that transcended of Books in a System of Classification.” [4]. However, individual classification systems. An early descrip- less than a year later, ALA issued an intended variant tion of a code for classifers was also presented by [2, 10]. Eleven years later the second edition of the Merrill, then Head of Classification at the Newberry Code was published by ALA in 1939 [5]. Library, as two lectures delivered to the Library This short history leaves us with many unan- School at the University of Illinois. Merrill had been swered questions about the Code for Classifiers. invited to do so by Phineas Windsor, Librarian. These include: 1) What is the Code for Classifiers? 2) A year earlier, in 1911, Merrill had prepared a paper What are the differences between the various edi- and submitted a resolution asking the ALA Executive tions? 3) Why did it take 14 years to publish the first Board to appoint a Committee on a code for classifi- edition? 4) How did Merrill compile the data for the ers [7]. In response a special Committee of the ALA Code? What is the status of the Code today? The rest was appointed with Merrill as Chair to consider the of this paper answers these questions. The history of “preparation of such a code” that included famed the development of the Code, the versions that classificationists J.C.M. Hanson, Charles Martel, and emerged from it (1914, 1928, and 1939), and the re- other prominent librarians of the time such as Phi- actions to each of these versions are first presented. neas Windsor [4, p. vii]. In 1914, the ALA Commit- Significant variations between the editions and what 162 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 A. S. Coleman: A Code for Classifiers: Whatever Happened to Merrill’s Code?

the differences represent are then analyzed. Finally, brary, provided a number of the Science and Tech- the current status of the Code is explored in order to nology principles that were in use at John Crerar. suggest why the Code is worthy of further study. The 1928 Code included five general principles, and the 300 rules were arranged in a classified order with The Code for Classifiers DDC class numbers to indicate sequence. The classified arrangement was the idea of Julia Pettee, Union In a 1911 paper read at the Pasadena conference, Theological Seminary, New York. In the 1939 Code, Merrill outlined the practical problems classifiers of there were 365 rules for classifying books and by this the day faced (for example, what are the classification time Merrill had greatly expanded his sources for the criteria that best fit a library) and distinguished them rules and principles in the Code. Besides his own from theoretical problems of classification. The same rules, those of the committee members, the women paper also requested the appointment of an ALA named above, and feedback he had received from committee on a code for classifiers. In 1912 he gave public announcements, he had also used the results two lectures at the University of Illinois where he of a comprehensive study of libraries conducted by discussed many of the general principles for library the American Librarian Association, the 1926 ALA classifiers that could become a part of a code for clas- Survey [15] as a source of data for the 1928 edition. sifiers (“aboutness,” “intent of the author,” “class of For the 1939 edition, he dropped the 1926 ALA Sur- reader for whom the book is intended,” and “subject vey as a data source and used responses from the 30 vs. topic” distinctions). Again, he emphasized that libraries, which completed a new survey that he pre- differences between general problems (theoretical pared and ALA administered. principles) of classification; practical principles that Figures 1 and 2 show exact reproductions (con- would help promote consistency in the art of classify- tent-wise not typographical) of the rules from the ing books in libraries, irrespective of the classification two sections of the 1914 Code. The term “Query” in scheme used by the library, was the focus of the code. Figure 2 represents a specific statement about which From the lectures, we learn that four schemes of Merrill and the Committee sought feedback. classification were being used in American libraries of the time: Dewey’s Decimal Classification (DDC), Reaction to the 1914 Code Library of Congress Classification (LC), Cutter’s Ex- pansive Classification (EC), and Brown’s Subject Merrill sent personal letters to leading librarians and Classification (BCS). Examples of specific titles are libraries along with a copy of the mimeograph re- provided for classifying problems such as complex questing feedback on the rules. In response, com- topics, coordinate topics, unrelated topics, bias and ments and criticism of the 1914 compilation of rules influence relations among topics. Works by Ernest for classifying came from libraries of all types: aca- Richardson and James Brown are summarized [27, demic, public, and special [6]. W.C. Lane wrote from 28, 29] to provide a list of the general characteristics Harvard College Library: “an excellent and very sug- of books and the subject characteristics that may be gestive piece of work. Mr. Currier and the classifiers used for classifying. Merrill contrasts the art of clas- of the Shelf Department will, I am sure, be glad to sifying from the science of classification. While sub- have it, and perhaps they will send additional notes.” ject is recognized as being the most important in Clement A. Andrews, John Crerar Library, wrote: “A provision of access, Merrill cautions that other types priori it seems to me that its usefulness ought to be of classification are also appropriate for differing considerable.” Harrison Carver, Carnegie Library of uses and different types of materials: for example, Pittsburgh, noted: “The data seems to me exactly the dates for arrangement of incunabula. He categorizes kind of thing that most classifiers ought to have in himself as a practical classifier; he is interested in the hand all the time …” Theresa Hitchler of the Brook- practice of library classification. lyn Public Library and W. Law Vogue of the Mechan- In the 1914 mimeograph Code, Merrill offers two ics Institute's Mechanics Mercantile Library in San sections of an alphabetical arrangement of the 285 Francisco requested copies of it. The most substan- rules that he used for classifying materials in the tive and interesting responses, however, came from Newberry Library. The two sections of rules were for three women. Ida Farrar, Jennie Dorcas Fellows, and “The One-topic book” and “The Two-topic book.” Julia Pettee were to play an influential role and de- In the 1928 Code, the number of these rules were in- termine the structure and content of future editions creased to 300 reflecting the increase in subject cov- of the Code. erage. Grace O. Kelley, classifer at John Crerar Li- Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 163 A. S. Coleman: A Code for Classifiers: Whatever Happened to Merrill’s Code?

Animals in art. Class in art, not in sociology E.g.

Note. The works treating of these topics give little information, even at their fullest, about animals as such; but tell how they are viewed and represented as subjects of art, and explain their significance and symbolism.

Animals in literature.

Influence of one thing upon another. See this heading under the Two-topic book.

New Subjects

(a) Make a new heading for a new subject, in preference to classing a book on such a subject along with others under an in- clusive heading. E.g. Pedagogical anthropology

Note: The reasons are: (1) a new subject usually persists, at least for some time, and the literature upon it grows; (2) classing under some subject that does not bring out the new feature buries the book and defeats the intent of the author.

(b) Do not force books on really new topics under some related topic merely because the system has no provision for them. Science and arts are both growing intensively and extensively and it is a mistake to make no place for new subjects. If this is not done, the new subject has no place in the classification although the books upon it are in the library. E.g. Automobiles, Aviation, Psychology in Special aspects.

Figure 1: Entries from the 1914 Code [3] Section One, The One-Topic Book, p. 7, p. 43, p. 59.

“And”

General rule

Works treating of two or more topics represented by terms connected by “and”:

Class according to the meaning of the title and the intent of the author Note. The conjunction “and”, occurring on a title-page may have various meanings, upon which will depend the proper classification of a book. E.g. “Art” and “ritual” may mean the way in which art has grown out of ritual; “Norse literature and English literature” may mean the Norse sources of English literature; “Shatfesbury” and “Wieland may mean the indebtedness of Ireland to Shatfesbury; “Cardinal Alemand and the Great Schism” may mean the share or work of Alemand in that movement; finally, “Electricity and magnetism” may mean simply that both subjects are treated in one book. The classifier must first determine the meaning of “and” on a title-page before he attempts to determine the classification of the book.

See also “Influence”.

“And”. Action concerning persons. A work on the acts, or containing the proceedings of a tribunal against a special class of offenders, e.g. merchants:

Class with other proceedings of such a tribunal, not under the topic represented by the class, e.g. commerce. (Query)

E.g. English merchant and the Spanish Inquisition in the Canaries …ed. By L. de Alberti and A.E. Wallis Chapman (London, 1912) Class under Inquisition in the Canaries, not under English commerce with the Canaries. (Query)

Figure 2: Entries from the 1914 Code [3], Section two, The Two-topic book, p. 98 164 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 A. S. Coleman: A Code for Classifiers: Whatever Happened to Merrill’s Code?

Ida F. Farrar, City Library Association of Springfield, practicable to subscribe to it in every detail.” Permit Massachusetts, wrote that it “promises to be a very me to say that it is not intended to be “subscribed helpful aid to classifiers. Covers many points about to,” but to be marked with “yes” or “no,” according which there are liable to be dispute in a logical and as the practice of the library to which it is sent agrees sensible fashion.” Then, under the heading “Points of or disagrees with the tentative rules in it.” criticism” she filled 15 pages with statements and di- The final substantive set of comments came from rectives such as, “headings too general” and “add Julia Pettee, Union Theological Seminary. Pettee was more cross-references.” “tremendously impressed with the amount of work” The next criticism of the Code came from Jennie Merrill had already done and her one “criticism” was D. Fellows (generally known as Dorkas Fellows), with regard to the “alphabetical form;” she requested Head Classifier, State Library, Albany, New York, in and received permission to arrange the material in a letter dated 26 November 1914. Fellows later be- the Code in a “classed order” because “ a work of came Editor of the Dewey Decimal Classification and this sort should have some organic relation to the a great collaborator of Melvil Dewey and thus, her general principles underlying our various schemes criticism is important to note, She questioned and to show this an arrangement by subject groups is Merrill’s advocacy of the “intent of the author” as important.” the primary principle to be used by classifiers in de- Ten years later, in beginning preparation for the termining what the book is about and cites Wyer as first formal edition of the Code, Merrill used these the authority with whom she agrees. Wyer and she responses to the 1914 edition as well as the ALA felt that the Code over-emphasized the principle of Survey of 1926 [15]. He was meticulous about giving authorial intention in determining the subject of the credit. In March 1927 he wrote to Farrar, Fellows, book (aboutness). Furthermore, she did not think Kelley, and Pettee, “I am preparing a new edition of that directions for classification can be codified as the Code for Classifiers, rearranged in classified form easily as those for cataloging. “In spite of this diffi- and much amplified” and requested their permission culty, however, I feel that such a code as yours would to give them credit and quote from their letters. be very valuable.” Her final charge was that “proba- Merrill looked upon them all as collaborators. bly no well-established library would find it practica- In his reminiscences, written many decades after ble to subscribe to it in every detail because of poli- the 1939 Code was published from his retirement cies already adopted, but to libraries starting out, home (see Figure 3) in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, with little experience it seems to me that it would be Merrill commented on how the consensus for the helpful in the extreme.” In her conclusion Dorkas Code developed: Fellows summarized a comment on the Code by Miss Jean Hawkins who found it useful for teaching My Code for Classifiers was published in 1928 library classification. Miss Hawkins had formerly by the American Library Association. I had be- been Head Classifer in the NY State Library and was gun gathering data for such a work more than now an instructor in classification at the NYPL fifteen years before. Whenever I pondered as to (New York Public Library) Library School, which which place in our classification I should assign Melvil Dewey had brought with him from Columbia a book having features that seemed to fit it with University (Dewey’s first library school was estab- equal propriety to more than one place, I made lished in 1884 at Columbia). Fellows wrote that a note of my decision. In that way I would pre- “Miss Hawkins … said that it contained much of just serve consistency when other books of similar the material which it was necessary to impress on be- trend might be classified. I showed my notes to ginners and she found some points which she imme- Mr. P.L. Windsor who looked them through diately adopted for her next lesson…” and then, to my surprise, invited me to deliver Merrill’s response was prompt and went straight two lectures on the subject before the Library to what he perceived as the heart of the matter; on School of the University of Illinois, of which he Dec. 4 he wrote to Fellows that two copies were be- was Director … I drew up tentative rules fol- ing sent, one for her and one for Hawkins. He asked lowing the lines of the lectures; mimeographed Fellows to annotate her copy and note whether the sheets were prepared in a number of copies, “rules given in it agree with or deviate from the prac- which were sent out to a number of the larger tice of the State Library.” He continued: “You write, libraries of the country and to library schools “probably no well-established library would find it …. The text as finally prepared was not merely Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 165 A. S. Coleman: A Code for Classifiers: Whatever Happened to Merrill’s Code?

a recording of personal opinions; it was in its work, and I shd be most hartily in favor now, as I was scope a consensus of American library proce- then, of it’s being printed.” dure in the handling of the classifier’s prob- Finally, on Nov. 17, 1926, Merrill heard from lems. [9, p. 37-38.]. Everett O. Fontaine, Assistant to the ALA Secretary. “From the size of the Code, we presume that the Preparation of the 1928 Code price of a mimeographed edition would be in the neighborhood of $2.00, and in order to assure publi- From 1914 until 1926 very little happened with the cation we should have advance orders for at least 100 Code for Classifiers. Part of the reason was financial. copies.” Would Merrill prepare “a statement of a cir- 200 copies of the 1914 mimeograph were printed by cular letter” for ALA to send out with a description the University of Illinois and the Newberry Library of the Code and it’s use in a Classification Depart- supplied the cover freely. No financial sponsor for a ment? Merrill suggested the following introduction: new edition of the Code emerged. Phineas Windsor “The new Code for Classifiers is out – rearranged, re- wrote Merrill on May 3, 1915: “I hope you will not vised and much expanded. It is by William Stetson become at all discouraged over the slowness of the Merrill of the Newberry Library. As a text book for progress on the Code nor the lack of appreciation class use it is unique in it’s field.” shown it by many librarians.” In 1916, Merrill, as Chair, submitted a report to the ALA and noted that Merrill describes the 1928 Code thus: the Committee was unable to meet that year due to the difficulty of “assembling the members.” [16] Two general questions confront every classifier Since there were few copies of the 1914 mimeograph of books. The first is: what is this book about? left, requests for copies were being sent only to a li- The second is: where will this book best be brary nearby and not the individual requesting it. classed? The first question always arises; the Also in 1916, two new members were added to the second arises when the book might seem to go Committee: Leticia Gosman, Princeton University with equal propriety in one of two places, or Library and Julia Pettee. In the years following, noth- even in one of several places. Three hundred ing further materialized. Members of the Committee principles are laid down in the Code for deter- grappled with related classification issues such as the mining the procedure to be followed in such preparation of a key to the Library of Congress Classi- questions of doubt. Reasons are given pro and fication in terms of the Decimal Classification as part con. The aim of the book is aid the classifiers, of the larger Committee on Classification. Towards or many classifiers on a large staff, in preserving the mid 1920s they were also increasingly pre- consistency in their work rather than to dictate occupied about the relationship between the Com- the procedure. mittee on Cataloging and the Committee on Classifi- cation. Finally, in 1925, when Clement W. Andrews Figure 3 is an exact reproduction from the 1928 (Librarian, John Crerar Library) was appointed Code of one of the principles that was also in the Chairman of the Committee on Classification, the 1914 Code (and shown above as Figure 2). It is now work was reinitiated as a committee priority. Merrill Rule 178 and is arranged in a section labeled ARTS also requested and began to receive the help of Grace (FINE ARTS) with the DDC class number 700. O. Kelley, Classifier at John Crerar Library. Rule 177 provides the class definition and scope. But, there were more troubles ahead. In Feb. 1926 Merrill wrote Carl Milam asking for ALA’s help in Reaction to the 1928 Code publishing the Code. He continued to revise the Code getting in touch with Farrar and Fellows to up- Requests for copies of the 1928 Code came from as date them on the plans for it’s revision, and integrat- far away as Russia, Imperial Library, Japan, and Nor- ing Kelley’s policies and Pettee’s classified arrange- way. A Russian Professor of Library Science wrote ment. Farrar replied that she preferred the “strictly Merrill congratulating him on the Code and asked alphabetical arrangement” and Fellows, still at the how works of Leo Tolstoi should be classified. New York State Library replied in a letter dated 30 Charles Martel, who had worked with Merrill at the March 1926 that “a cursory examination merely re- Newberry, was at this time helping with the Vatican freshes my former very favorabl impression of the Library cataloging rules, on leave from his home in-

166 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 A. S. Coleman: A Code for Classifiers: Whatever Happened to Merrill’s Code?

ART (FINE ARTS) Dewey No. 700

177 Definition and scope of this class The term art as used by the classifications is restricted to the “fine arts.” Both the fine arts and the practical arts deal with the methods of putting into concrete form ideas which are practically useful or esthetically pleasing to man, and the line between the two cannot be very sharply drawn. The fine arts cover the material relating to sculp- ture, the graphic arts, drawing, design, painting, carving, engraving, architecture, and the decorative arts.- (Pettee).

178 Animals in art.

Class in art, not in sociology

Figure 3: Entries from the 1928 Code [4], p. 67. stitution, the Library of Congress [32]. When he ciples. Fellows’ objections were the more serious sin- read the announcement of the Code’s forthcoming ce they resulted in a variant edition printed in 1929 in publication, Martel wrote to Merrill from the Biblio- which Merrill removed many of the DDC class teca Apostolica Vaticana in Rome: “Please reserve numbers (discussed below in the section on Concep- two copies for me … I want them for personal use.” tual Differences). Margaret Mann, University of Michigan Library School professor, who had also just published her Preparation of the 1939 Code book, Classification And Cataloging Of Books reviewed Merrill’s Code and also wrote him in Decem- In 1936 Everett O. Fontaine, Chief, Publishing De- ber: “I am certainly glad to have your new Code for partment, ALA, wrote to Merrill, “The book contin- Classifiers. The mimeograph edition has always been ues to sell from 200 to 250 copies a year. The ques- of great help to me … So many students think that tion arises as to what you think of the need for a new classification is merely Dewey numbers, and your edition.” Thus began the work for the revision of the text will show them how much reasoning has to be 1939 edition of the Code. Merrill began the work for done before the correct subject matter can be de- the 1939 edition in relative isolation. Living on a tected and before the classification scheme is under- pension, in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, he was forced stood. Please accept my congratulations for an excel- to rely on the graciousness of the professionals in the lent piece of work.” Newberry Library, Library of Congress, and else- ALA Publications had compelled Merrill to show where. Nevertheless, he was as meticulous as before, proof of ‘orders in hand’ before they would publish making trips to Chicago to the Newberry and John the 1928 edition. Now, in Jan. 1929, Emily V.D. Crerar Library to identify current classifying prac- Miller, Editor of Publications, ALA, wrote with en- tices, borrowing LC cards, using old friends at LC to thusiasm, “You will remember we printed 2000 cop- analyze changes, noting changes, comparing rules in ies of this book and bound half of this number. It is the 1928 code, and finally preparing a survey of clas- with gratification that we are ordering the remaining sifying practices. copies bound this week, as the first thousand have The survey was finalized in May 1937, two years been sold out. It now looks as if the book would before the second edition of the Code was printed. have to be reprinted before another year is out.” In the survey letter to be sent to libraries Merrill Unfortunately, the 1928 Code had it’s critics and wrote, two of them were particularly troublesome: The Rev. Colman Farrell (Abbey Library, St. Benedict’s Col- The steady sale during the nine years since its lege, Aitchison, Kansas) felt that “quotations from publication in 1928, of from 200 to 250 copies a Pettee in the code are exceedingly misleading for year, has nearly depleted the supply of books in Catholic classifiers” and, Dorcas Fellows (now DDC stock.” He told his readers that he was retired Editor) objected strongly to the use of the DDC from active library work” and offered the fol- class numbers for arrangement of the rules and prin- lowing explanation as a need for a new Code. Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 167 A. S. Coleman: A Code for Classifiers: Whatever Happened to Merrill’s Code?

“The reason for preparing a new edition as He was punctilious about offering to give credit: against issuing a plain reprint lies in the oppor- “Due credit will be given to any library or to any tunity so afforded to incorporate rulings to fit classifier whose rulings on case of alternative modes new problems of classification that may have of handling materials are incorporated in the new arisen in the past ten years. New subjects and edition.” He did not forget to set a deadline for new modes of treating old subjects present new feedback, Sept. 1, 1937. Nor did he forget to describe problems to the classifier. As the Code has the purpose of the Code: “While the Code is a norm been used by teachers and students of classifi- of consistent practice, it contains so many references cation as well as by classifiers in libraries, the to divergent rulings as to be, in a way, a cooperative value of keeping it up to date is obvious. enterprise to which you are invited to contribute.” ALA mailed out 100 letters and Merrill kept care- He requested notes, principles, and rules on the fol- ful track of the replies he received from approxi- lowing questions: mately 30 of them and acknowledged them in the Foreword to the 1939 edition. Arnold H. Trotier, – Do you class works on Fascism together, di- Chairman of the ALA Committee on Cataloging and viding geographically by the country con- Classification reviewed Merrill’s 1939 manuscript cerned? Or do you class them with other along with Eleanor Robertson, Assistant Catalog Li- works on the present form of government of brarian and Esther Anell, Serials Reviser. Besides the respective countries – e.g., Germany, It- adding new rules, the 1939 edition completely dis- aly? carded the DDC class numbers (Trotier felt that – Do you treat present-day Communism as an “many classifiers will object to the change”) and economic theory of society? Or do you treat eliminated references to the 1926 survey. Instead unit as a form of political government? der rules and principles it notes the broad class num- – Do you treat the “alphabetical” administra- ber for both LC and DDC. tions of the Federal Government – AAA, Figure 4 is an exact reproduction from the 1939 PWA, CCC – as phases of the government as Code of the same principle that was also in the 1914 a whole? Code and in the 1928 Code (shown above as Figure – Recent trends in Science and in Philosophy 3). It is now Rule 228 and is arranged in a section la- have introduced many new ways of viewing beled ART. FINE ARTS. things. Have you met any specific instances where classification practice has been affected? If so, will you name them?

ART. FINE ARTS

177 Definition and scope of this class “The term art as used by the classifications is restricted to the ‘fine arts.’ Both the fine arts and the practical arts deal with the methods of putting into concrete form ideas which are practically useful or esthetically pleasing to man, and the line between the two cannot be very sharply drawn. The fine arts cover the material relating to sculp- ture, the graphic arts, drawing, design, painting, carving, engraving, architecture, and the decorative arts.”- (Pettee).

228 Animals in art. Class in art, not in zoology.

The works treating of these topics give little information, even at their fullest, about animals as such; but tell how they are viewed and represented as subjects of art, and explain their significance and symbolism. L.C. classes animals in art as a topic under the several fine arts; D.C. classes painting of animals (758) under art, and symbolical representations (246.5) under ecclesiology. Distinguish pictures of animals for educational purposes to be classed under the kind of animal, from the work of artists in which the animals are features of the painting or drawing.

Figure 5. Entries from the 1939 Code [5], p. 101-102 168 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 A. S. Coleman: A Code for Classifiers: Whatever Happened to Merrill’s Code?

Differences Between the Various Editions a quotation from Pope, indicating one of the main of the Code general principles for classifying: “In every work regard the author’s end.” The 1914 edition has no table In this part of the paper, significant variations be- of contents or a back-of-the book index; it is 124 tween the Code and what the differences represent pages long and the 285 rules are arranged alphabeti- are analyzed. First are bibliographical or physical dif- cally in two sections that follow the style of Merrill’s ferences; next are differences in the nature and use of 1912 lectures: the One–topic book and the Two- attributions, third are conceptual differences. Finally topic Book. Merrill is the copyright holder and there there are contextual differences. is a one-page Preface in which he thanks the members of the Committee. The names of the seven Bibliographical Differences members of the committee and their affiliations are listed on a separate page. Merrill dedicated the first Table 1 documents the observable differences be- and second editions to his second wife, Ethel Eliott tween the four texts of the Code. The sub-title in the Owen. The later two editions, 1928 and 1939, have a 1914 mimeographed edition of the Code is different new sub-title, a Table of Contents and an Index. In- from the first and second editions; the sub-title “A stead of the Preface, they have a Foreword and the Collection of Data Compiled for Use of the Com- ALA is the copyright holder. The variant 1928 edi- mittee By William Stetson Merrill, Chairman” makes tion (printed in 1929) carries the following statement clear that what is being presented to the readers is a on the verso of the title page: “The Code for classifi- collection of data and not yet a set of principles for ers has been endorsed by the Committee on Catalog- classifying. Besides the usual title and attributions, ing and Classification of the American Library Asso- the cover page carries “200 copies mimeograph” and ciation.” (see also Table 1 and Figures 5, 6, 7)

Table 1: Bibliographical details and differences

1914 1928 1929 (v) 1939 Title A Code for Classifiers Code for Classifiers Code for Classifiers Sub-title A Collection of Data Principles governing Principles governing Compiled for the Use the consistent placing the consistent placing of the Committee of books in a system of books in a system of classification of classification Creator William Stetson N/A N/A Merrill Editor Merrill Merrill Edition Mimeograph First edition 2nd edition Publication/Printing Date May 1914 Nov. 1928 October 1939 Foreword Preface written by Foreword written by Foreword written by Merrill dated April 27, Merrill dated May 1, Merrill dated April 1, 1914, Newberry Li- 1928 1939 Oconomoc, Wis- brary, Chicago consin Publisher ALA ALA ALA Printer Unknown - - Size 124 p 128 p. 177 p. Number of copies (by 1954) 200 printed 4111 sold 5443 sold

Dedication None To wife To wife Components Has Preface Has Foreword + Has Foreword Has copyright Has Table of Contents Statement of ALA Has Table of Contents No Table of Contents Has Index Endorsement Has Index No Index

The 1929 variant is almost the same as 1928 edition with the one addition noted.

Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 169 A. S. Coleman: A Code for Classifiers: Whatever Happened to Merrill’s Code?

Figure 5: Title page of 1928 Edition (published November Figure 7: Verso of Title page of 1928 edition, 1929 variant. 1928) Note the endorsement statement.

Attribution Differences

Merrill’s concern for attribution and his meticulous- ness in carrying it out is evident in the texts and is also corroborated by the correspondence papers in the two archives. There seem to be two patterns in his acknowledgements of attribution. The first type of attributions may be called ‘collaborators.” These people actively participated in the development of the principles and rules or served on the Committee. Their names are given in Table 2 and I have tried to preserve the roles that Merrill acknowledged for them. The second type of attributions is confined to the 1939 edition. It includes those librarians/libraries that completed the 1936 survey that was sent out; or in some other way indicated that they subscribed to the principles, did not subscribe to them, or used them in a modified way. These libraries are listed in Table 2, while names of the people are given in Table 3. Academic, public, state, and research libraries and library schools are represented.

Figure 6: Verso of Title page of 1928 edition 170 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 A. S. Coleman: A Code for Classifiers: Whatever Happened to Merrill’s Code?

Table 2: Attribution Differences Acknowledgements in Foreword (by order of appearance) Role given in italics

1914 1928 1939 Members of the committee Annotater, Pettee, Julia Participants 1) J.C. Bay, John Crerar Library Practice,Fellows, Dorcas Pettee, Julia 2) Walter C. Biscoe, NY State Library, Critic, Farrar, Ida F. Fellows, J. Dorkas Albany Science & Technology Rulings, Kelley, Farrar, Ida F. Kelley, Grace Osgood 3) W.P. Cutter, Library of the Engi- Grace O. Windsor, P. L neering Societies, NY Sponsor of Code, Windsor, P. Bay, J. C. 4) J.C.M. Hanson, University of Chi- Sponsor of Code, Bay, J.C. Utley, G. B cago Library Counsel, Utley, G. B. Fontaine, Everett O. 5) Charles Martel, LC, Washington Akers, Susan Grey 6) Wm. Stetson Merrill, Chairman, Ansell, Esther Newberry, Chicago Hansen, Camellia 7) P.L. Windsor, Urbana Hastings, Charles H. Pitt, Laud R. Perley, Clarence W. Getchell, Myron W. Haykin, David Judson Pressey, Julia C. Penfield, Harriet E. Foote, Frances F. Radtke, Elizabeth S. Conway, James H. Wife

Table 3: Attribution Differences Type and Name of Libraries Contributing to the 1939 Code

Type of Library Name of Library Type of Library Name of Library Public Public Library of the City of Boston Library Schools University of Michigan – Dept. of Li- Public Library of Cincinnati brary Science Indianapolis Public Library University of North Carolina – School Los Angeles Public Library of Library Science Queen’s Borough Public Library Pratt Institute – School of Library Sci- Academic University of California Library ence Columbia University Library Research John Crerar Library Franklin and Marshall College Library Library of Congress Harvard College Library Newberry Library University of Illinois Library State New York State Library Iowa State College Library University of Nebraska Library Princeton University Library Syracuse University Library Temple University – Sullivan Memorial Library Wesleyan University – Olin Library >>> Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 171 A. S. Coleman: A Code for Classifiers: Whatever Happened to Merrill’s Code?

Conceptual Differences pearance of the successive editions of the Code. The conceptual differences are: There are at least five conceptual differences among the three editions and the 1929 variant of the Code – 1) Classifying vs. classification and they are listed below. The first two are explicitly – 2) Intent of the author stated overarching general principles of the Code – 3) Use of Dewey Decimal class numbers while the next three reflect the presentation, ar- – 4) Arrangement of rules rangement, and coverage of the principles for classi- – 5) Subject Coverage fiers. The conceptual differences resulted in changes that reflect Merrill’s attempt to resolve the public Each of these differences is discussed further below and private controversies that emerged with each ap- and Table 4 provides a summary view.

Table 4: Conceptual Differences

1914 1928 1939 Number of rules 285 300 365 Arrangement of rules Two sections: One-topic book General principles General Principles and Two-topic book Alphabetical within each sec- Classified arrangement within Classified arrangement within tion ‘special subjects’ ‘special subjects’ General Principles Classifying vs. classifica- 1. Classification of books 1. Definition (classification) tion 2. Intent of the author 2. Principle of classification Intent of the author 3. Choice of subjects (permanently useful) Treatment of one subject 4. Kinds of classification 3. Characteristics chosen vs. more than one subject (subject) 5. Purpose of classification Close classification 4. Intent of the author 6. Modification for special Modification needs 5. Close classification 6. Modification for special needs Use of Class Numbers No Dewey class numbers DDC and LC (7th edition) Examples Sparse Yes Yes Annotations Yes Yes Yes Notes No Yes Yes

Classifying vs. Classification to their likenesses or relations to one another. Classification of books, on the other hand, In all the versions Merrill makes a clear distinction while making use of a scheme of knowledge, between classifying and classification. In doing so, he may be considered as the art of assigning books introduced the first controversial feature of the to their proper places in a system of classifica- Code, but also paved the way for later classification tion. (3, p. 4). theorists like Bliss and Ranganathan. Authorial Intention Classification of books differs from classification of knowledge. The latter is the science of In the 1928 edition and the 1929 variant of the Code, drawing up a scheme or system in which the the classifier is instructed to determine the intent of various subjects of human inquiry, or human the author with regard to subject. In the 1939 edi- life in its varied aspects, are grouped according tion, this principle is moved to become the fourth 172 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 A. S. Coleman: A Code for Classifiers: Whatever Happened to Merrill’s Code?

general principle. This is the second controversial mentioned by Miss Mann in her review of the feature of the Code. Many librarians of the time Code i.e. 913 Antiquities, the only topic given found it difficult to agree with author intent as a under it being Historic houses. A book on what classifying principle. As early as the first, 1914 edi- is ordinarily meant by Historic houses might be tion, Dorcas Fellows had disagreed with this princi- clast in local history, in description, in biogra- ple: “It is true that I agreed with Mr. Wyer as to the phy (if dealing with lives of its past or present over-emphasis laid on the “intent of the author.” occupants) or in architecture, but certainly not in 913 Antiquities. Use of Dewey Decimal class numbers Merrill responded: In the 1928 edition Merrill introduced the Dewey class numbers. This was the third controversial fea- You say that the “D.C. number printed in the ture of the Code. As a result of the controversy, ALA Code implies that that is the number which issued a variant of the 1928 edition in 1929. This dif- D.C. would use?” What ground have you for fered from the 1928 edition in that the DDC num- inferring that when I say definitely that it is bers were removed. As mentioned above and shown only the sequence of topics that is concerned? in Figure 7, the 1929 variant also carried the ALA The instances that you adduce of incongruities endorsement statement. would imply, moreover, that after the years of The strongest critic of the Code turned out to be pains I took to give “principles governing the Dorkas Fellows; in her correspondence with Merrill consistent placing of books”, I suddenly forgot we see different names: Jennie D. Fellows, Dorcas every principle of consistency. Fellows, and finally Dorkas Fellows, the name used henceforth and by which she is generally known. But, he failed to convince Fellows and he worked When the 1914 edition was published and even in with Fellows to delete the most objectionable of the 1926 when Merrill wrote her with his new revisions numbers. Merrill’s letter dated August 23, 1929 de- and plans for the Code, Fellows who was the Classi- tailed the eliminations he proposed before a reprint fier at the NY State Library was warmly approving of was run off by ALA. He also issued a statement clari- the Code. However, soon after, she left to become fying the function of the DDC numbers in the Code, the Editor of the Dewey Decimal Classification. With the concluding sentence of which reads: “These num- the move to establish DDC in the political capitol of bers are not official rulings of the D.C. Office.” He librarianship, she moved with the DDC Editor’s Of- revised the Foreword very slightly, and ALA printed fice to the Library of Congress, Washington. At this this as a new 1928 edition (we refer to it as the 1929 time, the DDC manuals gave little help to the classi- variant), and significantly one that now carried the fier in making their decisions, and one might specu- endorsement of the ALA Committee on Cataloging late that some of the enthusiasm for the Code with and Classification on its verso (Figure 5). its inclusion of DC numbers arose because of this. Nevertheless, in a 4-page typewritten letter dated 8 Arrangement of rules June 1929, Fellows objected strongly basing it on how she and others in the DDC office saw the Code The 1914 edition was simply an alphabetical ar- with its numbers as: rangement of the rules; the 1928 and the 1939 editions followed a classified order. This was the direct To those not familiar with D.C. the Code’s use contribution of Julia Pettee but this was not without of D.C. numbers is likely to produce a very controversy either. Librarians like Ida Farrar pre- misleading and derogatory impression of the ferred the alphabetical arrangement. system. Frequently a topic is given a D.C. number and then followed by a direction to Subject Coverage class the material elsewhere, and very often this ‘elsewhere’ is exactly where D.C. would class it, The Newberry Library had increasingly become a but D.C. number printed in Code implies that Humanities library and Merrill realized that he did that is number which D.C would use, and not have good coverage of science and technology sometimes thereby presents D.C. in an absurd rules in his 1914 edition; therefore, he requested and light. An illustration of this point is the one received the support of Grace Kelley, Classifier at Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 173 A. S. Coleman: A Code for Classifiers: Whatever Happened to Merrill’s Code?

John Crerar Library, who worked with him to im- on the ALA Committees (mid 1910s and 1920s), the prove the science sections. Thus, the 1928 and 1939 sales of the LC printed catalog cards (started in editions were expanded beyond the primarily huma- 1910) to which class numbers were added in 1915, nities focus of the 1914 edition. They included ru- and the general perception of a crisis in cataloging lings for Science and Technology subjects and the (1941) that has been documented in Dunkin’s review correspondence indicates that on some of them Mer- of cataloging and classification [26]. rill and Kelley worked collaboratively; a majority however came from Kelley and rulings decisions at Current status of the Code the John Crerar Library. In order to assess current opinion about Merrill’s Contextual Differences Code and to determine what lasting effects it might have had on classificationist ideas and practice 67 Some of the changes in the three editions and the texts on classification were examined (ranging in 1929 variant reflect the changing context in which publication date from 1915 until 2003). Merrill’s Merrill himself worked, as his position changed at Code is not cited by most of them. Only 16 of these the Newberry, as classifications and approaches to mention Merrill but most are in the context of classi- indexing came and went at the Newberry, and these fication Book Numbers [23]. “These so-called immediate contextual differences are sketched. In Merrill Numbers…[were] used for alphabeting by addition there were other broader contextual factors decimal numbers in other libraries.” [9, p. 12] How- whose specific influences on Code development are ever, classification theorists Bliss [17], Ranganathan not explored although they are identified and enu- [18] and Sayers [19] were all aware of it and the merated briefly. Code was translated into Japanese [20] and Spanish Merrill was Head of Classification at the New- [21] and used in library schools inside and outside berry Library in Chicago when the 1914 Code was the US [22]. Today, Merrill and his Code appear to printed and John Vance Cheney was the Newberry be forgotten. In recent years, the only book to Librarian along with Alexander J. Rudolph as the As- mention the Code is Hope Olson and John Boll’s sistant. The Newberry at this time was engaged in a Subject Analysis of Online Catalogs [12]. They ac- period of technical services innovation; specifically, knowledge that the Code “represented something of the Rudolph Indexer (a machine) was to be used in- a national consensus” and analyze three sample se- stead of the card catalog. Poole’s classification was to mantic rules from the code [p. 62]. be abandoned and a new classification scheme used. Olson has also published an important critique on Merrill who had been in correspondence with Cutter classification in recent years. In The Power to Name: from 1895 until Cutter’s death in 1903 was influen- Locating the Limits of Subject Representation in Li- tial in Newberry Library’s choice of the Cutter’s braries Olson considers library classification and Classification scheme rather than the Dewey Decimal among other things examines Cutter’s Rules, the Classification [30, 31]. By the time of the 1928 Code, DDC, and the LC Classification. She recommends Merrill was Head of Public Services at the Newberry movement “toward eccentric techniques” as a solution Library and George B. Utley (who was also the for the problems of marginalizations and exclusions President of the American Library Association from in subject representation systems such as classifica- 1922-23) was the Newberry Librarian. At the time of tion schemes [p. 224]. Specifically, she argues for the the 1939 Code Merrill had been retired from active 1) “options for local definition,” which give “pri- library work for a little over 6 years and he had re- macy” to local histories, and privilege “differences” tired to live in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. Appendix such as age or ethnic origin [p. 235], and 2) re- 1 provides a biography of Merrill, the positions that introduce the classified catalog, wherein “a general he held, the Newberry Librarians under whom classification might be used as a switching language” Merrill served and their dates of service at the New- [p. 236]. These ideas are very similar to what berry, and memberships and associations with whom Merrill’s Code proposed. In the insistence and the Merrill was affiliated. pains taken to encourage and reflect consensual prac- Other contextual factors that probably influenced tice in classifying, Merrill’s Code, if maintained, the Code include: the development and growth of could have been used to generate an index to classifi- the Library of Congress Classification and the Dewey cation, the basis for a switching language, needed for Decimal Classification schemes (early 1900s), politics truly universal classification. Such a code, because it 174 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 A. S. Coleman: A Code for Classifiers: Whatever Happened to Merrill’s Code?

did not prescribe the class number, but rather the 1891 Formal title assigned – Superintendent of principles, may have privileged local definitions and the Accessions Dept. diverse ways of classifying, integrated different tradi- 1895 Head of Classification dept. tions, and negated the inherent bias of classification 1896 Married Mary Hancock Allen of Chicago schemes by offering multiple pathways instead of (3 sons) one standardized scheme. Would such pluralism in 1918 Head, Public Services Department library classification schemes have created chaos or 1922 Wife dies improved retrieval? Olson is almost the only one 1924 Married Ethel Elliott Owen, Chicago who has convincingly argued and presented evidence, Public Library (1 daughter) on a somewhat large scale, that such pluralism would 1929 Head, Technical Procedure Dept. improve information retrieval. 1930 Retired from Newberry Library 1930-33 Classifier at John Crerar Library Conclusion 1966 Merrill Day (100 years old) celebrated at Oconomowoc, Wisconsin For studying American library practices in classify- 1969 Died in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin (4th ing, the Code is a work that is worthy of further April) study. For example, what influence, if any did Mer- rill’s Code have on modern classification systems Library Positions: such as the Dewey Decimal Classification [24] or on the Subject Cataloging Manual: Classification [25], a 1884-1888 Student assistant, Harvard U Library manual for the application of the LCC in specific ca- 1889-1890 Poole’s office assistant, Newberry Li- taloging situations? Copy cataloging and OCLC brary have forever changed American libraries; they have 1891-1895 Superintendent of the Accessions made it easier to assign class numbers consistently Dept. without recourse to a tool such as the Code. Each of 1895-1917 Head, Classification Department the Codes was also a product of its time; thus it 1918-1928 Head, Public Services Department would be interesting to explore the role and impact 1929-1930 Head, Technical Procedure Dept. of broader contextual factors such as the rise of the 1930-1933 John Crerar Library (classifier) documentation movement, with the interest in applying technological solutions to the problems of Newberry Librarians under whom Merrill served knowledge organization. and their period of service at Newberry (months are noted only when available): Acknowledgments 1. Poole, William Frederick (August 1887-March I thank Prof. Malone, Prof. Krummel, Prof. William- 1894) son, Prof. Robbins, University Archives (ALA Ar- 2. Cheney, John Vance, (Dec. 1894-1909) chives) at the University of Illinois at Urbana- 3. Carlton, William Newnham Chattin (July 1909- Champaign (Prof. Chris Prom), and Newberry Ar- 1920) chives (Diane Sudyko), and my excellent graduate 4. Utley, George Burwell (April 1920-1942) research assistants (Wenshang Wang and Youfen Su) for their help and support on this project. I am also Memberships and Affiliations grateful to the two anonymous referees who provided many helpful comments that have greatly – American Catholic Who’s Who, (Merrill served as strengthened this paper. Advisor) – American Library Association (life member, mul- Appendix 1: tiple appointments) William Stetson Merrill (1866-1969) – Biography – American Library Institute – Bibliographical Society of Chicago (multiple ap- 1866 Born in Newton, Mass. (16th Jan.) pointments) 1884 Entered Harvard – Catholic Converts League (Merrill served as Sec- 1888 Graduated AB Harvard retary) 1889 Started at Newberry Library, Chicago – Catholic Library Association Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 175 A. S. Coleman: A Code for Classifiers: Whatever Happened to Merrill’s Code?

– Chicago Library Club (honorary member, multi- American Library Biography, Littleton, Colo- ple appointments) rado: Libraries Unlimited, 1978 – Knights of Columbus (honorary life member) 12. Olson, Hope A. and John J. Boll. Subject Analy- – Ravenswood Musical Club of Chicago (Merrill sis in Online Catalogs. 2nd ed. Englewood, CO: served as Secretary) Libraries Unlimited, 2001. 13. Olson, Hope A. The Power To Name: Locating References and Notes The Limits Of Subject Representation In Librar- ies. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer, 2000. 1. Merrill, William Stetson. Papers, 1888-1959. 14. Merrill, William Stetson. What classifiers are American Manuscripts Collection, 1700- saying about the code. A L A Bulletin 9 (1915): present: Newberry Library. Chicago: Newberry 251-3. Library. 15. Bostwick, Arthur E and Thompson C. Sey- 2. Merrill’s Code, 1914, 1928, 1939. Correspon- mour. A Survey of Libraries in the United States. dence and Papers relating to Code. ALA Ar- Chicago, ALA: 1926. 4 volumes. (Vol. 4: Classi- chives. Urbana: University of Illinois Archives. fication and cataloging.) 3. Merrill, William Stetson. A Code for Classifiers: 16. Merrill, William Stetson. Second Session about A Collection of Data Compiled for Use of the Report of Committee on code for classifiers. A Committee By William Stetson Merrill, Chair- L A Bulletin 10 (1916): 389. man. Chicago: A.L.A Committee on Code for 17. Bliss, Henry Evelyn. The Organization of Classifiers, May 1914. Knowledge in Libraries and the Subject Approach 4. Merrill, William Stetson. Code for Classifiers: to Books. New York: Wilson, 1933. Principles Governing the Consistent Placing of 18. Ranganathan, Shiyali Ramamrita. Classification Books in a System of Classification. Chicago: and Communication. Bangalore: Sarada Ranga- ALA, 1928. nathan Endowment for Library Science.1998 5. Merrill, William Stetson. Code for Classifiers: Reprint. Principles Governing the Consistent Placing of 19. Sayers, W.C. Berwick. A Manual of Classification Books in a System of Classification. 2nd ed. Chi- for Librarians. 4th edition completely revised cago: ALA, 1939. and partially re-written by Arthur Maltby. Lon- 6. Merrill, William Stetson. “A Code for Classifi- don: Andre Deutsch, 1967. ers – It’s Scope and It’s Problems. The One- 20. Merrill no bunrui kitei / Kat¯o Sh¯uk¯o yaku- Topic Book.” The Library Journal (May 1912): jutsu. Osaka : Mamiya Sh¯oten, Sh¯owa 3, 245-251; and Merrill, William Stetson. “A Code 1928. Translated from: A Code for Classifiers: for Classifiers – It’s Scope and It’s Problems. Scope and Problems. The Two Topic Book.” The Library Journal 21. Merrill, William Stetson. Codigo para clasifica- (June 1912): 304-310. dores: normas para la ordenación de libros según 7. Merrill, William Stetson. “The Problems in clas- los principales sistemas de clasificación. Buenos sification and an A.L.A. Code.” A.L.A. Bulletin Aires: Editorial Kapelusz, 1958. (1911): 232-234. 22. Mann, Margaret. Review of “Merrill, William 8. Merrill, William Stetson. Early days at the New- Stetson. Code for classifiers: principles governing berry Library: Reminiscences of persons and the consistent placing of books in a system of clas- events, 1895-1930. Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, sification. Chicago: ALA, 1928. 128 p.” In Spe- 1954. MSS. Newberry Archives. cial Libraries, March 1929, p. 85-86. 9. Merrill, William Stetson. Early days at the New- 23. Merrill, W.S. Merrill Book numbers, Public li- berry Library: Reminiscences of persons and brary, v.17 (1912): 127-29. events, 1895-1930. Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, 24. Dewey Decimal Classification. 22nd edition. 1955. MSS. Newberry Archives. Dublin, Ohio: OCLC, 2003. 10. Merrill, William Stetson. Code for Classifiers: 25. Subject Cataloging Manual: Classification. 1st Principles Governing the Consistent Placing of edition. Washington D.C: Library of Congress, Books in a System of Classification. Chicago: Cataloging Policy Support Office, 1992, up- ALA, 1928. variant. dated 1995. 11. Krummel, D.W. and Williamson, W.L. Merrill, 26. Dunkin, Paul A. Cataloging U.S.A. Chicago: William Stetson (1866-1969). In Dictionary of ALA, 1969. 176 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 A. S. Coleman: A Code for Classifiers: Whatever Happened to Merrill’s Code?

27. Richardson, E. C. Classification, theoretical and 31. Stam, David. Classification at the Newberry: practical. New York: H. W. Wilson and Com- Footnotes on the History of Classification. The pany, 1901. Newberry Library Bulletin, 1979. Also available 28. Brown, James. Manual of Library Classification online. URL: http://www.newberry.org/collec- and Shelf Arrangement. London: Library supply tions/cutter.html Last viewed: 01/03/05 co., 1898. 32. “Charles Martel.” In Dictionary of American Bi- 29. Brown, James. Subject Classification with tables, ography, Supplement 3: 1941-1945. American indexes, etc. for the sub-division of subjects. Lon- Council of Learned Societies, 1973. Reproduced don: Library supply co., 1906. in Biography Resource Center. Farmington 30. Correspondence between Merrill and Cutter Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2005. Also avail- 1895-1902, Newberry Archives. “Cutter, able online. URL: http://galenet.galegroup.com/ Charles A. (Charles Ammi), 1837-1903. Let- servlet/BioRC Last viewed: 01/03/05. ters, 1895-1902.”

Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 177 T. L. Thellefsen and M. M. Thellefsen: Pragmatic Semiotics and Knowledge Organization

Pragmatic Semiotics and Knowledge Organization

Torkild L. Thellefsen* and Martin M. Thellefsen**

*Department of Communication, Aalborg University, Krogstræde 3, DK-9220 Aalborg Øst, Denmark, Email: [email protected]

**Department of Information Studies, Royal School of Library and Information Science, Sohngårdsholmsvej 2, DK-9000 Aalborg, Denmark, Email: [email protected]

Torkild Thellefsen, cand. scient. bibl. PH.D Assistant Professor, Aalborg University, Department of Communication.

Martin Thellefsen. Department of Information Studies, Royal School of Library and Information Sci- ence, Sohngaardsholmsvej 2, DK-9000 Aalborg, Denmark, E-mail: [email protected]

Thellefsen, Martin and Torkild Thellefsen. (2004). Pragmatic Semiotics and Knowledge Organiza- tion. Knowledge Organization, 31(3). 177-187. 18 refs.

ABSTRACT: The present paper presents a philosophical approach to knowledge organization, proposing the pragmatic doctrine of C.S. Peirce as basic analytical framework for knowledge domains. The theoretical framework discussed is related to the qualitative branch of knowledge organization theory i.e. within scope of Hjørland’s domain analytical view (Hjørland and Albrechtsen 1995; Hjør- land 2002; Hjørland 2004), and promote a general framework for analyzing domain knowledge and concepts. However, the concept of knowledge organization can be viewed in at least two perspectives, one that defines knowledge organization as an activity performed by a human actor e.g. an information specialist, and secondly a view that has the perspective of the inherent self-organizing structure of a knowledge domain the latter being investigated in the paper.

Omne Symbolum de Symbolo

Introduction mation within these observations. It seems to us that these observations force us away from the idea of a A concept like counterpoint communicates far more universal language, towards a socio-contingent and structured and specialized knowledge to an organist pragmatic approach to KOS1 development and thus than to a physiotherapist who, on the other hand, re- denominate knowledge organizations with the per- ceives far more structured and specialized knowledge spectives, goals and interests of a given knowledge from the concept of electric therapy than an organist. domain. In this case the structure and meaning of A librarian receives far more structured knowledge concepts seems to be relative to discourse communi- from the concept of LIS than an occupational thera- ties. pist who, on the other hand, receives much more This paper proposes a theoretical framework, structured and specialized knowledge from the con- which is based in what we name socio-pragmatic cept of activity than a librarian and so on. epistemology, a view that is rooted in C.S. Peirce These observations are so trivial that most people pragmatic realism. We argue that knowledge and will agree with them and simply not ascribe them any knowledge domains are based in social epistemology significance. However, there is a lot of hidden infor- that constrains the symbolization of scientific con- 178 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 T. L. Thellefsen and M. M. Thellefsen: Pragmatic Semiotics and Knowledge Organization

cepts, however we also argue that science progresses semiotic sociology of knowledge, which we describe in the direction of certainty, hence concepts are not as the socio-pragmatic view and which we believe is merely arbitrary social constructions, motivated by more apt to handle the historical and evolutionary individual or local social values and motivations, but dimension of information and knowledge develop- rather motivated by scientific inquiry that gradually ment, simply because the socio-pragmatic view ac- produces theories, concepts and models of reality knowledge the dynamics of knowledge production, with greater accuracy thus implying realism. communication and social interaction as prerequisite for any scientific development. “… few thinkers familiar with the history of From semiotics we learn that knowledge is the re- science would deny that scientific terms change sult of a continuous interaction of sign processes; their meanings through changes in scientific processes, which ultimately presuppose that signs theory. What is controversial is only whether communicate meaning. The meaning of concepts are such changes are progressive or arbitrary. This investigated and identified by human intelligible ac- does not make Peirce’s position equivalent to tivity purposefully produced as means for grasping Kuhn’s; Peirce held that scientific terms grow reality. Concepts are ideational vehicles for meaning more precise through the progress of knowl- communication fixated by means of language. Lin- edge, hence their changes of meaning have a guistic expressions relate to concepts, but may be definite direction, that of greater precision. By seen as the counterpart of concepts because concepts maintaining, for instance, that the term ‘mass’ are abstract ideational entities and language is the in Einsteinian physics is incommensurable in concrete manifestation of conceptual meaning. meaning with the term ‘mass’ in Newtonian On the basis of our discussion, we are able to physics, Kuhn appears to deny that meanings characterize and define our conception of knowl- change in the direction of increased precision, edge: and his conclusion seems to be that the meanings of scientific terms change in an essentially – Knowledge results from communicative processes arbitrary manner which can be ascertained only of sharing of knowledge within a knowledge do- by historical research”. (Skagestad 1981 p. 127) main. – Knowledge creates stable interpretive structures – Furthermore as indicated above the meaning com- habits upon which communicative processes can municated by concepts is relative to domains of rest and develop. knowledge, which explains why certain concepts ap- – Knowledge is contained in the concepts of a parently can exist in different knowledge domains, knowledge domain and it can be identified in the but with different influential value and meaning. relation of concepts to other concepts within the Consequently, the interpretation of scientific con- knowledge domain, simply because a relation can cepts depends on the interpreters pre-understanding. be understood as a manifestation of the meaning The potential knowledge of a concept is related to of a concept see (Thellefsen and Jantzen 2003, human interpretation and thus tied to actuality, in- 109-132). tentionality and directedness. However, not every in- – The one way to identify the conceptual structure terpretation is possible. Even though the individual of a knowledge domain is through its expressions are governed by subjective goals and needs, the in- that are communicated by linguistic signs, which terpretation of scientific concepts is delimited and attain their meaning in their relation to the con- contextualized by social reality. Concepts reflect the cept. knowledge of the particular discourse community and not the individual scientists. Therefore concepts If concepts communicate meaning relatively to the should reflect intra-disciplinary consensus that con- knowledge domain they stem from, and they create strains the potential knowledge revealed by the con- the knowledge structure of the knowledge domain, cept and ultimately confine the perception of con- then it should be possible to set up general criteria cepts to a general understanding and definition explaining how knowledge can be identified and or- within the knowledge domain. ganized. The knowledge domain has an impact on Based on these assumptions and their conse- these criteria, since it places interpretive constraints quences, we propose a theoretical framework for on its concepts. We argue that it is the telos contain- knowledge organization based on a pragmatic and ing the ideal and values of a given knowledge domain Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 179 T. L. Thellefsen and M. M. Thellefsen: Pragmatic Semiotics and Knowledge Organization

that organizes the knowledge in a knowledge domain knowledge is created within contexts and indeed, it and make the organization unique to the knowledge creates contexts. This argument is supported by con- domain. temporary studies in linguistics (Lakoff 1987; Rosch 1987; Lakoff and Johnson 1999), within social dis- 1. Knowledge and Knowledge Domains course theory (Berger and Luckmann 1967; Kuhn 1974; Fairclough 1992) and within contemporary In the following section, we shall discuss the concept studies in terminology (Temmerman 1997; Cabré of knowledge and the concept of knowledge domains 1999; Temmerman 2000). or discourse communities. Our point of departure is However our understanding of knowledge is a general discussion of the conceptualization of based upon a realism that anchors our knowledge of knowledge within social organizations, where knowl- our surroundings in the objective existence of the edge can be seen as a complex system of interrelated world. Consequently, we do not accept a radical hu- socio-cognitive structures of signs, which communi- manistic idea of knowledge, since we believe that cate meaning within a social context. Then what is knowledge per se is not dependent upon an inter- knowledge? In the natural sciences, knowledge is as- preting individual. Of course, an individual interprets sociated with truth and objectivity. The humanities knowledge but the interpretation is based in a con- tend to have a more differentiated and somewhat text that in this case is the discourse of the knowl- more relative view of knowledge. Here, knowledge is edge domain. Our concept of knowledge is interdis- discussed within different epistemological frame- ciplinary and is based upon Peirce’s pragmatic doc- works, and is viewed as the result of cognitive and trine, in which knowledge appears through sign cultural processes, which enable an individual to act processes. Semiotics denotes a process where the within his or her personal world. Here, personal ex- sign when interpreted, determines a new sign con- perience and abilities are central issues when it comes taining aspects of the original sign. As an example, to having knowledge about something. The social one can imagine the concept of counterpoint: The in- sciences differ from the natural sciences and the hu- terpretation of the sign creates another sign relative manities in viewing knowledge from a social point of to counterpoint in terms of a related concept e.g. view. This means that knowledge per se is not tied to fugue. It is equally important to understand that the the objective natural world or to the individual but is interpretation of counterpoint is maintained within the result of social processes. Consequently, knowl- the knowledge domain from which the concept edge is tied to a discourse formed by social proc- stems. The knowledge domain puts constraints upon esses, and not to the individual. It is important to the concept compelling a certain interpretation; fur- point out that the different forms and contents of thermore, the concept, counterpoint, puts constraints knowledge occurring as a result of social processes upon the related concept, fugue. This means that the within a given discourse cannot be transferred from self-understanding within the knowledge domain one discourse to another. This is why the formal grows and is strengthened by this reinforcing proc- logic of the natural sciences is less successful when ess – simply by the interpretations of concepts. It is applied to the social sciences and the humanities; the this complex of signs we call a knowledge domain.2 epistemological foundations are different and the objects discovered are different; the knowledge struc- 2. Knowledge Domains ture and knowledge understanding contained in concepts within the three meta discourses have funda- Then, what does this mean when it comes to the mental inherent differences. This is why it is neces- definition of a knowledge domain? A knowledge sary to point out the circumstances in which knowl- domain is to be understood as a demarcation of given edge and concepts are being used. We must clarify knowledge, whether anchored in a professional or our definition of knowledge to avoid misunderstand- non-professional context. The knowledge domain is ings. We argue that the different conceptions of well defined by a kind of meaningfulness, which or- knowledge, as roughly sketched above, alone are un- ganizes knowledge in relation to a particular object able to define and characterize knowledge. As a start- field or a certain perspective. Thus, knowledge is de- ing point, we argue that we must combine the defini- pendent upon a viewpoint that creates contextual tions. We also stress the social and communicative frames and defines the meaning potential in a given aspect of knowledge. We argue against an objective communication. understanding of knowledge because we believe that 180 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 T. L. Thellefsen and M. M. Thellefsen: Pragmatic Semiotics and Knowledge Organization

A knowledge domain is not necessarily tied to a a knowledge potential, which becomes actualized profession. It can also be related to daily activities. A when concepts are interpreted. See figure 1 below. given discourse activates a meaning potential, which in this case is labeled a knowledge domain and in which a given activity unfolds. In spite of the breadth of this definition, we choose to work with knowledge domains with an identifiable terminology that is, a knowledge structure which organizes and maintains the knowledge content and which has a proper character, distin- guishing it from other knowledge domains. In our general definition and understanding of knowledge domains, we do not distinguish scientific knowledge from other professional knowledge. Summing up, a knowledge domain rests upon its conceptual structure, its terminology and the propriety of the terminology, which reflects fundamental concepts that make any knowledge domain different from others; Occupational Therapy is different from Physiotherapy, Library Science is different from Human Computer Science, Cognitive Semantics is different from Data Engineering etc. The difference is defined by the independent objectives and politics, which affect the terminology. Thus, we argue that Figure 1. According to the triadic sign defined by the peculiarities of the knowledge domains have to Peirce, the knowledge potential of the concept is placed be identifiable through the conceptual structure, on the place of the representamen; it designates all pos- which is created and maintained by the terminology. sible interpretations that the knowledge domain allows This gives us the following hypothesis: the potential to contain. According to our understanding of knowledge, the interpretation of signs within a A knowledge domain is organized by its con- social context is not solely dependent on the individual interpreter but is anchored within the social context. cepts and the meaning of the concepts is an- One cannot interpret signs according to subjective chored in the activity that is tied to the goals of whims or preferences. The knowledge domain puts con- the knowledge domain. straints upon our interpretations. The manifestation of the knowledge potential is placed in the place of the ob- Based on this hypothesis we suggest that by identify- ject, and is the actualization of the knowledge potential ing and analyzing the explicit concepts – linguistic of the concept. The mediation, that is the interpretive expressions - and their relations, we are able to iden- habit that enables us to understand the meaning of the concept, is placed on the place of the interpretant and tify the structure of the knowledge domain and in the interpretive habit creates a new potential which that structure we are able to find the essence of the contains aspects of both the latter knowledge potential knowledge domain. However, the hypothesis re- and the actualization of this. Figure one depicts the quires that we look closer at our pragmatic concep- ideal sign process of a concept. tion of concepts and signs. In relation to our knowledge of a concept the inter- 3. Concepts as Signs esting aspect of the sign process is, that knowledge, as a sign process constitutes a potential that has been We understand concepts as signs in the pragmatic se- actualized through a certain interpretation and again miotic tradition. This allows us to maintain that the becomes a potential but displaced from the first po- vast content of tacit knowledge within a knowledge tential. domain expresses stable patterns of meaning, which This means that knowledge as a starting point has exactly is the result of sign processes. These sign undergone a semiosis – a sign process, where the sign processes have subsequently become habits of inter- develops from potentiality to actuality and back to pretations. This further means that concepts contain potentiality again maintained through the interpretive Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 181 T. L. Thellefsen and M. M. Thellefsen: Pragmatic Semiotics and Knowledge Organization

habits of the knowledge domain. This is how tacit ing of concepts is independent from the single sub- knowledge or in Peirce’s words collateral knowledge ject and figuratively they go into orbit around the ac- is possible; it exists latently as a potential but is tors of the knowledge domain. This metaphor has to brought into action (actualized) when an action, ei- be understood in relation to Peirce’s extreme scho- ther mental or physical is performed; and since every lastic realism. The idea creates a natural class since it action in some way contains an intentionality, an ac- is “a class of which all the members owe their existence tion will always be performed in relation to a habit, as members of the class to a common final cause”. which is similar to the mediation in figure 1. Hence it is the idea that picks out its advocators and This is why we also understand tacit knowledge as gives them life, generative life, as a given class, e.g. semiotic structures, which as a result of the evolution the class of occupational therapists. of the knowledge domain, have become habits and Summing up concepts are characterized in the fol- furthermore have become identical with the knowl- lowing way with affinity to our understanding of edge potential of the knowledge domain. However, knowledge domains we stress that the actualization of the knowledge potential of a concept not necessarily means that tacit – In a knowledge domain, knowledge is structured knowledge becomes spoken language however; it is and organized on the basis of a general under- prerequisite to spoken language. When performing standing of a particular object field. an act both physical and psychical, which is based in – The specific concepts of a knowledge domain do tacit knowledge of the knowledge domain, this act is not have to exist as a written special language; the an actualization of a knowledge potential maintained concepts are able to exist as tacit knowledge, through a habit of interpretation. Peirce used a simi- which is often the case within knowledge domains lar concept: collateral experience, which means that during the establishing process, and knowledge in order to interpret a sign one has to have “previous domains, which are primarily oriented towards, acquaintance with what the sign denotes”. (CP 8.179)3 practice i.e. OT and physiotherapy. What we try to make probable is that the knowl- – Concepts are identical with signs in the pragmatic edge of a knowledge domain is contained in the mu- semiotic tradition created by Peirce. Concepts tual relations of the concepts. Thereby the concepts represent a potential knowledge content, which get a knowledge organizational role in the knowledge becomes actualized whenever the concepts are in- domain due to their semiotic potential, and this role terpreted. can be seen in the many different concept relations. – The fixation of common and general idea/ideas An occupational therapist will always interpret a new creates the basis for the development of the fun- concept in proportion to the knowledge she already damental signs4 of the knowledge domain where has. A new concept developed within learning theory most of the knowledge becomes organized. will become fixed within OT and through the already – The development of the fundamental sign, which existing concept relations; it will be maintained in an contains the general idea of the knowledge do- occupational therapeutic understanding. In this way main, forms the basis of the conceptual language any new concept will be adjusted to fit the already (special language) in the knowledge domain. existing knowledge structures. By this process, con- – The fundamental sign and their radial structures cepts become self-organizing i.e. a self-organizational form a semiotic, socio-cognitive skeleton of col- ability, which however is anchored in the knowledge lateral knowledge. We call a sign system consisting domain’s understanding and fixation of the subject of a fundamental sign and its system of related field. This intrinsic understanding of the subject field signs the radial structure of the fundamental sign. is created on the background of a common and general idea, which again creates the basis for the devel- Based on this we mean that any knowledge organiza- opment of the fundamental sign of the knowledge tion should start with an analysis of the fundamental domain, which by its fundamental nature organizes signs and its related concepts of the knowledge do- the major part of the knowledge in the knowledge main. The fundamental sign simply grants us an en- domain. Concepts can be thought of as cognitive trance to the knowledge domain. In the following we satellites. Cognitive, in the sense they reflect the way will return to the definition of the knowledge do- actors in the knowledge domain organize their main and we will look closer at how it occurs and knowledge by reducing complexity in a certain how the occurrence of the knowledge domain can knowledge potential, and satellites because the mean- gives us an entrance to the knowledge domain 182 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 T. L. Thellefsen and M. M. Thellefsen: Pragmatic Semiotics and Knowledge Organization

4. The Birth of a Knowledge Domain ideas and start growing and eventually become the OT knowledge domain we know of today. 5 When we know what the focal point to a knowledge Of course, there is a lot of calculation to make be- domain is, it seems fair to presume that this focus in fore the fixated idea becomes a knowledge domain some degree creates a historical starting point for the e.g. the surrounding society’s political, scientific and knowledge domain. This presumption and the fol- ethical pressures. But it is fundamental for Peirce lowing Peirce quotation are central for our under- that feelings spread within a continuum. And the standing of the birth of a knowledge domain. feeling is the center of the idea, which makes the sin- Peirce defines an idea in the following way: gle idea different from the other. Therefore, ideas or intelligible signs (which are our focus) exist in webs Three elements go to make up an idea. The first where the single idea is wrapped into other ideas. is its intrinsic quality as a feeling. The second is The single knowledge domain cannot be viewed as an the energy with which it affects other ideas, an isolated island in the ocean; the single knowledge energy which is infinite in the here-and- domain exists in affinity with other knowledge do- nowness of immediate sensation, finite and mains, some may even have materialized as a reaction relative in the recency of the past. The third to other knowledge domains. Basically, we mean that element is the tendency of an idea to bring an idea has planted the seed to the knowledge do- along other ideas with it (Collected Papers main, which as time goes by grows and spreads and (CP) 1.135). starts to create a special language, i.e. the terminology that reflects the conceptual idea of the knowl- Every idea has an intrinsic quality (in our case is the edge domain. As Peirce writes then symbols have a intrinsic quality the factor, which separates a knowl- tendency to grow: edge domain from others), an energy with which it affects other ideas and a tendency to bring along Symbols grow. They come into being by devel- other ideas with it. Let us then take a closer look at opment out of other signs, particularly from the knowledge domain of OT remembering the icons, or from mixed signs partaking of the na- anatomy of an idea. OT rose from the idea that daily ture of icons and symbols. We think only in activities of any sort are able to rehabilitate patients. signs. These mental signs are of mixed nature; Consider a person who has had a cerebral hemor- the symbol-parts of them are called concepts. If rhage. We must imagine that the cerebral hemorrhage a man makes a new symbol, it is by thoughts has destroyed a considerable part of synapses in the involving concepts. So it is only out of symbols patient’s brain, which has caused paralyses in parts of that a new symbol can grow. Omne symbolum the patient. The patient is unable to perform the de symbolo. A symbol, once in being, spreads most trivial daily routines like using a fork, drink among the peoples. In use and in experience, its from a cup, make coffee and so on. Here the occupa- meaning grows. (CP 2.302) tional therapist enters the scene. Her professionalism (based on both education and working experience) And in the growth of the symbols the meaning oc- has taught her that the synapses destroyed by the curs whereupon all kinds of knowledge rest. There- cerebral hemorrhage can be replaced with other syn- fore our focus is anchored upon the concepts and apses. By training the patient these daily routines their relations, they simply contain the history of the new synapses are created and the patient will be able knowledge domain. to drink from a cup, to eat with a fork etc. Presuma- If we return to the starting point of the article, we bly, the patient will never gain the same control he argued that concepts communicate information rela- had before the cerebral hemorrhage but he will be tively in proportion to the knowledge level of the in- able to lead a nearly normal life. terpreter within a knowledge domain. Consequently, Occupational therapists have performed these some concepts communicate more knowledge to the training programs numerous times and at some point interpreter than other concepts, and these more fun- they have observed that these daily activities have damental concepts communicate the most possible had a positive impact upon their patients and the idea information to the interpreter, this is respectively about daily activities has been fixated. The germ to called significance-effect and fundamental signs, and the knowledge domain of OT has been planted. Af- below we take a closer look at these concepts. ter the fixation the general idea will bring along other Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 183 T. L. Thellefsen and M. M. Thellefsen: Pragmatic Semiotics and Knowledge Organization

5. Significance-Effect and Fundamental Signs symbol communicates technical information to a member in a knowledge domain. We do not define The significance-effect is an effect of meaning the significance-effect in relation to personal experi- (Thellefsen, Brier, and Thellefsen 2003, 144) an ef- ences of any sort. The significance-effect is used as fect where a certain concept at a certain time com- an argument for the necessary steps away from uni- municates the most possible information to the in- versalistic knowledge organization methods and terpreter. But the effect is conditioned by the be- theories, since it is evident that concepts communi- forehand knowledge of the interpreter. The more cate and create interpretants in relation to the inter- knowledge the interpreter has about the concept the preter and the information communicated. more information the concept communicates. The Following in this line of arguments, we are able to knowledge level of the interpreter is reflected in the formulate the hypothesis that concepts communicate concepts, which communicates information in pro- most possible knowledge to the interpreter and the portion to this knowledge level. This means that level of knowledge communication is dependent concepts contain a potential amount of information, upon the beforehand knowledge of the interpreter. which is actualized the moment the concept becomes This makes it valid to suggest that a member of a cer- interpreted. But the relation between the concept tain knowledge domain has more knowledge of con- and its potential knowledge is in such a way that the cepts that stem from this knowledge domain than a concept will never communicate all of its potential person outside the knowledge domain. Based on this information. In the same way, there exists an insolu- it is possible to form a general analysis of concepts. ble relation between Peirce’s notion on the immedi- Concepts are signs of knowledge, which are specific ate and dynamical object. The immediate object can for the knowledge domain therefore; the meaning of never fully capture the knowledge potential of the the concepts is conventionalized - symbolic. Within dynamical object or a certain concept. The signifi- the knowledge domain there exists an agreement on cance-effect is a frozen picture of the information what knowledge the concepts contain, therefore the value of the concept exactly in the same way a pho- concepts contain iconical, indexical and symbolic tograph (i.e. a portrait) is the immediate object of features because they, hence there status as knowl- the sign, namely the object we see in the picture, edge organisators, refer to the knowledge they con- where the dynamical object is the living individual tain, and that knowledge is identical with the general who in an instant is maintained frozen in the picture. understanding of the concept within the knowledge This can also be explained with reference to Peirce’s domain. The ideal knowledge contained by the con- sign. The sign as firstness is defined as something cepts is identical with the dynamical object. The dif- potential, something positive possible. The object as ferent representations/interpretations of the dy- secondness is defined as an actualization of the sign – namical object in the shape of immediate objects cor- a necessity, which in itself also is a sign, and the in- respond to the member’s interpretations of the con- terpretant maintains the relation between the sign cepts. and object by maintaining the interpretive habit On the basis of the significance-effect it seems which makes a person interpret the sign to mean so- plausible to suggest that the knowledge content in mething. Using the concept activity as an example the concepts of a knowledge domain is differenti- then the knowledge potential of activity is the sign, ated. If some concepts contain a greater knowledge the occupational therapists interpretation of activity potential than other concepts, it is because these in a certain situation is an actualization of the sign’s concepts have a greater importance and thereby potential, the object. The occupational therapist is meaning for the members of the knowledge domain. used to interpret the sign in a certain way due to hers If this is the case then we ought to organize the and the concepts anchoring in the OT knowledge knowledge in the knowledge domain in accordance domain. She interpret the sign within the context with these meaningful concepts – so called funda- called OT, thereby the new sign is maintained in rela- mental signs, and let us take a closer look at them. tion to the knowledge potential in activity and the A sentence has the following content (Deacon interpretation is one in a row of possible interpreta- 1997 p. 176): “These eventually form the tedencepha- tions of the knowledge potential, which exists within lon, made up of the cerebral cortex, limbic system and the dynamical object. However, it is important to basal ganglia.” This is a linguistic statement. To an ac- stress that the significant-effect is not a subjective ef- tor outside the knowledge domain where the special fect. It is an effect that arise when a general sign, a language stems, the communicated information will 184 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 T. L. Thellefsen and M. M. Thellefsen: Pragmatic Semiotics and Knowledge Organization

probably not be very significant. Naturally, we will for the knowledge domain, and this greater impor- get some basic information: the language is US- tance results in a greater knowledge potential, where English, the terminology is a mix between Greek and other concepts very well can be related to the knowl- English, and without any greater knowledge about edge domain but in a more peripherical way. The anatomy we may be able to see that the terminology same peripherical concept is able to be a fundamental refers to neuroanatomy – something about the struc- sign in other knowledge domains but with another ture and functions of our nervous system. Here, the potential for this particular knowledge domain, boundaries for our knowledge reception lie, and we which grants the concept a more central place. Con- will not get any further information from the state- sider Movement Science, which is a fundamental sign ment – the communication has stopped. We have no for physiotherapy, which gathers and communicates problem in seeing that the language contains highly information to the physiotherapists. This concept is specialized knowledge but we are not capable of un- also used in OT but here it holds different meaning derstanding this knowledge without a thorough and here it is not a fundamental sign. study into neuroanatomy. Naturally this is a question of interpretation. In the preceding sections we maintain that special What is important and not important in a knowledge language communicates the most structured and tar- domain may vary from actor to actor. It is not hard get-oriented information within a knowledge do- to imagine that there may be an occupational thera- main. If the knowledge domain makes up the general pist somewhere who deeply feels that Movement context where the concepts and special language Science should have a greater place in the conscious- gather and communicate knowledge, then it is plau- ness of OT. However, it must be the history and the sible to assume that concepts express a special cogni- democracy, which determine the importance of the tive mechanism, which organizes knowledge within concept’s knowledge potential. the knowledge domain. If we return to the terminol- The consequence of the viewpoint is that the ter- ogy from neuroanatomy, then the concepts referred minology of a knowledge domain is very important. to within this linguistic expression communicate We even go a bit further and state that the existence none or at least only little information to a person of a knowledge domain depends upon the existence without knowledge about neuroanatomy. On the of a special language. There can be different degrees other hand, a neuroanatomist will receive a lot of of scientific character in different knowledge do- specialized information, and the amount of informa- mains. Some knowledge domains may have a long tion communication is essential when it comes to history and tradition and have a well-established and identification of the fundamental signs within a specific terminology. Where other less matured knowledge domain. knowledge domains still struggle to define and spec- A fundamental sign is a concept which is central ify their terminology and to obtain a knowledge for the actors in the knowledge domain and which agreement within the special language. The termi- exists in a web of related concepts. It is a concept, nology simply constitutes the knowledge structure which communicates the most possible information of the knowledge domain. And the fundamental to the actors and which is fundamental in the under- signs create the cognitive fundament upon where the standing of the research objects the knowledge do- knowledge domain builds, and these fundamental main has at center for its investigations. It is a con- signs express the knowledge that the majority of the cept that contains the basic values of the knowledge actors within a given knowledge domain can concur domain; it carries the knowledge domain’s sense of in is focus for the knowledge domain hence the de- community. No terms can be understood correctly mocratic aspect. In this way the fundamental sign without prior knowledge of the fundamental sign. creates consensus, about what the objectives of a The fundamental signs are the fundament where given knowledge domain really is. However, a ques- the self-understanding, the very identity of the tion occurs: what does the fundamental sign consist knowledge domain rests. The fundamental signs are of? If the fundamental sign is the basis for the the fundament, which constitutes the terminology. knowledge domain, then it has to be more than the The professional self-understanding, which in the sign in itself. The answer is: a fundamental sign only knowledge domain is reflected in the terminology, becomes a fundamental sign by virtue of its related marks out the boundaries of the knowledge domain. concepts which occur during the semiosis of the sign This is caused by the fact that some concepts due to where the sign during its development creates other their historical development have greater importance sign - in this case related concepts. The fundamental Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 185 T. L. Thellefsen and M. M. Thellefsen: Pragmatic Semiotics and Knowledge Organization

sign is a sign, which has a vast number of related With the definition of the fundamental sign and the concepts. Each related concept interprets qua its lin- significance-effect an important question remains to guistic expression, an aspect of the fundamental sign be answered. How can these concepts help us organ- and the relationship between the fundamental sign ize knowledge in a knowledge domain e.g. OT? and the related signs is in the same way as the rela- The method we have chosen to use and elaborate tion between the dynamical and the immediate ob- is an explorative research method, which has its basis jects. In this way the meaning of the related concepts in classical anthropological research, where the an- are maintained by the fundamental sign in accor- thropologists traveled to foreign countries. Having dance with its knowledge potential. And the related experienced the foreign culture, the anthropologist concepts are only understandable in relation to the sat down in a convenient place and wrote down what fundamental sign. Activity dysfunction, daily activity, he saw. After this field work he returned home to activity analysis only makes sense if one has before- civilization, wrote and published a monograph con- hand knowledge about activity. The fundamental taining his observations of e.g. engagement rituals sign is the centre in a concept structure consisting of among native people in Sumatra. The method was related concepts. We call the fundamental sign and its valid (and used many times) until the natives became structure for the radial structure of the fundamental able to read what the researchers wrote. They could sign (See figure 2 below) not recognize themselves in the descriptions. Then what is the problem? Naturally, this description of the anthropological research method is highly caricatured but in proportion to our goal, which is to create a knowledge organization method that can cope with the knowledge differentiation in concepts, this caricature is interesting. If we choose to put on our rucksack and camp in a knowledge domain with the purpose to organize its knowledge, then we will make the same mistake the anthropologists made, and the same mistake the developers of universal classification schemes make. We will describe an object field that we do not have any knowledge about and which we are not a part of. In order not to commit this gross mistake it is necessary to team up with actors from the knowledge domain, who are capable of guiding us around in the knowledge universe and explain to us what we observe and how to understand the observations.

6. The Fundamental Sign and The Knowledge Profile

Figure 2. The figure shows the fundamental sign and its As discussed in (Thellefsen 2004, 507-514) the fun- related concepts. Naturally, this is a reduction of complexity, as the figure does not show the concept relation damental sign is identifiable in its related terms. The between the different rows of the related concepts. It is related terms are consequences of the fundamental not difficult to imagine that a concept from third row sign that have been tested and eventually have be- can be related to a concept from the first row. But still, come symbolic signs of knowledge. New conse- the figure emphasizes the idea about the knowledge quences tested and validated, can alter the structure range of the fundamental sign. The fundamental sign is of the fundamental sign; hence knowledge is fallible affecting the related concepts in both the fourth and fifth row, but we presume that the influence becomes weaker and provisionary. However, since the fundamental and weaker the farther we get, and where the related sign is a symbol, that has grown stable by use and concepts are under influence from other fundamental experience, i.e. the habits of conduct of the members signs from other knowledge domains. in certain discourse communities, only parts of the fundamental sign structure can alter, or else we are 186 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 T. L. Thellefsen and M. M. Thellefsen: Pragmatic Semiotics and Knowledge Organization

dealing with a shift in paradigm. Being a symbol that – Knowledge is carried by the concepts of a knowl- constrains and governs all its related concepts it edge domain and it can be identified in the rela- must contain a telos, a certain aim or ideal of the tion of concepts to other concepts within the knowledge domain. An aim the knowledge domain knowledge domain. seeks to fulfill. If it did not contain any telos, the ac- – The one way to identify the conceptual structure tions of the knowledge domain would be arbitrary of a knowledge domain is through its expressions and no one will probably claim that the works within that are communicated by linguistic signs, which a knowledge domain are arbitrary. Furthermore, attain their meaning in their relation to the con- since the aim of the knowledge domain also contains cept. its values, it seems clear that it is necessary to identify the fundamental sign. Concequently if we iden- Further, we have clarified the definition of the tify the fundamental sign, we identify the telos and knowledge concept by maintaining that it is based on the values of the discourse community, and it seems a realism, which anchors our knowledge about our evident that the knowledge of a given discourse com- surroundings in accordance with an objective exis- munity is or should be organized in respect to the tence of the surrounding world. We turn away from values and telos, consequently it is organized in re- the knowledge concept in the humanities because spect to the fundamental sign. knowledge in our definition is independent from an Then, how do we find the starting point for the interpreting individual. Our knowledge concept is knowledge organization – the fundamental sign of interdisciplinary and is based upon semiotic con- the knowledge domain? We can use the knowledge structivism where knowledge is constructed through profile. In (Thellefsen 2004, 3) the knowledge pro- semiosis. The appearance of the significance-effect file has been thoroughly defined and discussed, and the fundamental sign are the consequence of this therefore, we will not resume it here. However, we knowledge concept and with basis in these concepts can say that the knowledge profile aims at identify- we have developed a semiotic knowledge organiza- ing the most basic elements of a given knowledge tion method, which is very different from known domain. A profile aims to present the most signifi- and used knowledge organization methods. cant features of the object profiled. The most signifi- In the introduction we wrote that our observa- cant features of a knowledge domain are its values tions concerning the differentiated knowledge com- and telos contained in its fundamental sign. munication of concepts could be the beginning of a revolution within knowledge organization. Naturally, 7. Conclusive Thoughts we hope, that the described theory is what catalyses the necessary revolution in order to escape the uni- We have used Peirce’s definition of an idea as basis versalistic way of thinking and instead put the semi- for the semiotic knowledge organization method. As otic knowledge organization in focus, which in our we remember, according to Peirce the idea contains opinion produces a far more realistic knowledge or- an intrinsic feeling, an energy whereby it can affect ganization in terms of reflecting the knowledge other ideas and a tendency to bring along other ideas structures of knowledge domains. with it. Compared with Peirce’s idea of the growth of symbols and their spreading of meaning, it indeed Notes becomes very hard to maintain a universalistic approach towards knowledge and knowledge organiza- 1 KOS is short for Knowledge Organization Sys- tion. The consequence is that we need a more devel- tems oped and differentiated definition of knowledge, a 2 See T. Thellefsen 2001 for further elaboration of conceptualization, which is anchored in semiotics this matter. and pragmatics. We have in this perspective defined 3 We use CP to refer to Peirce’s Collected Papers knowledge the following way: (Peirce 1931-1966) 4 Later in the article we define and discuss the fun- – Knowledge is the result of communicative proc- damental sign. esses. 5 We have conducted an investigation within Oc- – Knowledge creates stable interpretive structures – cupational Therapy, which has shown that activity habits upon which communicative processes can is central to the field and therefore rightfully can rest and develop. be labeled a fundamental sign Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 187 T. L. Thellefsen and M. M. Thellefsen: Pragmatic Semiotics and Knowledge Organization

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188 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 Report

Report

Eighth International ISKO Conference, London UK, 13-16 July, 2004

Nancy J. Williamson

The eighth ISKO Conference held in London, UK, when the annotation and indexing were linked in col- July 13-16, 2004, was organized by ISKO and the laborative decision making. Clare Beghtol, in her pa- School of Library, Archive and Information Studies, per, investigated “Naive classification systems and the University College London. global information society.” Classification was char- It was superbly arranged and a stimulating and acterized as belonging to one of two types – “profes- profitable time was had by all. Vanda Broughton and sional” classifications and “naive” classifications. The Ia McIlwaine served as Conference and Programme latter was defined as being classifications “developed Chairs, respectively. Fifty-five papers had been se- by people who have no particular interest in classifi- lected to be published in the proceedings and to be catory issues” (p. 19) but who are interested in presented at the Conference. The keynote address knowledge organization for their own purposes. Spe- was given by Clifford Lynch, Executive Director of cific examples of the classification of objects are in- the Coalition for Networked Information. The pa- cluded. Ultimately, the author concludes that classifi- pers were categorized and organized into nine ses- cation serves different purposes in different contexts, sions, with concurrent presentations in each, for a to- but the two kinds can be seen to be dependent on tal of 18 meetings covering the nine themes. A small each other. Communication among scholars begins at number of papers were not presented at the Confer- a basic level and is facilitated by naive classificatory ence because the authors were unable to attend. As a activity. Eventually this activity accumulates and re- result, there was some minor reorganization of the sults in literary warrant leading, in some cases, to programme. In view of this, for this report, it has consensus among scholars, and in turn to the incor- been decided to retain the original categories as set poration of scholars’ original ideas into “professional out in the published proceedings. Where several ses- information retrieval classifications.” Further study sions were held in the same category these have been could advance our knowledge as to how classification drawn together and all references made to page num- can span boundaries between cultures and between bers refer to the published proceedings1. The follow- disciplines in a global information society. In the ing is a brief summary of the papers and their topics. third paper of this session, Terence Smith and Marcia Under the theme “Theoretical Foundations of Zeng described “Concept maps supported by knowl- Knowledge Organization” three sessions were held, edge organization structures.” Specifically, the focus with a total of eleven papers on this theme. The first was on the use of such maps in a particular system – of these sessions focused on three aspects of the the- the ADEPT (Alexandria Digital Earth Prototype) ory of knowledge organization – semantics, classifica- Learning Environment. Two approaches to the con- tion systems and concept maps. To some extent these struction of such systems were described – bottom three papers epitomized the broad coverage of the up and top down approaches. The experiment rein- Conference in general. Hanna Albrechtsen and her forced the need for heterogeneous digital materials at colleagues addressed the “Categorical complexity in the conceptual level. Just having web portals and knowledge integration” in the context of an empirical search engines with an un-integrated collection is in- evaluation of a cross-cultural film research collabora- sufficient. tory. Professional archivists had collaborated on the In the second session on “Theoretical Founda- co-creation of film censorship history interacting tions” the papers were somewhat more closely re- with prototypes and addressing problems of use. Two lated. All three focused on some aspect of faceted distinct approaches were taken in the management of classification. Ceri Binding and Douglas Tudhope knowledge integration in the processes of annotation suggested “Integrating faceted structure into the and indexing of documents. Findings suggested that search process.” Addressing the shortcomings of deeper semantics of knowledge integration results search interfaces, the authors propose the use of fac- Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 189 Report

eted structure as a basis for mediation between were analysed and the role of context discussed searcher and indexer in guiding query formulation through the analysis of four information environ- and reformulation by educating users about the do- ments – classification, post coordination, pre- main. The use of structure building is demonstrated coordination and free-text searching. In her paper, through focus on the query, on query term expansion, Uta Priss argues the suitability of “A Semiotic- and on query term relationships exemplified with the conceptual framework for knowledge representa- use of the Art & Architecture Thesaurus. The ultimate tion,” and describes such a framework and its applica- conclusion was that “significant opportunities and tions. As a beginning, Priss claims the advantages of advantages exist for the integration of faceted struc- such a framework in the context of an example from ture into conventional search systems, but benefits an ontology language and indicates plans for further may not be realized without a complementary level of study. Giovanni Sacco proposes “Accessing multime- indexing” (p. 71-72). In a paper on “The Bliss Classi- dia infobases through dynamic taxonomies” as a solu- fication in action: moving from a special to a universal tion to the failure of traditional query methods in faceted classification via a digital platform,” Vanda browsing such databases. He discusses these taxono- Broughton and Heather Lane focus on the differ- mies and uses as an example the browsing of impor- ences in the functional requirements of a faceted sys- tant painters of the Renaissance in a system where the tem in a print-based environment (where the empha- content is described by metadata. In the final paper in sis is on the browsing function) versus its application this session Joseph Tennis addresses “URLs and in- to digital collections (where the emphasis is on re- tertextuality: incumbent philosophical commitments trieval). The authors describe the nature of the in the development of the semantic Web.” scheme and the development of an online tool for in- Under the all-important theme “Linguistics and dexing digital resources, using Bliss terminology and Cultural Approaches to Knowledge Organization,” the advantages of facet analysis within the prototype two sessions were held with a total of six papers. In tool. Findings indicated that while the conceptual the first session, Rebecca Green and Lydia Fraser dis- structure remains similar in print and online, the two cussed research into “Patterns in verbal polysemy.” environments make different demands on content Recognizing lexical ambiguity inherent in polysemy and syntax and the manipulation of the scheme. Thus as a major challenge in such tasks as information re- the process of the content description can be mark- trieval, information extraction, machine translation edly different. Continuing on the theme of faceted and text summarization, the authors hypothesized classification, in her paper entitled “Adventures in that “there is an inventory of recurrent semantic rela- faceted classification: a brave new world or a world of tionships accounting for a significant proportion of confusion?” Kathryn La Barre uses a survey of defini- verb polysemy, much as has been proposed for tions and current applications of facet analytical the- nouns.” (p. 29). Their belief is that awareness of these ory to develop a framework for the analysis of web- relationships will improve our understanding of lan- sites. The goal was to explore current practices, un- guage-based search systems. Previous research is out- cover common misconceptions, determine the degree lined and methodology using approximately 600 of understanding and highlight developments that verbs from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary augment traditional practice. Findings indicated that English is described. Results are discussed and the the tools of facet analysis have much to offer organi- conclusion reached that the “most common semantic zation of the web, but the author warns of the folly relationships underlying verbal polysemy in English of incomplete understanding. “The stakes are high, are metaphor, hierarchy, semantic opposition and me- confusion is rampant and much remains to be done in tonymy.”(p. 34) These relationships could occur in this brave new world!” (p. 83). all, or most, human languages. However, the verb Testifying to the primary importance of “Theoreti- senses may not parallel those in another language. cal Foundations,” the third session in this category Awareness of these general patterns could be used as contained four presentations. Elin Jacob continued a aids to searchers and thesaurus developers. In their dominant theme of the Conference in her discussion paper on “Terminological representation of special- of “The structure of context: implications of struc- ized areas in conceptual structures,” Maria López- ture for the creation of context in information sys- Huertas et al. addressed the interdisciplinary subject tems,” focusing on structural differences between ‘gender studies.’ This subject area was chosen because systems of classification and categorization that lead it is fast growing and diversified and it draws on sev- to differences of meaning in context. The differences eral disciplines for its content. Four specialized 190 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 Report

thesauri were used and two methodological ap- cabulary...” in two languages, Slovene and English, for proaches were applied – a study of terminology used use in indexing the COBISS.SI library information and a structural analysis of the domain. Findings indi- system in Slovenia. This is one aspect of a long-term cated that there is a lack of uniformity in the termi- project in which a new subject list in Slovene is being nologies of thesauri, leading the authors to conclude developed from Sears List of Subject Headings. The that a) there is a lack of consensus on the terminol- first stage, the process of translating and editing ogy of the domain, b) common epistemological crite- Sears, is described. Also new terms from the Library ria are lacking, and 3) there is a need for objective of Congress Subject Headings are being added. An in- methods of terminological extraction from the litera- teresting aspect of the paper is the decision to con- ture. With respect to the structure of the domain, sider faceting the Sears headings for use in a post- there was severe conceptual dispersal of the models coordinate system. The final paper in this group deals built to represent the domain. As well, there was a with actions of users as opposed to language prob- lack of consensus on the scope of the domain and its lems. Widad Mustafa El Hadi and her colleagues ad- structural representation in the sources consulted. dressed ”Coaching applications: a new concept for They conclude that there is a need for an ideal KO usage testing on information systems.” The research model for this and similar disciplines. The final paper uses an electronic coaching application called K-Now in this session prepared by Fidelia Ibekwwe-SanJuan that observes a human/computer interface that works and Eric SanJuan was entitled “Mining knowledge out the use of existing applications in a corporate en- chunks in a terminology network.” The authors hy- vironment. It has intelligence and enables the system pothesized that “syntactic variations are an interest- to work out problem situations and warn users of ing alternative to the clustering approach” (p. 41) and impending problems “just in time” (p. 351). The sys- they offer meaningful ways of highlighting and orga- tem and the impact on participants are described. The nizing associated research topics in a corpus.” For authors suggest that the system has application in purposes of study, they developed a text mining and other kinds of human/computer interaction. topical mapping system called “TermWatch” that This Conference included numerous papers on the clusters text prior to linguistic processing. Terms theme “Applications in Knowledge Representation,” were extracted and clustered and the structure of the Four sessions were placed in this category, for a total research topics examined. The clusters permit the of twelve papers. In the first session three approaches domain specialist to visualize the structure of the to knowledge representation were described. Jin- domain topics from a very large corpus. The process Cheon Na et al. focused on the “Effectiveness of is time saving and is a possible means of discovering simple linguistic processing in automatic sentiment new knowledge. Further investigation is in progress. classification of product reviews” (i.e. classification of Two of the papers in the second session on “Lin- product review documents). Focus was on text fea- guistic and Cultural Approaches” focused on multi- tures that would enable the categorization of the re- lingual topics. Graciela Rosemblat and colleagues in- views as to whether the products are “recommended” vestigated “Adapting a monolingual consumer health (positive sentiment) or “not recommended” (negative system for Spanish cross-language information re- sentiment). Several methods were investigated and trieval.” The study applied a bilingual term list (BLT) the use of “negative phrase” (p, 41) with simple lin- approach to cross-language information retrieval in a guistic processing gave the best results. Further study specialized domain and compared it to the use of ma- of semantic and syntactic processing and inferencing chine translation (MT). A list of training queries is anticipated. In his paper, Daniel O’Keefe examined from ClinicalTrials.gov were translated into Spanish “Cultural literacy in a global information society- and submitted to a test database of English docu- specific language.” Cultural literacy is defined and it ments. The retrieval results were then compared with is assumed that a discourse community must have a retrieval from the same database to which MT had common vocabulary and that a taxonomy can be de- been applied. The MT approach was more effective veloped to create relationships among terms in such a than the BLT method when measured against a vocabulary. The selection of the terms for the taxon- monolingual English standard. The authors state that omy and their organization into categories is de- translation is only part of the problem. “English re- scribed. A classification was constructed. Future trieval for a Spanish query is not enough and more study will include the extension of the taxonomy and work is needed” (p. 320). Matjaz Zalokar’s paper dis- examination of the software. In a completely differ- cussed the “Preparation of a general controlled vo- ent approach, Lynne Howarth investigated “Model- Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 191 Report

ling a natural language gateway to metadata-enabled the generation of a new encyclopedia, in research for resources.” The paper describes the findings of a fo- international investment and development and in the cus group assessment of a natural language gateway ordering of a global search engine for international derived from mapping and categorizing terminology trade. from nine metadata schemas. Semantic ambiguities in In the third group of papers in the “Applications” three metadata elements were identified and dis- category, there was one presentation on the “Transla- cussed in relation to methods of data collection used tion of classifications.” Barbara Kwasnik and You-Lee in conjunction with the design of an interlingua gate- Chun addressed problems of translating DDC into way to multilingual resources. Implications for fur- Korean. A concept-by-concept comparison revealed ther research are addressed. differences and similarities in terms and structure that In session two on “Applications,” two of the pa- can be attributed to language and cultural differences. pers were closely related. Gerhard Riesthuis and Maja They observed that universal systems are now being Zumer’s paper “FRBR and FRANAR: subject access” stretched by cultural and linguistic situations quite discusses the topic of subject access in a context that different from those for which they were originally up to now has been primarily concerned with the intended. Cultural and linguistic artefacts are shifting, principles of the ‘other half of cataloguing’ – descrip- making the harmonization of classifications increas- tive cataloguing. In doing so, three essential docu- ingly difficult. In this same category, Hur-Li Lee and ments from those earlier discussions were examined – Jennifer Clyde focused on “user perspectives” in the the Functional Requirements for the Bibliographic Re- online catalogue. In doing so they address three ques- cord (FRBR): Final Report, the “Functional Require- tions: “Is the concept of “collection” still relevant for ments of and Numbering of Authority Records” organizing information resources in the virtual envi- (FRANAR), and the unpublished draft of the ronment, where space has different connotations? Do “Statement of International Cataloguing Principles” collection structures, both physical and virtual, help from the First IFLA Meeting of Experts on an Inter- users seek information and if they do, how? Do users national Cataloguing Code. From their analysis, they and librarians have the same criteria for organizing in- conclude that while subject cataloguing has a place in formation resources, both within and outside the li- these documents, it is a somewhat minor place. This brary collection?” (p. 199). Findings suggested that a led to the conclusion that, in view of the wide use of number of parameters needed by users were missing. subject access in online catalogues, subject access de- Secondly, it was suggested that cataloguers should serves greater attention. Five areas for further re- move away from the normal and concentrate their at- search are proposed. Closely related to this paper was tention on individual needs. Thirdly, collocation by Victoria Frâncu’s presentation “An interpretation of subject was found to be deficient. Users need spans the FRBR model.” The author describes the transi- of numbers they can consult to simulate browsing the tion from the traditional bibliographic record-to- library shelves. In the third paper, Jens Erik Mai’s record proposed by the FRBR, analyses the structure look at “The role of documents domains and deci- of the newer format and interprets its application to sions in indexing” reinforced the need for a catalogue the integration of traditional and digital resources in that a user understands and strengthened the idea the context of descriptive cataloguing. In the final that the indexer should be paying more attention to paper in this group, Moshe Sachs and Richard Smi- the user. All of this suggests that the ‘black box ef- raglia address the global organization of knowledge fect’ has yet to be conquered. “From encylopedism to domain-based ontology for The fourth session on “Applications” continued knowledge management” with specific reference to the focus on topics related to improving user access the “Sachs Classification” (evolved from the World- to information. Claudio Gnoli’s paper on “Natural- mark Encyclopedia of the Nations). The scheme pro- ism vs. pragmatism in knowledge organization” ad- vides for potentially powerful knowledge manage- dressed the need to free knowledge from the tradi- ment “through the development of domain- and tional disciplines in order to achieve a more naturalis- ecology-specific ontologies” (p. 167). The back- tic approach to indexing and categorization in docu- ground for the study is provided, the classification ment organization.The authors refers back to ap- described, and its use as a practical approach to proaches to language as understood by Descartes and knowledge management explained. The authors fore- others, and to the artificial auxiliary languages devel- see potential for an expanded SC in the ordering of oped in the 19th century. The ultimate focus was on digital libraries, for use in curriculum development, in the possibilities of naturalistic principles of knowl- 192 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 Report

edge originating in either of two ways – either in the medical field. A. Neelameghan and M.C. through categories of perception (i.e. epistemology) Vasudevan used a knowledge base on tumours of the or through structure of reality (i.e. ontology). The central nervous system to carry out a case study on consideration of structure was based on the work of integrating image files, case records of patients and Dahlberg and the notion of integrative levels as en- web resources. The result was a database that could dorsed by the Classification Research Group (CRG). be used for various purposes – patients’ case registry, Gnoli concluded that the dialectic between naturalism information retrieval, the generation of reports and and pragmatism has always existed in knowledge or- statistics, and the preparation of papers for scholarly ganization. Further, he states that pragmatism must publications. While the first three papers were con- always be kept in mind, but that the naturalistic ap- cerned with information storage and retrieval the fi- proach has possibilities. In “On the razor’s edge,” nal paper in this group by Nancy Williamson ad- Wouter Schallier examined problems of classification dressed a problem in the development of a classifica- systems in a different kind of dichotomy – the tention scheme – where to locate the domain “Comple- sion between local and over all needs in knowledge mentary and alternative medicine” in a general organization. The problem is seen in the context of a scheme, and in UDC in particular. The problematic particular university library that uses the DO- area is the lack of a clear division between traditional BIS/LIBIS system. In search of the solution, a new and alternative medicine and the tendency for indi- search interface for e-resources has been developed vidual topics to migrate from alternative into tradi- using a UDC authority file linked to descriptors in tional medicine. The investigation indicated that there three languages – Dutch, English and French. In addi- is some evidence that a location can be provided for tion, LCSH and MeSH have been used to enrich the established schools of practice, while individual file. The OPACs using this system came into use in therapies can be grouped and then applied as needed September 2003. This project is a small part of a under any body system, organ or disease to which much larger undertaking that will include the re- they pertain. Using BC2 as the framework for a re- placement of DOBIS/LIBIS with the Aleph 500 Li- structured UDC Class 61, it appears that UDC is brary System. The system is described, illustrated and sufficiently flexible to deal with the problem. evaluated. The final goal is the provision of a retrieval As is typical of conferences in this field, there were system that will respond favourably to both local and a number of papers dealing with “Knowledge Organi- overall needs. The third article in the category, by zation of Universal and Special Systems,” While there Danielle Miller, “User perception and the online cata- is an emphasis on the new and different, it was no logue,” looks at what pubic library OPAC users surprise that there was one session devoted the themselves think about the catalogue. The author Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) and another on considers the needs of users in terms of catalogue de- the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC). Of par- scription, display and navigation. The purpose of the ticular interest is the question of how these 19th cen- study was to consider the implications of these fac- tury systems are adapting to the world of computers tors for future research in online catalogue design. and the Internet. In a single session on “Special Applications” four In 2003, DDC celebrated the publication of its papers were brought together by virtue of the fact 22nd edition and it was appropriate that Joan Mitchell that they pertained to subjects in the medical field. present her view of “DDC 22: Dewey in the world Carol Bean addressed the topic “Representation of and the world in Dewey.” She discusses the shaping medical knowledge for automated semantic interpre- of DDC by a number of social, geopolitical and tech- tation of clinical reports.” Case reports from ‘cardiac nical trends in modern life. Among these are the ef- cauterization’ were used to identify and code text for fect of the World Wide Web and the importance of automated interpretation of semantic indicators of translation. A daunting question still remains – “How location and severity of disease in coronary arteries. can we maintain the internal cohesiveness of the sys- The results of the identification will be used to de- tem and still represent the world in Dewey?” Exten- velop semantic and syntactic interpretation rules for sions to DDC are many and mapping is identified as a an existing automated interpretation system. In a tool to aid the broader representation of terminology closely related paper, Chew-Hung Lee et al. explored and topics. The need to employ a number of methods “Automatic identification of treatment relations for to meet the needs of the global user community is medical ontology learning” as part of a project to de- recognized. From a different perspective, Sudatta and velop an automatic method for building ontologies G.G. Chowdhury carried out a project ”Using DDC Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 193 Report

to create a visual knowledge map as an aid to online types of controlled vocabulary such as classification information retrieval.” A prototype knowledge map schemes, taxonomies and ontologies, and mapping was created. In the third paper in this session, Diane from one vocabulary to another. Among the ques- Vizine-Goetz and Julianne Beall presented a study tions posed are: “Are thesaurus standards still “Using literary warrant to define a version of the needed?” (p. 213-214). and “What aspects of the DDC for automated classification services.” The au- standards need revision and/or extension?” (p. 214- thors describe a version of DDC for use with three 215). Progress to date is discussed. The article is tes- websites that use UDC. The sources, BUBL, Cana- timony to the fact that controlled vocabularies are dian Information by Subject and KidsClick, were still seen as important tools in information storage used to create a database for the Natural Sciences and and retrieval. One of the major issues is the relation- Mathematics, excluding the Life Sciences. The modi- ship of one controlled vocabulary with another, in fied DDC is being tested as a source database for ma- both different languages and the same language. chine classification services. Michèle Hudon prepared a paper on the “Conceptual In another session on “Knowledge Organization compatibility in controlled language tools used to in- and Universal and Special Systems”UDC was the dex and access the content of moving image collec- uniting theme. Using the UDC system as a starting tions.” Five controlled vocabularies in this field were point, Ágnes Hajdu Barát explored the challenges of examined to determine their degree of conceptual the role and representation of information retrieval compatibility. Considerable overlap in the vocabular- languages in the digital online environment and the ies was an indication that there is potential for a long Internet. In doing so, she responds to the problems term goal of one common basic indexing and access in the use of UDC and considers possible new solu- language in this field. In this session also, a paper by tions and user-friendly methods. In “A question of Antonio Garcia Jiménez and Félix del Valle Gasta- place,” Ia McIlwaine brought her experience and ex- minza entitled “From thesauri to ontologies” pre- pertise with UDC to bear on the complex problem of sented a framework for elaborating languages in the creating and maintaining geographic tables in classifi- context of a digital photograph collection. Several in- cation schemes. Problems identified and described are dexing models are described, different indexing lan- historical, grammatical, governmental administration, guages are proposed and a theoretical revision of on- the legacy of colonialism, non-political regionalism tologies in the field was carried out. Finally, in this and language. Hierarchical notation is posed as the session , Ali Asghar Shiri and Crawford Revie consid- most viable solution. While the paper was written in ered “End-user interaction with thesauri” through an the context of UDC, the problems are applicable to evaluation of the cognitive overlap between end- any scheme where a geographic table is required. To users’ initial queries and thesaurus structures. The in- conclude this session, Aida Slavic and Maria Inês vestigation involves genuine search tasks in the use of Cordeiro identified the “Core requirements for the CAB Abstracts database by academic users in the automation of analytico-synthetic classifications” us- field of veterinary medicine. Findings indicated a high ing the data structures from three general analytico- percentage of exact and partial matches between us- synthetic systems – the Bliss Bibliographic Classifica- ers’ terms and thesaurus descriptors. Users also tion (BC2), the Broad System of Ordering (BSO) and found the thesaural relationships important in the UDC. narrowing down of their search topics. A third session on “Universal and Special Systems” Knowledge organization is always carried out in focused on thesauri and other related tools as op- some kind of social context and the theme “Social & posed to traditional classification systems. Stella Dex- Sociological Concepts in Knowledge Organization” ter Clarke, Alan Gilchrist and Leonard Will prepared provided four papers. a paper for the Conference on the “Revision and ex- Grant Campbell, in his paper “A queer eye for the tension of thesaurus standards.” Written in anticipa- faceted guy” looked at how the principles of faceted tion of the impending revision of international stan- classification could be applied to a distinct subculture dards ISO 2788 and ISO 5964, and corresponding na- of society, the gay community. Similarly, Jonathan tional standards, including the American ANSI/ Furner and Anthony Dunbar analysed “The treat- NISO Z39.19 standard, this paper addresses some is- ment of topics relating to people of mixed race in bib- sues that are still under discussion in the various liographic classification schemes.” The authors deal standards committees. Such issues include the treat- with the bias that is inherent in many universal ment of facet analysis, the coverage of additional schemes. Here, the particular focus of the study is 194 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 Report

DDC. In a broader approach to the problems of so- There is a growing interest in the organization of cial context, Peter Ohly investigated “The organiza- images and three papers were selected for presentation of Internet interlinks in a social science clearing tion under the theme “Knowledge Organization of house.” The term ‘clearinghouse’ in this context is Non-Print Information: Sound, Image, Multimedia.” synonymous with gateways or virtual catalogues cur- Laura Bartolo et al. investigated “Information man- rently being developed to harness the Internet docu- agement of microstructures” with particular reference ments into manageable groups. Among the issues ad- to non-print multidisciplinary information in a mate- dressed are the selection of sources, the differences rials science digital library. The study considers the between Internet sources, the descriptive elements, management of a range of document specific materi- the quality of source entities and the management of als used by novice and expert materials science users. an Internet resource database. Finally, Chern Li Liew More specifically, these are microstructures of soft examined the knowledge organization issues in materials such as polymers, liquid crystals, colloids, “Cross-cultural design and usability of a digital li- DNA, proteins and connective tissues. The investiga- brary supporting access to Maori heritage resources.” tion is relative to the development of a Materials Specifically, the paper provides background material Digital Library as part of the National Science Foun- on the culture and resources and the specific re- dation’s National Science Digital Library Program quirements for structuring, storage, organization and (NSDL). In the same general domain, but in more retrieval in a digital environment. In his conclusion, general terms, Pauline Rafferty and Rob Hidderley the author stresses the importance of providing a sys- carried out “A survey of image retrieval tools.” Rec- tem that responds to local needs, has an appropriate ognizing the fact that document retrieval tools do not classification, and uses interfaces that are amenable to work for all documents, this paper discusses the dif- user capabilities. ferent “flavours”of three image retrieval tools – Art & Another category of special interest at this Con- Architecture Thesaurus, Iconclass, and the Library of ference was “Knowledge Organization in Corporate Congress Thesaurus for Graphic Materials. In the third Information Systems.” Three papers were presented paper, Richard Smiraglia addresses “Knowledge shar- on this theme. Anita Colman investigated “Knowl- ing and content genealogy: extending the “works” edge structures and the vocabulary of engineering model as a metaphor for non-documentary artefacts novices” in which the language of undergraduate stu- with case studies of Etruscan artefacts.” It aims to ex- dents in civil engineering was used. Concepts and re- tend the concept of “works” as paper documents to lationships in the area of ‘soil consolidation’ were artefacts. The paper reviews the characteristics of used to understand the knowledge of novices and documentary works and extends the metaphor from compare them with the knowledge of human experts the documentary environment to the artefactual envi- and a thesaurus. “Results show that there is little ronment. Then, by altering the terms slightly, it similarity between the knowledge structures of the moves from the documentary domain into the arte- novice, the expert and the tool” (p. 281). In their pa- factual domain, harmonizing case studies of Etruscan per, Evelyn Mounier and Céline Paganelli dealt with artefacts from the University of Pennsylvania Mu- “The representation of knowledge contained in tech- seum of Archaeology and Anthropology are used to nical documents.” FAQs (frequently asked ques- demonstrate the inheritance of “works” in non- tions) were used in the study. The model proposes a documentary artefacts. method for automatic recognition of information Theoretical foundations provided a background in unit types contained in documents. In the third pa- many of the pragmatic discussions during the Con- per, Martinus van der Walt addressed the possibility ference. However one session focused specifically of designing “A classification scheme for the organi- on”Theories of Knowledge and Knowledge Organi- zation of electronic documents in small, medium and zation” per se. In the first of three papers, Keiichi micro enterprises (SMEEs).” Facet analysis would be Kawamura examined the work of well known modern used. However, it was recognized that such a scheme theorists in a paper on “Ranganathan and after: would need to be tailored to each individual situa- Coates practice and theory.” The author looks at Eric tion. Thus, the specific question is whether a “stan- Coates’ contributions through an examination of the dard” scheme could be developed that would provide British National Bibliography, the British Technology “a backbone classification” usable in any type of en- Index and the Broad System of Ordering. In doing so, terprise, so that each enterprise would not have to he focused on how Coates’ works relate to each start from scratch. other, why his achievements are important globally Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 195 Report

and which of Coates’ problems throw light on the This was indeed a very full conference that still unsolved problems of knowledge organization. brought forth many interesting findings and perspec- Of particular interest is the fact that Eric Coates was tives. The organization of the sessions into themes present in the audience when this paper was pre- and topics presents one approach to the content, sented. In this same group, Shiyan Ou et al. presented However, close examination of the content and the a paper on “Automatic discourse parsing of sociology index to the proceedings indicates that there is a dissertation abstracts as sentence categorization.” good deal of cross fertilization among the various Decision induction was used for the automatic cate- component parts. Many theories, tools and applica- gorization and three models were developed and are tions are present in numerous papers across the described. Findings suggest that sentence position in- whole Conference. The Conference was very rich in formation increases categorization accuracy. Further content. research is planned. Finally, Iolo Jones et al. re- searched “Natural language processing and knowl- Note edge organization systems as an aid to retrieval.” Here, the authors address several aspects of this 1. McIlwaine, Ia. C., ed (2004), Knowledge Organi- broad topic including disambiguation of homographs zation and the Global Information Society: Pro- and nominal compounds in free text. The use of Ro- ceeding of the Eighth International ISKO Confer- get’s Thesaurus as an intermediary in the process is ence, 13-16 July 2004. London, UK. Würzburg, discussed. A brief review of relevant literature is in- Germany: ERGON Verlag. cluded and design considerations are presented. Some success was achieved but further refinement is needed.

196 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 Book Reviews

Book Reviews

Edited by Clément Arsenault

Book Review Editor

SATIJA, M.P. A Dictionary of Knowledge Organi- of interesting contrasts (e.g. Catalogue vs Bibliogra- zation. Amritsar, India : Guru Nanak Dev Univer- phy, Knowledge vs Information) are helpful. Profes- sity, 2004. 248 p. ISBN 81-7770-101-0. sor Satija brings to his task extended knowledge and culture, and a mastery of many concepts, especially In the first issue of her journal International Classifi- those that relate to Ranganathan’s theories and work cation, established in 1974, Dr. Ingetraut Dahlberg (see, for example, descriptions of APUPA pattern, of was lamenting the lack of a common terminology in Rounds and levels, etc.). The best entries, and the the field of knowledge organization. Since then, sev- most informative ones, provide historical informa- eral remarkable efforts at vocabulary control and tion (see, for example, Broad System of Ordering definition have led to publication of valuable termi- (BSO)). Satija’s sources are varied, but not necessar- nological products (e.g. ASIS Thesaurus of Informa- ily the most recent or interesting ones; the definition tion Science and Librarianship1, Vocabulaire de la of Broader term (BT) provided in the ISO standard4 documentation2, etc.), while recently published is much more explicit than the description attempted manuals include well crafted glossaries (see for ex- by the author, for example. Internet-based sources ample: A. Taylor, The Organization of Information3). are conspicuously absent. M.P. Satija’s Dictionary of Knowledge Organization is Beyond noting that “terms which have no literary the latest offering in the field. Satija’s objective is to warrant have not been included” (p. xiv), the author propose brief, simple, logical and consensual mean- does not specify how the list of terms appearing here ings for terms, with explanations, examples and was established. It is easy to note the absence of fun- comments where appropriate, in the hope of improv- damental concepts such as Access points, Alphabeti- ing communication among field specialists. cal order, Authority record, Bibliography, Category, Professor Satija adopts a very broad perspective of Chain indexing, Cutter numbers, Decimal notation, knowledge organization, viewing it as a “conglom- Faceted classification, Indexing policy, Information eration of activities to sort and order knowledge, to retrieval, Library of Congress Subject Headings, and acquire, utilize, evaluate, represent, and communicate Subject access. Also missing are most terms that re- knowledge for problem solving” (p. xi). His Diction- late to the organization of the virtual library and the ary covers parts of the following domains: Knowl- Internet (such as Subject gateways, Directories, Por- edge, Epistemology, Concepts, Terminology and vo- tals, etc.) Access is described as being of three types, cabulary control, Classification systems, Subject the most interesting for knowledge organization be- analysis, Fundamental categories and facets, Context ing subject or intellectual access; neither one of these and text analysis, Use of classification in online sys- latter terms gets an entry in the Dictionary. Of the tems and on the Web, Subject cataloguing, Indexing Boolean operators, OR gets its own entry, but not and retrieval languages, Cognitive aspects of infor- AND and NOT. There is an entry for Related term mation-seeking behaviour, Automatic classification, and another one, with a slightly different description, Descriptive cataloguing, Theory, standards, and for RT (Related term). There is an entry for Orga- codes, OPACs. nizing of information, whose description opens with The author has elected to define and describe 693 “Synonymous with knowledge organization”, a con- terms, expressions (e.g. First-of-two rule, Mark and cept defined elsewhere. Notes and Scopes notes are Park systems), and subjects (e.g. Browsing and clas- separate entries, but they have very similar descrip- sification, Inverse relationship between precision and tions and are obviously considered synonymous recall, Searching with uncontrolled vocabularies). He terms. Abstract and abstracting appears as a single even tackles such major concepts as Data, Informa- entry when one can clearly be defined as en entity, tion, Knowledge, and Documents. His descriptions and the other as an activity or process (let’s note in Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 197 Book Reviews

passing that, on the contrary, Index and Indexing get description of APUPA pattern, Chain procedure in separate entries). Names of important people in our the description of POPSI); this is a major source of field would have been a valuable addition: W.T. Har- confusion. ris gets a listing, but Dewey, Cutter, and even Ranga- More important, however, in a document of this nathan do not get their own entry. And on the other nature and covering the field of knowledge organiza- hand, one may wonder why terms such as Fanciful tion, is the non-respect of the very principles, or- title, Off print, Press clipping, and Universe, have ganization and display standards that regulate our been included! field. There is a lack of consistency in the form of There is no doubt that Professor Satija’s Diction- dictionary entries which sometimes appear in the ary contains a significant amount of interesting in- singular form (e.g. Descriptor, Heading), and some- formation. Unfortunately, there are several problems times in the plural form (e.g. Role indicators, Subject with the writing and presentation of this informa- headings) for no apparent reason. The cross- tion, and this makes it difficult, even frustrating at referencing network, which should play a major role times, to use this terminological source. Minor irri- in a terminological tool such as this one, is extremely tants include lack of editing (e.g. catalouging instead weak. Many See references are missing (e.g. one of cataloguing, glossarries instead of glossaries, reads in the description of Intension: “… also termed knowledge organization sometimes spelled with an s, as connotation”, but there is no entry in the Diction- sometimes with a z, field and filed frequently in- ary that would lead the reader from Connotation to verted, Classificationist entered as Classificanist Intension). A large number of See and See also refer- (p. 36), and Mnemonics entered as Mnememics ences lead to terms that are not listed in this Diction- (p. 147)); a particular style of writing (most articles ary (e.g. Computers and classification See Classifica- and function words are missing from sentences as in: tion and computers (not an entry), Analytico- “The area knowledge organisation [sic] has thus synthetic classification See also Species of classifica- definite and huge body of literature … (p. vi)); an tion (not an entry), Postulate See also Normative absence of punctuation which makes long descrip- principles (not an entry)). References often lead to tions difficult to read and understand (e.g. Members terms that appear in the Dictionary but in a different in these arrays are counterparts of each other for ex- form (e.g. Base number See also Synthesis (the actual ample your brothers and sisters on the one hand and entry is Synthesis of class numbers), Humans vs Ma- your real cousins on the other form collateral arrays” chines in knowledge organisation [sic] See also (p. 40–41)). Most typos would have been caught by OPACs (the actual entry is Online Public Access any spell checker: jounral (for journal), seperate (for Catalogue (OPAC)). Boolean operators are often re- separate), visting (for visiting), etc. Proper names ferred to, when the entry is actually made at Boolean suffer even more: Eric de Grolier is referred to as De search; references are consistently made to Broader Groiler (p. 158 and p. 207)), the Noble (sic) laureate classification, when the entry is under Broad classifi- Henri La Fontaine has become La Fontrine (p. 237), cation; many references are made to Feedback, which Calvin Mooers is cited as Moores (p. xviii), Far- is not in the Dictionary, but one eventually discovers radane is on occasion Ferradane (p. 121), etc. There Users feedback, which is probably where these refer- are several occurrences of misfiled terms (e.g. Reclas- ences should have led in the first place. Many of the sification and Records follow Relevance). Integrated established relationships are unexplainable: why link figures would be interesting but they are most often Dialectical method and Dictionary definitions, or provided without title or legend (e.g. p. 26, p. 104– End-user thesaurus and General classification, for 105, and p. 150). example? The author describes quite accurately the princi- Satija presents his work as descriptive rather than ples of terminological definition, in form and in dis- prescriptive. This reviewer would add that there are play; he specifies for example that within a defini- in fact few true definitions in this Dictionary; the tion, bold type is normally used to identify terms reader is often not told what a concept is, but rather that have their own entry somewhere else in the list. what it does, what its functions are, what its context But in the Dictionary, this technique is not applied is, who used it, when and why, etc. (e.g. Aboutness: consistently: indeed, most of the time, the bolding is To avoid the difficulties of addressing the concept of not applied where it should be, while it is used for subject proper and the previous vagueness of the work titles or to emphasize terms that do not appear concept of subject, the concept “aboutness” was in- in the Dictionary (e.g. Anteriorising common in the troduced by R.A. Fairthorne and others”. This is 198 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 Book Reviews

why we think that this work will be most interesting 2 Vocabulaire de la documentation. Ouvrage coor- and useful when read in its entirety, to get an idea of donné par Arlette Boulogne. Paris : ADBS, 2004. what knowledge organization consists of, but may 334 p. ISBN 2-84365-071-2. not get much use as a reference tool. 3 Arlene G. Taylor. The Organisation of Informa- The Dictionary of Knowledge Organization re- tion. 2nd ed. Westport, Conn. : Libraries Unlim- mains a “good read”, with information that is gener- ited, 2004. 417 p. ISBN 1-56308-976-9. ally accurate, if somewhat ill-structured and incom- 4 International Organization for Standardization. plete. And the reader will get to enjoy the occasional Documentation – Guidelines for the Establishment colourful personal appreciation of the author, an ex- and Development of Monolingual Thesauri : ISO ample of which would be: “Ad hoc classification re- 2788-1986. Geneva, Switzerland : ISO, 1986. flects a very low level of ambition in knowledge organization” (p. 4). M. Hudon Notes Dr. Michèle Hudon, École de bibliothéconomie et 1 Jessica. L. Milstead. ASIS Thesaurus of Informa- des sciences de l’information, Université de Mon- tion Science and Librarianship. 2nd ed. Medford, tréal, Montréal, Québec, H3C 3J7, Canada. E-mail : NJ : Information Today, 1998. 192 p. ISBN 1- [email protected]. 57387-050-1

Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 199 J. Nicolaisen and B. Hjørland: A Rejoinder to Beghtol (2004)

A Rejoinder to Beghtol (2004)

Jeppe Nicolaisen* and Birger Hjørland**

Royal School of Library and Information Science, Copenhagen, Email: *[email protected], **[email protected]

In our comment (Hjørland & Nicolaisen, 2004) to There are at least two things wrong with this claim. Beghtol (2003) we were reacting to the fact that First, Beghtol presents the case as if we interpret her Beghtol describes the classifications developed by use of “naïve classification” to be analogous to naïve scholars as “naïve” while she describes the classifica- physics and naïve biology. However, that is not the tions developed by librarians and information scien- case. We clearly stated that naïve physics and naïve tists as “professional”. We explained that we feared biology is only mentioned to illustrate what we this unfortunate terminology is rooted in misjudg- called “a rather different conception of naïve classifi- ments about the relationships between scientific and cation compared to the way Beghtol uses that word” scholarly classification on the one hand and LIS clas- (Hjørland & Nicolaisen, 2004, p. 58). Second, her sifications on the other. We stated that only a correc- claim about naïve indexing being a widely-under- tion of this misjudgment might give us in the field of stood and widely-accepted term fits rather poorly KO a chance to do a job that is not totally disre- with the fact that searches in both LISA and Social spected and disregarded by the rest of the intellectual Science Citation Index retrieves zero hits when world. searched for “naïve indexing”. Beghtol do not follow Beghtol (2004), in her reply to us, claims that the the normal academic practice of referring to the lit- term “naïve” as she defines it, is not a pejorative term. erature on which she bases her argumentation. We But she fails to explain why. If one is a bit puzzled by have only been able to find two LIS documents that her “argument” (as we were) one needs only consult mention the concept. One is Beghtol’s own Power- Beghtol’s PowerPoint presentation from the ISKO Point presentation from ISKO (2004). The other is (2004) conference1. Here one is informed that Begh- an old Marcia Bates draft located in Google’s cache4. tol uses the term “naïve” in its original Latin meaning: Bates mentions in her draft a model she terms the “nativus”, which simply means “native”. We naturally “naïve indexing model”. Bates explains that “by this assumed that Beghtol used the term in its usual, mod- is meant the cluster of largely unexamined assump- ern meaning, i.e. “showing a lack of experience, tions that lie behind the more common approaches judgment, or wisdom”2 (Oxford English Dictionary to the development of indexing and access systems, Online3). For that we apologize. However, we would automated or otherwise”. Evidently something quite like to suggest that Beghtol and others who wish to different than Beghtol has in mind. Bates’ draft was use the original Latin meaning of everyday words later published in revised form in JASIS (Bates, henceforward inform their readers about their inten- 1998). Interestingly, the revised article does not mentions. tion the “naïve indexing model”. We consequently Beghtol failed to inform her readers about the disbelieve Beghtol’s claim about naïve indexing being “true” meaning of “naïve classification” in both her a widely-understood and widely-accepted term. article and reply. In her reply she claims that: Further Beghtol (2004, p. 62) claims: The term “naïve classification” is directly analogous to the widely-understood and widely- I have nowhere suggested or implied that the accepted term “naïve indexing”. It is not analo- broad disciplinary classifications mentioned by gous to the terms to which Hjørland and Nico- Hjørland and Nicolaisen are appropriately cate- laisen compare it (i.e., “naïve physics”, “naïve gorized as “naïve classifications.” For example, I biology” (Beghtol, 2004, p. 55). have not associated the Periodic System of the Elements with naïve classifications, as Hjørland and Nicolaisen state that I have done. Indeed, 200 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 J. Nicolaisen and B. Hjørland: A Rejoinder to Beghtol (2004)

broad classifications of this type fall well out- indicated that there were small errors in the side the definition of naïve classifications set previously accepted atomic weights of several out in my paper. of the elements and large errors for several others, for which wrong multiples of the combin- Again, there are at least two things wrong with this ing weights had been used as atomic weights claim. First, in our comment to Beghtol (2003) we (the combining weight being that weight of an did NOT state that she had associated the Periodic element that combines with a given weight of a System of the Elements with naïve classifications. We standard). Mendeleyev was also able to predict actually wrote: “it should be said, however, that the existence, and many of the properties, of Beghtol does not consider the Periodic System or the then undiscovered elements eka-boron, any other scientific systems for that matter” (Hjør- eka-aluminum, and eka-silicon, now identified land & Nicolaisen, 2004, p. 55). Second, Beghtol’s with the elements scandium, gallium, and ger- article (2003) DOES imply that the broad discipli- manium, respectively. Similarly, after the dis- nary classifications mentioned by us (e.g., the Peri- covery of helium and argon, the periodic law odic System of the Elements) are appropriately cate- permitted the prediction of the existence of gorized as “naïve classifications”. Although her arti- neon, krypton, xenon, and radon. Moreover, cle lacks a clear-cut definition of the concept of “na- Bohr pointed out that the missing element 72 ïve classifications”, it contains a few hints to what would be expected, from its position in the pe- the term covers: riodic system, to be similar to zirconium in its properties rather than to the rare earths; this “The general purpose of these naïve classifica- observation led G. de Hevesy and D. Coster in tion systems is to help advance disciplinary 1922 to examine zirconium ores and to discover knowledge in some way” (Beghtol, 2003, p. 65). the unknown element, which they named haf- nium”. “In contrast to information retrieval classification systems that support an environment in So, as just documented, broad classifications like e.g., which searchers look for recorded knowledge, the Periodic System of the Elements do NOT fall naïve knowledge discovery classifications sup- outside the descriptions of naïve classifications pro- port a scholarly environment in which new vided by Beghtol (2003). questions are expected to be asked of primary A final point: Beghtol (2003; 2004) wish to distin- research materials. These classifications lay the guish between classifications for new knowledge groundwork for new theory and point to new ar- (“naïve classifications”) and classifications for previ- eas of study” (Beghtol, 2003, p. 65; emphasis ously existing knowledge (“professional classifica- added to indicate that Beghtol cites Altman tions”). This strikes us as an odd classification. Clas- (1967, p. 64) for this). sifications are designed for serving human purposes. The classification of diseases by cause, for example, The Periodic System of the Elements fits these deserves the purpose of preventing and curing diseases scriptions perfectly. The predictive value of the peri- (e.g. by vaccine). The classifications provided by LIS odic law has helped the advancement of scientific is assumed to support the same goals, why medical knowledge enormously, and it is a well-known fact documents are normally classified using the same cri- that it has laid the groundwork for much new theory, teria as medical science uses to classify diseases. In and that it has pointed to many new areas of study. this way LIS-classifications are very dependent on See, for instance, the following fragment from the ar- the conceptualizations and classifications made out- ticle on the periodic law from Encyclopedia Britan- side LIS. Our professionalism must relate to this nica Online5: fact. When doctors classify diseases (Beghtol: “naïve classification”) new knowledge may be produced and “The great value of the periodic law was made existing knowledge be retrieved by that classifica- evident by Mendeleyev's success in 1871 in tion. Also: When information scientists classify do- finding that the properties of 17 elements could cuments about diseases (“professional classifica- be correlated with those of other elements by tion”) existing knowledge may be retrieved and new moving the 17 to new positions from those in- knowledge discovered (cf. Swanson, 19866). dicated by their atomic weights. This change Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 201 J. Nicolaisen and B. Hjørland: A Rejoinder to Beghtol (2004)

Notes References

1 http://www.ucl.ac.uk/isko2004/sysweb/ Altman, I. (1967). Choicepoints in the classification 1aBeghtol.ppt. Beghtol received our com- of scientific knowledge. In: People, Groups, and ment on her article May 8, 2004. Her presenta- Organizations. Bernard P. Indik & Kenneth Ber- tion at ISKO (2004) took place July 14th 2004. rien (eds.). New York, NY: Columbia University, 2 One might say, that her arguments for choosing Teachers College Press: 47-69. the terms ”naive” and ”professional” are more re- Bates, M. (1998). Indexing and access for digital li- lated to the usual, modern meaning. Beghtol braries and the Internet: Human, database, and (2003, p. 64) writes: ”classifications for informa- domain factors. Journal of the American Society tion retrieval are called ”professional” classifica- for Information Science, 49(13): 1185-1205. tions because they are devised be people who Beghtol, C. (2003). Classification for information re- have a professional interest in classification, and trieval and classification for knowledge discovery: classification for knowledge discovery are called Relationships between “professional” and “naïve” ”naive” classifications because they are devised by classifications. Knowledge Organization, 30(2): people who have no particular interest in study- 64-73. ing classification as an end in itself ”. In this way Beghtol, C. (2004). Response to Hjørland and Nico- her arguments imply that LIS classifications are laisen. Knowledge Organization, 31(1): 62-63. more “professional” and by implication that Hjørland, B. & Nicolaisen, J. (2004). Scientific and scholarly classifications are less professional. This scholarly classifications are not naive: A comment may be seen as a kind of disciplinary imperialism. to Beghtol (2003). Knowledge Organization, If one considers the literature about classification 31(1): 55-61. as we did in Hjørland & Nicolaisen (2004) the Swanson, D.R. (1986). Undiscovered public knowl- high standard of much literature about scholarly edge. Library Quarterly, 56: 103-118. classification makes this claim extremely thin. 3 http://www.oed.com/ 4 http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:svdvSQqgCJkJ: www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~ddubin/allerton/96/s1/ “Dr. Beghtol declines to comment further, but she bates.html invites KO readers to write to the Editor to express 5 http://search.eb.com/ their own views about the issues raised.” 6 Swanson discovered that two bodies of literature – one on the circulatory effects of dietary fish oil and the other on the circulatory disorder Ray- naud's disease – had no direct connection (i.e., no researcher had yet used fish oil to treat Raynaud's disease), but did suggest a connection worth ex- ploring through his unique bibliographic analysis. Swanson suggests that there are many other dis- connected fragments of knowledge in the literature to which his analysis would be able to make connections.

202 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 Knowledge Organization Literature

Knowledge Organization Literature Gerhard Riesthuis: Literature Editor

0 Form division 0196 042 Revised UDC tables (Lang.: eng) . - In: Extensions and 01 Bibliographies in Classification and Indexing Corrections to the UDC, 26(2004),p.119-174 »» Contains among others new or revised tables for geo- 02 Literature reviews graphical auxiliaries, education and history See 0274, 0286, 0287, 0301 06 Conference Reports & Proceedings 03 Glossaries, Vocabularies, Terminologies in Knowledge 0197 06.03-05-05/07; 111 Organization Tendencias de investigación en organización del cono- 0191 031 cimient : IV Cologuio Internacional de Ciencas de la Satija, M.P., - A dictionary of knowledge organization Documentación ; VI Congreso del Capítulo Español de (Lang.: eng) . - Amritsar (India) : Guru Nanak Dev Uni- ISKO = Trends in knowledge organization research / J.A. versity, 2004. - xx, 248 p.. - Refs.. - ISBN 81-7770-101-0 Frías, C. Travieso (Eds.) (Lang.: eng; por; spa) . - Sala- »» Covers: Knowledge epistemology, Concepts, Terminol- manca : Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2003. - 821 ogy, Vocabulary control, Classification, Subject analysis p.. - (Aquilafuente) ; 51). - Refs. and cataloguing, Thesauri, Subject headings, Indexes, De- * Abstracts in Spanish (p.19-50) and English (p.51-79) scriptive cataloguing, Cognitive aspects of searching, a.o. . - ISBN 84-7800-709-1 »» Content: 0198. - 111. - Hjorland, B.: Fundamentals of 04 Classification Systems & Thesauri knowledge organization. - p.83-116 * 0199. - 111. - Row- See also 0295 land, J.: From shelf arrangements to web searching: a jour- 0192 042 ney through knowledge organization. - p.117-134 * 0200. - Revised UDC tables (Lang.: eng) . - In: Extensions and 111. - Campos, M.L. de A., Machado Campos, M.L.: Prin- Corrections to the UDC, 24(2002),p.73-130 cipios para a modelizaçao de domínios de conheci- »» Contains among others new or revised tables for geo- mento:estudo comparativo entre abordagens da cienca da graphical auxiliaries, organizations, religion, demo- informaçao, cienca da computaçao e teoria da terminología graphy, management [Modelling knowledge domains: a comparative study based on information science, compution science and theory of 0193 042 terminology]. - p.135-144 * 0201. - 941. - Carsen, T., Gar- Revised UDC tables (Lang.: eng) . - In: Extensions and ciá, H., Mabragaña, C.,Manzanos, N.: Modelo de descrip- Corrections to the UDC, 25(2003),p.65-129 ción documental basado en el paradigma de objetos »» Contains among others new or revised tables for geo- [Documentary description model based on the object graphical auxiliaries, auxiliaries of time, architecture, musi- paradigm]. - p.145-156 * 0202. - 164. - Fernández Cano, cal instruments A., Vallejo Ruiz, M., Torralbo Rodríguez, M.: Reconsider- ando los modelos de Price [Reconsidering Price's models]. 0194 042 - p.157-161 * 0203. - 356. - Fernández-Pampillón Cesteros, Classification décimale universelle / UDC Consortium ; A., Fernández Valmayor, A., Lopéz Alfonso, C.: Repre- [avant-propos de Jacques Burlet ; introduction d'André sentación y organización del conocimiento léxico: del Canonne] (Lang.: eng) . - Edition moyenne internationale modelo de datos de Hipertexto al modelo HiperRed [Rep- 2004. - Liège : Éditions du C.E.F.A.L., 2004. - 3 Vols. (421, resenting and organising lexical knowledge: from the Hy- 495, 319 p.) ; 30 cm. - ISBN 2-87130-151-2 pertext data model to the HyperNet data model]. - p.163- »» Vol. I: Tables auxiliaire ; Classes 0 à 5; Vol. II: Classes 6 168 * 0204. - 752.3. - Fourie, I.: A theoretical model for à 9; Vol. III: Index studying Web information seeking/searching behaviour. - p.169-172 * 0205. - 212. - Frâncu, V.: A linguistic approach 0195 042 to information languages. - p.173-182 * 0206. - 697. - Gab- UNIVERZALNA decimalna klasifikacija. Deo 1, Sis- riele, G.: La classificación de la filosofia: el sistema decimal tematske tablice / [editor: Svetlana Simonovic-Mandic ; de Dewey a la luz de los sistemas de classificación de F. Ba- translator: Jasmina Andelkovic ... et al.] (Lang.: eng) . - 2. con y l'Encyclopedie [The classification of Philosophy: the srphrv. srednje izd.. - Beograd : YUBIN, 2004. - 660 p. ; 30 Dewey decimal system by the light of the F. Bacon's and cm. - ISBN 86-7187-012-x the Encyclopédie classification systems. - p.183-210 * 0207. - 192; 211. - Glazier, J.D., Glazier, R.R.: Cultural roots of modern classification. - p.211-215 * 0208. - 111. - Marzal García-Quismondo, M.A., Beltran Orenes, P.: Las Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 203 Knowledge Organization Literature

bases científicas de la información ante una nueva sociedad de búsqueda directa de información centrados en el usuario [Scientific basis of information in a new society]. - p.217- [Information Science and Computer Science: an integrated 228 * 0209. - 212. - Odaisa Espinheiro de Oliveiro, M.: El vision for the design of user-centered virtual systems]. - lenguaje en la interrelación con la representación del cono- p.371-377 * 0224. - 983, 218, 485. - Oliveira, R.M.: A or- cimiento [The language in the interelation with knowledge ganizaçao do conhecimento nas bibliotecas portuguêsas representation]. - p.229-232 * 0210. - 694. - Orom, A.: [Knowledge organization in Portuguese libraries. - p.379- Paradigmas y visiones del mundo en la organización fel 386 * 0225. - 193. - Osuna Alarcón, R.: Catálogos, índices conocimiento dentro del campo del arte [Paradigms and e inventarios en los siglos XVIII y XIX o los antecedentes World Views in the Knowledge Organization in the do- de una disciplina [Catalogues, indexes and inventories in main art]. - p.233-241 * 0211. - 714; 871. - Rafferty, P.: the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, or the forerun- Semiotics and image retrieval: can semiotics help our un- ners of a discipline]. - p.387-393 * 0226. - 111. - San Se- derstanding of the operation of meaning in images? * 0212. gundo Manual, R.: Nueva concepción de la representación - 181; 111. - McIlwaine, I.: Current trends in Knowledge del conocimiento [A new conception of representation of Organization research. - p.253-272 * 0213. - 181; 191. - knowledge]. - p.395-402 * 0227. - 733, 757. - Sidhom, S., López-Huertas, M.J.: La investigación espa¤ola en Or- Hassoun, M.: Morpho-syntactic parsing to text mining en- ganización del Conocimiento (1992-2001) [Spanish re- vironment: NP recognition model to knowledge visualiza- search in knowledge organization (1992-2001). - p.273-300 tion and information. - p.403-413 * 0228. - 757. - Aldana * 0214. - 941. - Bazán, C.B.: La clasificación de los materia- Montes, J.F., Moreno Vergara, N., Roldán García, M.M.: les documentales del Depósito Legal [Documental material La web semántica: punto de encuentro [Semantic Web: a classification from legal deposit legislation]. - p.301-312 * meeting point for DB, AI and IR]. - p.417-425 * 0229. - 0215. - 945. - Bosch, M.: Modelo conceptual de objetos 982. - Pereira Pinheiro da Cruz, R.A., García Peñalvo, F.J., para la representación y rastreabilidad de documentos en el Romero, L.A.: Perfiles de usuarios para la adaptatividad de medio digital [Conceptual object model for representation interfaces web [User profiling in web interfaces adaptiv- and traceability of digital documents]. - p.313-320 * 0216. ity]. - p.427-437 * 0230. - 981. - Dimitri, P.J.: Evaluación - 161. - Brufem, L.S., Breda, S.M., Nunes Silva, H., Prates, de la pertinencia de la base de datos del Instituto Nacional Y., Fecchio, S.M.: Organizaçao do conhecimento: tendên- de la Administración Pública [Pertinence evaluation of the cias da produçao científica [Knowledge organization: ten- Instituto Nacional de la Administración Pública's data- dencies of the scientific production]. - p.321-326 * 0217. - base]. - p.439-445 * 0231. - 849. - Eíto Brun, R.: Applica- 485. - Caro Castro, C., Travieso Rodríguez, C.: Enca- ción de técnicas de recuperación de información y organi- bezamientos de materia en las bibliotecas españolas : per- zación del conocimiento en los repositorios software: spectiva histórica y situación actual [Subject headings in tendencias y visión retrospectiva [Information retrieval Spanish libraries: past en present]. - p. 327-334 * 0218. - and knowledge organization in software libraries: biblio- 864. - Carrizo Sainero, G., Pindado Villaverde, A.M.: Pro- graphic review and historical trends]. - p.447-454 * 0232. - puesta de normalización para el tratamiento bibliográfico 947. - Frías, J.A.: La visualización de la información bibli- de documentos no contemplados en la norma ISO 690- ográfica en los catálogos en línea y en entorno web: 1987 [How to deal with works out of the scope of ISO tendencias de investigación [Visualization of bibliographic 690-1987: a proposal for standarization]. - p.335-341 * information in OPACs and web catalogues: trends of re- 0219. - 844. - Knecht, A., Frigeni, M., Hernández, A., search]. - p.455-461 * 0233. - 483. - Hajdu Barát, A.: Gen- Tedde, L.: La transción a la democracia en España: el ar- eral information retrieval language dictionary in the Szé- chivo emerográfico del profesor Juan J. Linz (1973-1983) chényi National Library (Hungary). - p.463-468 * 0234. - [Spain's democratic transition: Professor Juan J. Linz's 947. - Lloret Romero, N., Cabrera Méndez, M., Peset newspaper archive (1973-1983)] * 0220. - 111. - Hajdu Mancebo, F., Ferrer Sapena, A.: Metodología para el desar- Barát, A.: Change in the process of cognition by contem- rollo de una interfaz de usuario en entormos deprevención porary information technology. - p.351-355 * 0221. - 875, de riesgos laborales [Methodology for the development of 695. - Del Castillo, D., Jiménez Piano, M., López de Prado, a user interface in prevention of occupational hazard envi- R.: El sistema de clasificación de la FIAF para documentos ronments]. - p.469-481 * 0235. - 945. - Martín Rodríguez, no fílmicos de cine y televisión: cuestiones específicas de F., Casado Candelas, M.: Organizar la recuperación de la compatibilidad para la recuperación de información en información para organizar el conocimiento: el caso prác- cinematografía [FIAF classification system for non-film tico de UBUCAT, catálogo de la Biblioteca de Universidad cinema and television documents: specific issues abour de Burgos [Organising the recovery of information for the compatibility for information retrieval in cinematography]. organisation of knowledge: the practical case of the UBU- - p.357-363 * 0222. - 344. - Villar Flecha, J., Alonso Alva- CAT, the catalogue of the University of Burgos Library]. - rez, A., Benavides Cuéllar, C., García Rodríguez, I., p.483-492 * 0236. - 413. - Moreiro, J.A., Llorens Morillo, Martínez Ordás, F., Morán Suárez, M.: Elaboración de un J., Marzel García-Quismondo, M.A., Vianello Osti, M., corpus semántico para un clasificador de textos basado en Morato Lara, J., Beltrán Orenes, P., Sánchez Cuadrado, S.: extracción de la información [Semantic corpus elaboration Aplicacíon del estándar ISO/IEC 13250-1999 a la con- to train an information extraction based text classifier]. - p. strucción de un tesauro de verbos: estado del proyecto 365-370 * 0223. - 757. - Melly, M., Mara Ferreira, S., Gar- [Application of standard ISO/IEC 13250-1999 to the con- cía, L., Reis, G.: Ciencas de la información y de la compu- struction of a thesaurus of verbs: state of the project]. - tación: una visión integrada del diseño de sistemas virtuales p.493-501 * 0237. - 751. – Dill Orrico, E.G., Gonzáles de 204 Knowl. 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Gómez, M.N., Brito, E.: El discurso metafórico y su vincu- 0251. - 752.3, 981. - Scott Cree, J.: How friendly are UK lación con grupos de investigación a efectos de búsqueda y government websites?. - p.621-629 * 0252. - 759. - Greg- recuperación de información [The metaphorical discourse ory, V.L., Perrault, A.H., Ramírez Wohlmuth, S.: Looking and its connection with research groups for the purposes from the outside in: an evidence-based model for website of information searching and retrieval]. - p.503-506 * 0238. usability assesment. - p.633-638 * 0253. - 751. - Lichtnow, - 757. - Herrera-Viedma, E., Olvera, M., Peis, E., Porcel, D., Caring, A., Lucas dos Anjos, P., Saldaña, R., Loh, S.: C.: Revisión de los sistemas de recomendaciones para la re- Recomendaciones de documentos electrónicos en dis- cuperación de información [Review of recommender sys- cusiones on-line [Recommendations of electronic docu- tems for information retrieval]. - p. 507-513 * 0239. - 981. ments in online discussions]. - p.639-644 * 0254. - 149, - Zecheru, M.: The role of the e-library in the information 871. - López Yepes, A., Pérez Agüera, J.R., Sánchez Jimé- society / knowledge society: a romanian prospective analy- nez, R.: Un modelo para el diseño de sistemas din micos de sis. - p.515-520 * 0240. - 849. - Manuel Burgos, J., Galve, gestión de información multimedia [A model for dynamic J., García, J.: Un modelo bidimensional para la organi- multimedia information management systems design] zación [A bidimensional model for the organization of p.645-650 * 0255. - 324. - Paganelli, C., Mounier, E.: Ex- programming knowledge]. - p.523-527 * 0241. - 111. - tracción y representación del conocimiento contenido en Miranda, A., Simeao, E.: El concepto de masa documental un documento técnico [Extraction and representation of y el ciclo de interacción entre recnología y registro del knowledge contained in a technical document]. - p.651- conocimiento [The concept of documentary mass and the 656 * 0256. - 692. - Naumis Peña, C.: Los orientadores de interaction cycle between technology and the registration información para portales [Reader's advisory for websites]. of the knowledge]. - p.529-539 * 0242. - 757. - Moros, A., - p.657-661 * 0257. - 879. - Pérez Lorenzo, B., Morales Aplicación de herramientas tecnológicas para la toma de García, A.M., García López, F., Monje Jiménez, T.: La or- decisiones en la organización del conocimiento, propuesta ganizacíon del conocimiento en los portales de Internet: analítica del Data Warehouse [Application of technological estudio de los principales proveedores de contenides [The tools for the taking of decisions in the knowledge organi- organization of the knowledge in the portals of the main zation, analytical proposal of the Data Warehouse]. - suppliers of information]. - p.663-678 * 0258. - 751. - Peset p.541-549 * 0243. - 149. - Múnera Torres, M.T.: Investiga- Mancebo, F., Ferrer Sapena, A., Lloret Romeno, N., Tolosa ción sobre la incidencia de la gestión del conocimiento en Robledo, L., Moreno Núñez, M.T., Díaz Novillo, S.: El las empresas de servicios de Medellín [Research about the proyecto WinEcs: una visión práctica para la implantación incidence of knowledge management in the companies of de bibliotecas digitales [WinEcs project: how to imple- services of Medellin]. - p.551-555 * 0244. - 149. - Pérez menting digital libraries]. - p.679-690 * 0259. - 879, 918. - Alarcón, A.: La gestión de contenidos digitales en el en- Prieto Castro, E.: Organización del conocimiento de los torno universitario: un primer paso en la gestión del cono- recursos gratuitos de Internet: el caso de documentación cimiento [Digital content management in the university jurídica en las bibliotecas universitarias españolas [Knowl- area: the first step to knowledge management]. - p.557-563 edge management of free internet resources: law related in- * 0245. - 149. - Pérez-Montoro Gutiérrez, M.: La pro- formation in academic libraries in Spain]. - p.691-708 * puesta epistemológica clásica en la identificación organi- 0260. - 344. - Saldaña, R., Teixeira Gonçalez, A., Barrocco zacional [The classical epistomological approach on the Farias, G., Branco, R.K., Lichtnow, D., Loh, S.: Captura organizational knowledge identification and representa- automática y selectiva de informaciones para bibliotecas tion] p.565-572 * 0246. - 323, 88-27. - Sanz Casado, E., digitales [Automatic and selective caption of information Martín Moreno, C., García-Zorita, C., Lascurín, M.L.: Ap- for digital libraries]. - p.709-714 * 0261. - 752.3, 871. - licación en la gestión de bibliotecas especializadas de la in- Tramullas, J.: Clasificaciones y portales tem ticos especiali- terdisciplinariedad observada en la actividad científica zados. 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A study in social sciences digital information re- 0247. - 149. - Triska, R.: El proceso de generación de una sources]. - p.715-721 * 0262. - 752.3, 88-69. - Henriques, base de datos para gestíon del conocimiento: características R., Worcman, K.: A experiência do Museu da Pessoa: or- y condicionantes [The database generation process for ganizaçao da memória socialáem formato digital [The Mu- knowledge management: characteristics and conditionals]. seum of the Person's experience: social memory organiza- - p.581-586 * 0248. - 161. - Vianello Osti, M.: Reflexiones tion in digital format]. - p.723-727 * 0263. - 181. - Olson, acercade la creación de conocimiento en la World Wide H.A.: Transgressive deconstructions: feminist/postcolonial Web [Reflections on the knowledge creation in the World methodology for research in knowledge organization. - Wide Web]. - p. 587-593 * 0249. - 229. - Barrueco Cruz, p.731-740 * 0264. - 181. - Brito Santana, J., Cruz J.M., Krichel, T.: Subject description in the Academic Rodríguez, J.M.: Sistema informático de soporte al análisis Metadata Format. - p.597-603 * 0250. - 149. - Bautista, T., del discurso [The computer system for support to dis- De Castro Martín, P., Cottereau, M., Gonz lez Sereno, E., course analysis]. - p.741-746 * 0265. - 183, 323. - Izquierdo Ríos, Y.: El cat logo de autoridades de la Red de Bibliothe- Alonso, M.: El an lisis de génerocomo metodología para la cas del CSIC como herramienta de gestiós del cono- organización y representación del conocimiento [Genre cimiento: hacia una accesibilidad sin restricciones [CSIC analysis for methodology of the knowledge conceptual Libraries authorities catalog as a knowledge management representation and organization]. - p.747-754 * 0266. - tool: towards an restricted accessibility]. - p.605-620 * 831. - Porras Navalón, M.P., Verdugo Alonso, M.A.: El Knowl. 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an lisis terminológico de los títulos de los artículos 1 Theoretical Foundations and General Problems científicos como metodología para estudiar la evolución de las construcciones sociales: el caso de la discapacidad [The 11 Order and Knowledge Organization terminological analysis of the titles of scientific articles as See also: 0197-0200, 0208, 0212, 0213, 0220, 0226, 0241, methodology to study the evolution of social construc- 0274 tions: the case of disability]. - p.755-760 * 0267. - 161. - Ayuso Sánchez, M.J., Ayuso García, M.D.: La gestión elec- 0275, 111 trónica de los derechos de autor en la era digital: los Zins, C. - Knowledge organization : an epistemological proyectos de investigación orientados hacia la ERMS perspective (Lang.: eng) . - In: Knowledge Organization, (Electronic Right Managements Systems) [The electronic 30(2003)1, p.49-54. - 11 refs. management of the author's rights in the digital age: from the projects of research towards to the ERMS (Electronic 0276 111; 211 Right Managements Systems)]. - p.763-773 * 0268. - 111. - Beghtol, C. - A proposed ethical warrant for global knowl- Friás, J.A., Villalba del Monte, R.: Contando el cuento en edge representation and organization systems organización del conocimiento: análisis de la presentación (Lang.: eng) . - In: Journal of Documentation, 58(2002)5, formal de los artículos de investigación publicados en p.507-532. - 26 refs. España (1990-2001) [The story of knowledge organization: analysis of the formal presenation of research articles 0277 111; 751 published in Spain (1990-2001)]. - p.775-783 * 0269. - 149. García Marco, F.J. - El factor humano en los sisteternas de - López Alonso, V., Moreno López, L., Martín Sánchez, F.: información. [The human factor in information systems] Desarrollo de un sistema de gestión del conocimiento (Lang.: spa) . - In: Scire, 9(2003)1, p.9-20 científico para su empleo en unidades de investigación . - 16 ref. [Development of a scientific knowledge management sys- 13 Mathematics in Knowledge Organization tem to be used in research units]. - p.785-789 * 0270. - See also 0316 918. - Ramos Simón, L.F.: Alternativas de circulació de las publicaciones electrónicas: propuentespara el aceso libre al 0278 138 conocimiento científico [Circulation alternatives to the Schneider, J.W., Borlund, P. - Introduction to bibliometrics scholarly electronic publishing: proposals for the free ac- for construction and maintenance of thesauri : Methodical cess to scientific knowledge]. - p.791-799 * 0271. - 751. - considerations (Lang.: eng) . - In: Journal of Documenta- Sánchez Turrión, J.M., García Peñalvo, F.J., Hernández tion, 60(2004)5, p.524-549. - Refs. Simón, A.A.: BiblioRef. Herramienta personal para la ges- 14 Systens Theory in Knowledge Organization tión de citas bibliográficas [BiblioRef. A personal tool for See 0243 – 0245, 0247, 0250, 0254, 0269 bibliographic management]. - p.801-806 * 0272. - 911. - Guimaraes, J.A.C., Fernández-Molina, J.C.: Los aspectos 16 Science and Knowledge Organization éticos de la organización y representación del cnocimiento See 0202, 0216, 0248, 0267 en la revista Knowledge Organization [Ethical aspects of knowledge organization and representation in the journal 18 Classification and Indexing Research Knowledge Organization]. - p. 809-816 * 0273. - 911, 96. - See 0212, 0213, 0263 - 0265 Moros, A.: Influencia de los sucesos del 11 de septiembre de 2001 en la reprsentación y organización del cono- 19 History of Knowledge Organization cimiento: aspectos éticos, políticos y sociológicos [Influ- See 0207, 0213, 0225 ences of the events of September 11th, 2001, in knowledge represenation and organization: ethical, political and socio- 2 Classification Systems and Thesauri, Structure and logical aspect]. - p.817-821. Construction

0274 06.04-07-13/16; 111; 02 21 General Questions of CS & T Buizza, G. - [Book review of] Knowledge organization and See also 0205, 0207, 0209, 0224, 0276 the global information society : proceedings of the eighth international ISKO conference (Lang.: ita) . - In: Bollet- 0279 211 tino AIB, 44(2004)3, p.393-394. - Refs. Mai, J.E. - Classification in context : relativity, reality, and represenation (Lang.: eng) . - In: Knowledge Organization, 30(2003)1, p.39-48. - 49 refs.

0280 211 Hjorland, B., Nicolaisen, .J. - Scientific and scholarly classifications are not "naive" : a comment to Begthol (=Beghtol) (Lang.: eng) . - In: Knowledge Organization, 30(2003)1, p.55-. - 38 refs.

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0281 211; 751 0289 333 Rodríguez Muñoz, J.V. - Información, Tecnología y com- Giunti, M.C. - Soggettazione. [Alphabetical subject index- plejidad. v.2.0.. [Information, technology and complexity, ing] (Lang.: ita) . - Roma : AIB, 2002. - 76 p.. - (Enciclo- v.2.0.]. - In: Scire, 9(2003)1, p.23-36. - 21 ref. pedia tascabile. - Refs.

34 Classing and Indexing (see also 81) 0282 212 Rolle, M. - Per un nuovo modello di linguaggio documen- See 0222, 0260 tario. [For a new model of documentary language] (Lang.: 35 Manual and Automatic Ordering ita) . - In: Bollettino AIB, 41(2001)3, p.315-326. - Refs. See: 0203 22 Structure and elements of CS & T See also 0249 4 On Universal Classification Systems and 0283 225 Thesauri Gnoli, C. - Classificazione a facette. [Facet classification] (Lang.: ita) . - Roma : AIB, 2004. - 44 p.. - (ET : Enciclo- 41 On Universal Classification Systems and Thesauri in pedia tascabile. - Refs.. - ISBN 88-7812-080-4 General See also 0236 23 Construction of CS & T 0290 411; 42; 43 See 0304 The future of classification / ed. by R. Marcella and A. 28 Compatibility and Concordances between Indexing Maltby (Lang.: eng) . - Abingdon (UK) : Ashgate, 2000. - Languages 160 p.. - 0284 287; 42 * Content: R. Marcella, A. Maltby: Introduction; E. Frâncu, V., - UDC-based thesauri and multilingual access Hunter: Do we still need classification?; A. Maltby, R. to information (Lang.: eng) . - In: Extensions and correc- Marcella: Organizing knowledge - the need for system and tions to the UDC, 26(2004), p.48-57. - 22 refs. unity; J. Warner: Can classification yield an evaluative principle for information retrieval?; R. Newton: Informa- tion technology and new directions; A. MacLennan: Clas- 3 Classing and Indexing (Methodology) sification and the Internet; A.C. Foskett: The future of facetted classification; J.S. Mitchell: The Dewey Decimal 31 Theory of Classing and Indexing (Methodology) Classification in the twenty-first century; I.C. McIlwaine: 0285 311 UDC in the twenty-first century; L.M. Chan, T.L. Gilchrist, A. - Taxonomies and information architecture Hodges: The Library of Congress Classification; M.P. Sa- (Lang.: eng) . - In: Scire9(2003)1, p.37-46 tija: Sources for the investigating the development of bibliographic classification. 32 Subject Analysis . - ISBN 0-566-07992-5 See also 0246, 0255, 0265 0286 321; 02 42 On the Universal Decimal Classification Herrero Pascual, C. – (Book review of) Bereijo Martínez, See also 0284, 0290, 0307, 0334 A.: Bases teóricas del análisis documental: la calidad de ob- 0291 42 jetivos, procesos y resultados. Madrid: Universidad Carlos Hajdu Barát, A., - Knowledge organization of the Univer- III, 202, 319 p. (Lang.: spa) . - In: Anales de Docu- sal Decimal Classification - new solutions, and user mentación, 6(2003), p.295 friendly methods from Hungary (Lang.: eng) . - In: Exten- * Also: http://www.um.es/fccd/anales/ad06/ad0620.pdf sions and corrections to the UDC, 26(2004), p.7-12

0287 321; 02 0292 42 García Jiménez, A. - Instrumentos de representación del Arskiy, Y., - Summary of the activities of VINITI in the conocimiento : tesauros versus ontologías. [Tools of field of UDC (Lang.: rus) . - In: Extensions and correc- knowledge represenation: thesauri versus ontologies] tions to the UDC, 26(2004), p.40-41. - Refs. (Lang.: spa) . - In: Anales de Documentación, 7(2004), p.79-95 0293 42 * Also: http://www.um.es/fccd/anales/ad07/ad0706.pdf Slavic, A., - UDC translations : a 2004 survey report and 33 Classing and Indexing Techniques bibliography (Lang.: eng) . - In: Extensions and corrections to the UDC, 26(2004), p.58-80. - 25 refs. 0288 331

Lucarelli, A. - La Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Firenze e 0294 42 il rinnovamento dell'indicizzazione per soggetto. [The Williamson, N.J.., - Complementary and alternative medi- Central nationl library of Florence and the renewal of sub- cine : its place in the reorganized medical sciences in the ject indexing] (Lang.: ita) . - In: Bollettino AIB, Universal Decimal Classification (Lang.: eng) . - In: Ex- 41(2001)3, p.307-314. - Refs. tensions and corrections to the UDC, 26(2004), p.81-86. -

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0295 42; 042 di FRBR. [A conceptual model for the new BNCF subject López, A., - AENOR y la offerta de productos CDU headings: subject indexing in the light of FRBR] (Lang.: (Lang.: spa) . - In: Extensions and corrections to the ita) . - In: Bollettino AIB, 41(2001)3, p.327-336. - Refs. UDC, 26(2004), p.29-32. - Refs. 0304 489; 235 0296 42; 647 López Alonso, M.A. - Compilacíon de un macrotesauro Holder, B., - Updating the Global Forest Decimal Classi- conceptual para los centros españoles de información juve- fication (GFFC) (Lang.: eng) . - In: Extensions and cor- nil. [A thesaurus for the Spanish Youth Information Net- rections to the UDC, 26(2004), p.42-43 work] (Lang.: spa) . - In: Scire9(2003)1, p.47-56

0297 42; 651/4 McIlwaine, I.C., Williamson, N.J.., - Class 61 - Medicine : 6 On Special Subjects Classifications and Thesauri restructuring progress in 2004 (Lang.: eng) . - In: Exten- sions and corrections to the UDC, 26(2004), p.88-118 64 CS & T in Biology, Agriculture and Forestry »» Proposal for the restructuring of UDC class 617.6/.9 - See 0296 Nervous system. Neurology 65 On CS & T in Human Biology, Medicine, Psychology 43 On the Dewey Decimal Classification See also 0297 See also 0290, 0306, 0307 0305 651/4 0298 43 Poltronieri, E. - Il nuovo soggettario dell'Instituto superi- Crocetti, L., Fagiolini, A. - Classificazione decimale ore di sanità. [The new subject headings of the National Dewey : edizione aggiornata a DDC21. [Dewey decimal health high institute] (Lang.: ita) . - In: Bollettino AIB, classification: edition update to DDC21] (Lang.: ita) . - 41(2001)3, p.337-346. - Refs. Roma : AIB, 2001. - (ET : Enciclopedia tascabile) * See also: Bollettino, 42(2002)3, p.333-336

0299 43 69 On CS & T in Language, Literature, Music, Arts, Phi- Gruppo di lavoro della Bibliografia nazionale italiana - losophy, Religion Dewey da 20 a 21. [Dewey 20 to 21] (Lang.: ita) . - Roma : See also 0206, 0210, 0221, 0256 AIB, 2001. - 130 p.. - (AIB formazione * Proceedings of a seminar presenting the Italian transla- 0306 693; 43 tion of DDC21 Franchini, E. - La DDC 780 tra vecchio e nuovo : alcune considerazione. [DDC 780 at the crossroads between old 0300 43 and new times: a few remarks] (Lang.: ita) . - In: Bollettino Giunti, M.C. - In SBN con Dewey : il catalogo classificato AIB, 44(2004)3, p.359-370. - Refs. del Polo della Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Firenze. [In SBN with Dewy: the classified catalogue of the Pole of the 7 Knowledge Represenation by Language and Central national library of Florence] (Lang.: ita) . - In: Terminology Bollettino AIB, 41(2001)1, p.69-76. - Refs. * Abstract in eng. on http://www.aib.it/aib/boll/2001/01- 71 General Problems of Natural Language in Relation to 1-046.htm Knowledge Organization 48 On other Universal Classification Systems and See 0211 Thesauri 72 Semantics See also 0217, 0224, 0233 See also 0316 0301 482; 02 0307 722-39; 42; 43 Handbuch zur Regensburger Verbundklassifikation : Ma- McIlwaine, I.C., - A question of place (Lang.: eng) . - In: terislien zur Einführung / Hrgn von B. Lorenz (Lang.: ger) Extensions and corrections to the UDC, 26(2004), p.33- . - Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz Verlag, 2003. - x, 255 p.. - 39. - Refs. (Beiträge zum Buch- und Bibliothekswesen. - ISBN 3-447- 04618-x 0308 751 Inchaurralde Besga, C. - Representaciones léxicas : proce- 0302 483; 844 samiento y reprecusión sobre el conocimiento bilingüe. Retti, G., Stehno , B. - The Laurin thesaurus : A large, [The processing and impact of lexical representations on multilingual, electronic thesaurus for newspaper clipping bilingual knowledge] (Lang.: spa) . - In: Scire, 8(2002)1, archives (Lang.: eng) . - In: Journal of Documentation, p.41-54. - 54 ref. 60(2004)4, p.289-301. - Refs. 73 Automatic Language Processing 0303 483; 944 See 0227 Buizza, P., Guerrini, M. - Un modello concettuale per il nuovo Soggettario : l'indicizzazione per soggetto alla luce 208 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 Knowledge Organization Literature

75 On-Line Retrieval System and Technology 755 Problems of on-line systems. Types of searches 0317 755 751 General and Theoretical Problems Spink, A., Jansen, B.J., Pedersen , J. - Searching for people See also 0237, 0253, 0258, 0271, 0277, 0281 on Web search engines (Lang.: eng) . - In: Journal of 0309 751 Documentation, 60(2004)4, p.266-278. - Refs. Cheti, A. - Il negozio di ferramenta e la ricerca per sog- »» On personal name searching getto dei documentei. [The hardware store and the search 756 Classification and Thesaurus-based Access of documents by subject] (Lang.: ita) . - In: Bollettino AIB, 41(2001)1, p.69-76. - Refs. 0318 756 Sihvonen, A., Vakkari , P. - Subject knowledge improves in- 0310 751; 941 teractive query expansion assisted by a thesaurus (Lang.: Hunter, J. - MetaNet - A Metadata Term Thesaurus to En- eng) . - In: Journal of Documentation, 60(2004)6, p.673- able Semantic Interoperability Between Metadata Domains 690. - Refs. (Lang.: eng) . - In: Journal of Digital Information, 757 Expert systems in searching. Search engines 1(2001)8, art.# 42 [electr.]. - Refs. See also 0223, 0227, 0228, 0238, 0242 * http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/Articles/v01/i08/Hunter/ 0319 757 0311 751; 941 Bosman, J., Sieverts, E. - Wetenschappelijk googlelen een- Soergel, D., Lauser, B., Liang, A., Fisseha, F., Keizer, J., voudiger en beter dan ooit? : Google Scholar. [Scientific Katz, S. - Reengineering Thesauri for New Applications : gloogling, simpler and better than ever?: Google Scholar] the AGROVOC Example (Lang.: eng) . - In: Journal of (Lang.: dut) . - In: Informatie professional, 9(2005)1, p.18- Digital Information, 4(2004)4, art.# 257 [electr.]. - 6 refs. 26. - 4 refs. * http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/Articles/v04/i04/Soergel/ 0320 757; 947 752 Dialogue Systems. Interactive Catalogues Koshman, S. - Comparing usability between a visualization See also 0204, 0251, 0261, 0262 and text-based system for information retrieval (Lang.: 0312 752.3 eng) . - In: Journal of Documentation, 60(2004)5, p.565- López Carreño, R. - Análisis taxonómico de los portales 580. - Refs. periodísticos españoles. [Taxonomical analysis of spanish journalism portals] (Lang.: spa) . - In: Anales de Docu- 8 Applied Classing and Indexing mentación, 7(2004), p.123-140 * http://www.um.es/fccd/anales/ad07/ad0708.pdf 83 Title Classing and Indexing. Derived indexing 753 On-line access, query optimization, full text search- See 0266 ing 84 Primary Literature Classification and Indexing 0313 753 See also 0219, 0231, 0240, 0302 Mandala, R., Tokunaga, T., Tanaka, H. - Query expansion 0321 847; 943 using heterogeneous thesauri (Lang.: eng) . - In: Informa- Cook, M. - The management of information from archives tion Processing and Management, 36(2000)3, p.361-378. - (Lang.: eng) . - 2nd ed.. - Abingdon (UK) : Ashgate, 1999. Refs. - 288 p.. - . - ISBN 0-566-07993-3

0314 753 86 Secondary Literature Classification and Indexing Robertson, S. - Understanding inverse document fre- See also 0218 quency : on theoretical arguments for IDF (Lang.: eng) . - 0322 864 In: Journal of Documentation, 60(2004)5, p.503-520. - Nederhof, A.J., Visser, M.S. - Quantitative deconstruction Refs. of citation impact indicators : Waxing field impact but

waning journal impact (Lang.: eng) . - In: Journal of 0315 753 Documentation, 60(2004)6, p.658-672. - Refs. Sparck Jones, K. - IDF term weighting and IR research lessons (Lang.: eng) . - In: Journal of Documentation, 0323 864 60(2004)5, p.521-523. - Refs. Meadows, A.J. - The citation characteristics of astronomi-

cal research literature (Lang.: eng) . - In: Journal of Docu- 0316 753; 721; 136 mentation, 60(2004)6, p.597-600. - Refs. Sparck Jones, K. - A statistical interpretation of term specificity and its application in retrieval (Lang.: eng) . - 0324 864 In: Journal of Documentation, 60(2004)5, p.493-502. - Leydesdorff, L. - Clusters and maps of science journals Refs. based on bi-connected graphs in Journal Citation Reports (Lang.: eng) . - In: Journal of Documentation, 60(2004)4, p.371-427 . - Refs. Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 209 Knowledge Organization Literature

87 Classification and Indexing of Non-Book Materials 0330 942 See also 0211, 0221, 0254, 0257, 0259, 0261 Lancaster, F.W. - Do indexing and abstracting have a future? (Lang.: eng) . - In: Anales de Documentación, 0325 879 6(2003), p. 277-288. - 23 refs. Denner, L., Van der Walt, M.S. - The organization of elec- * Also: http://www.um.es/fccd/anales/ad06/ad0609.pdf tronic information in selected small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) in South Africa (Lang.: eng) . - In: 943 Archival description Knowledge Organization, 312004)1, p.4-25. - 16 refs. See 0321 88 Classification in Subject Fields (Manual and Auto- 944 Bibliographic records matic) See also 0303 See 0246, 0262 0331 944 9 Knowledge Organization Environment Hegna, K. - Using FRBR (Lang.: eng) . - In: High Energy Physics Libraries Webzine, (2004)10 (electr.) 91 Professional and Organizational Problems in General * URL: http://library.cern.ch/HEPLW/10/papers/1/ and in Institutions 0332 944 See 0259, 0270, 0272, 0273 Taniguchi, S. - Conceptual modeling of component parts 92 Persons and Institutions in Knowledge Organization of bibliographic resources in cataloging (Lang.: eng) . - In: Journal of Documentation, 59(2003)6, p.692-708. - Refs. 0326 922

Williamson, N.J. - Douglas John Foskett : 1918-2004 0333 944 (Lang.: eng) . - In: Knowledge Organization, 31(2004)1, Taniguchi, S. - A conceptual model giving primacy to ex- p.1-2. - 5 refs. pression-level bibliographic entity in cataloging (Lang.:

eng) . - In: Journal of Documentation, 58(2002)4, p.363- 0327 924 382. - Refs. Olson, H.A. - Introducing Richard P. Smiraglia (Lang.: eng) . - In: Knowledge Organization, 32(2004)1, p.3. - 945 Record structure Refs. See 0215, 0235 94 Bibliographic Control. Bibliographic Records 947 Interfaces and Displays for Bibliographic or Archi- val records 941 Bibliographic Control. Bibliography as Discipline See also 0232, 0234, 0320 See 0201, 0214, 0310, 0311 0334 947; 42 942 Cataloguing and Indexing in General Schallier, W., - What a subject search interface can do 0328 942 (Lang.: eng) . - In: Extensions and corrections to the López Guillamón, I. - Evolución reciente de la cataloga- UDC, 26(2004), p.18-28 ción. [Recent evolution of cataloguing] (Lang.: ita) . - In: 98 User studies Anales de Documentación, 7(2004), p. 141-152. - Refs. * Also: http://www.um.es/fccd/anales/ad07/ad0709.pdf See also 0224, 0229, 0230, 0239 0335 981 0329 942 Spink, A. - Multitasking information behavior and infor- Gorman, M. - Control o caos bibliográfico : un programa mation task switching : an exploratory study (Lang.: eng) . para los servicios bibliográficos nacionales del siglo XXI. - In: Journal of Documentation, 60(2004)4, p.336-351. - [Bibliographic control or chaos: an agenda for national Refs. bibliographic services for the 21st century] (Lang.: spa) . - In: Anales de Documentación, 6(2004), p. 277-288. - Refs. * Also: http://www.um.es/fccd/anales/ad06/ad0618.pdf

210 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 Personal Author Index 31(2004)

Personal Author Index

Aldana Montes, J.F. Denner, L. 0325 Guerrini, M. 0303 López Carreño, R. Moreno Núñez, M.T. 0228 Díaz Novillo, S. 0258 Guimaraes, J.A.C. 0312 0258 Alonso Alvarez, A. Dill Orrico, E.G. 0272 López de Prado, R. Moreno Vergara, N. 0222 0237 Hajdu Barát, A. 0220, 0221 0228 Andelkovic, J. 0195 Dimitri, P.J. 0230 0233, 0291 López Guillamón, I. Moros, A. 0242, 0273 Arskiy, Y. 0292 Eíto Brun, R. 0231 Hassoun, M. 0227 0328 Mounier, E. 0255 Ayuso García, M.D. Fagiolini, A. 0298 Hegna, K. 0331 López Yepes, A. 0254 Múnera Torres, M.T. 0267 Fecchio, S.M. 0216 Henriques, R. 0262 López, A. 0295 0243 Ayuso Sánchez, M.J. Fernández Cano, A. Hernández Simón, López-Huertas, M.J. Naumis Peña, C. 0256 0267 0202 A.A. 0271 0213 Nederhof, A.J. 0322 Barrocco Farias, G. Fernández Valmayor, Hernández, A. 0219 Lorenz, B. 0301 Newton, R. 0290 0260 A. 0203 Herrera-Viedma, E. Lorenzo, B. 0257 Nicolaisen, .J. 0280 Barrueco Cruz, J.M. Fernández-Molina, 0238 Lucarelli, A. 0288 Nunes Silva, H. 0216 0249 J.C. 0272 Herrero Pascual, C. Lucas dos Anjos, P. Odaisa Espinheiro de Bautista, T. 0250 Fernández-Pampillón 0286 0253 Oliveiro, M. 0209 Bazán, C.B. 0214 Cesteros, A. 0203 Hjorland, B. 0198, Mabragaña, C. 0201 Oliveira, R.M. 0224 Beghtol, C. 0276 Ferrer Sapena, A. 0280 Machado Campos, Olson, H.A. 0263, Beltrán Orenes, P. 0234, 0258 Hodges, T.L. 0290 M.L. 0200 0327 0208, 0236 Fisseha, F. 0311 Holder, B. 0296 MacLennan, A. 0290 Olvera, M. 0238 Benavides Cuéllar, C. Foskett, A.C. 0290 Hunter, E. 0290 Mai, J.E. 0279 Orom, A. 0210 0222 Fourie, I. 0204 Hunter, J. 0310 Maltby, A. 0290 Osuna Alarcón, R. Borlund, P. 0278 Franchini, E. 0306 Inchaurralde Besga, C. Mandala, R. 0313 0225 Bosch, M. 0215 Frâncu, V. 0205, 0284 0308 Manuel Burgos, J. Paganelli, C. 0255 Bosman, J. 0319 Frías, J.A. 0197, 0232, Izquierdo Alonso, M. 0240 Pedersen , J. 0317 Branco, R.K. 0260 0268 0265 Manzanos, N. 0201 Peis,E. 0238 Breda, S.M. 0216 Frigeni, M. 0219 Jansen, B.J. 0317 Mara Ferreira, S. 0223 Pereira Pinheiro da Brito Santana, J. 0264 Gabriele, G. 0206 Jiménez Piano, M. Marcella, R. 0290 Cruz, R.A. 0229 Brito, E. 0237 Galve, J. 0240 0221 Martín Moreno, C. Pérez Agüera, J.R. Brufem, L.S. 0216 García Jiménez, A. Katz, S. 0311 0246 0254 Buizza, G. 0274 0287 Keizer, J. 0311 Martín Rodríguez, F. Pérez Alarcón, A. Buizza, P. 0303 García López, F. 0257 Knecht, A. 0219 0235 0244 Burlet, J. 0194 García Marco, F.J. Koshman, S. 0320 Martín Sánchez, F. Pérez-Montoro Cabrera Méndez, M. 0277 Krichel, T. 0249 0269 Gutiérrez, M. 0245 0234 García Peñalvo, F.J. Lancaster, F.W. 0330 Martínez Ordás, F. Perrault, A.H. 0252 Campos, M.L. de A 0229, 0271 Lascurín, M.L. 0246 0222 Peset Mancebo, F. 0200 García Rodríguez, I. Lauser, B. 0311 Marzal García- 0234, 0258 Canonne, A. 0194 0222 Leydesdorff, L. 0324 Quismondo, M.A Pindado Villaverde, Caring, A. 0253 Garciá, H. 0201 Liang, A. 0311 0208, 0236 A.M. 0218 Caro Castro, C. 0217 García, J. 0240 Lichtnow, D. 0253, McIlwaine, I.C. 0212, Poltronieri, E. 0305 Carrizo Sainero, G. García, L. 0223 0260 0290, 0297, 0307 Porcel, C. 0238 0218 García-Zorita, C. Llorens Morillo, J. Meadows, A.J. 0323 Porras Navalón, M.P. Carsen, T. 0201 0246 0236 Melly, M. 0223 0266 Casado Candelas, M. Gilchrist, A. 0285 Lloret Romeno, N. Miranda, A. 0241 Prates, Y. 0216 0235 Giunti, M.C. 0289, 0258 Mitchell, J.S. 0290 Prieto Castro, E. 0259 Chan, L.M. 0290 0300 Lloret Romero, N. Monje Jiménez, T. Rafferty, P. 0211 Cheti, A. 0309 Glazier, J.D. 0207 0234 0257 Ramírez Wohlmuth, S. Cook, M. 0321 Glazier, R.R. 0207 Loh, S. 0253, 0260 Morales García, A.M. 0252 Cottereau, M. 0250 Gnoli, C. 0283 Lopéz Alfonso, C. 0257 Ramos Simón, L.F. Crocetti, L. 0298 Gonz lez Sereno, E. 0203 Morán Suárez, M. 0270 Cruz Rodríguez, J.M. 0250 López Alonso, M.A. 0222 Reis, G. 0223 0264 González de Gomez, 0304 Morato Lara, J. 0236 Retti, G. 0302 De Castro Martín, P. M.N. 0237 López Alonso, V. Moreiro, J.A. 0236 Ríos, Y. 0250 0250 Gorman, M. 0329 0269 Moreno López, L. Robertson, S. 0314 Del Castillo, D. 0221 Gregory, V.L. 0252 0269 Knowl. Org. 31(2004)No.3 211 Personal Author Index 31(2004)

Rodríguez Muñoz, Sánchez Turrión, J.M. Simonovic-Mandic, S. Tokunaga, T. 0313 Verdugo Alonso, M.A. J.V. 0281 0271 0195 Tolosa Robledo, L. 0266 Roldán García, M.M. Sanz Casado, E. Slavic, A. 0293 0258 Vianello Osti, M. 0228 0246 Soergel, D. 0311 Torralbo Rodríguez, 0236, 0248 Rolle, M. 0282 Satija, M.P. 0191, Sparck Jones, K. 0315, M. 0202 Villalba del Monte, R. Romero, L.A. 0229 0290 0316 Tramullas, J. 0261 0268 Rowland, J. 0199 Schallier, W. 0334 Spink, A. 0317, 0335 Travieso, C. 0197 Villar Flecha, J. 0222 Saldaña, R. 0253, 0260 Schneider, J.W. 0278 Stehno , B. 0302 Travieso Rodríguez, Visser, M.S. 0322 San Segundo Manual, Scott Cree, J. 0251 Tanaka, H. 0313 C. 0217 Warner, J. 0290 R. 0226 Sidhom, S. 0227 Taniguchi, S. 0332, Triska, R. 0247 Williamson, N.J.. Sánchez Cuadrado, S. Sieverts, E. 0319 0333 Vakkari , P. 0318 0294, 0297, 0326 0236 Sihvonen, A. 0318 Tedde, L. 0219 Vallejo Ruiz, M. 0202 Worcman, K. 0262 Sánchez Jiménez, R. Simeao, E. 0241 Teixeira Gonçalez, A. Van der Walt, M.S. Zecheru, M. 0239 0254 0260 0325 Zins, C. 0275