Taxonomies in Knowledge Organisation — Need, Description and Benefits
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Annals of Library and Information Studies Vol. 61, June 2014, pp. 102-111 Taxonomies in knowledge organisation — Need, description and benefits Mohammad Hanief Bhat a and Sheikh Mohammad Shafi b aSenior Librarian, Islamia College of Science & Commerce, Srinagar (J&K) India, E-mail: [email protected] bProfessor, Department of Library & Information Science, University of Kashmir, Srinagar (J&K) India, Email: [email protected] Received: 17 December 2013; revised: 28 May 2014; accepted: 02 June 2014 This paper is an expression about historical background, current trends and applications of taxonomies. It is based on the published literature discussing various aspects of taxonomies. The survey is based on free text search for the terms: Taxonomy, Knowledge organisation, Knowledge organisation systems, and Knowledge organisation tools in various online databases (Emerald, Taylor & Francis, Wilson web, Science Direct, Wiley online), and Google. Besides online databases some articles were identified from conventional journals and books. A number of periodicals across disciplines cover the subject. After analysis the relevant articles coinciding with the scope of the paper are presented under three categories: need, description, and benefits. The review reveals that the use of taxonomies is being highly advocated by the scholars for the efficient knowledge organization and retrieval of information in the digital environment due to the expeditious and compounded growth of information on the web and the failure of search engines to retrieve the relevant information. The ability of the taxonomies to retrieve the digital information with high precision and recall is unanimously accepted and established beyond doubt. It is also revealed that taxonomies are being implemented in various organizations/web portals across the globe. Keywords: Taxonomies; Knowledge Organisation; Knowledge Organisation Systems; Knowledge Organisation Tools Introduction The various tools that are being employed in organizing knowledge include: taxonomies, The organisation of knowledge is hardly a novel ontologies, schemes for subject classification, activity. The principles for organizing library material thesauri, wordnets, semantic nets, self-organizing have been discussed in the literature at least since the systems, etc. These are useful in formulating search middle of the nineteenth century (Panizzi 1848) and expressions and retrieval from databases (including some of the basic principles that are still valid today online web-enabled databases) and also in organizing were formulated in the late nineteenth century (e.g. information resources (e.g. documents, non- Cutter 1876). The foundation for classification theory documentary materials) and their surrogates (e.g. was laid in the first part of the twentieth century with entries in catalogues and bibliographies) in a helpful the work of Sayers (1915), Bliss (1929), and sequence2. Richardson (1935), among others. In the middle of the twentieth century a new bibliographic classification Taxonomy is as old as the language skill of mankind. theory and new principles were introduced by It has always been essential to know the names of Ranganathan (1962; 1967) that further added new edible as well as poisonous plants in order to principles to the organization of information. The communicate acquired experiences to other members British Classification Research Group further of the family and the tribe3. Although the art of developed Ranganathan’s ideas (e.g. Vickery 1960; taxonomy and the resulting forms of taxonomic Classification Research Group 1957) and added to structures are rooted in the works of Aristotle, them. The principles for the construction of Linnaeus, and Darwin, the meaning of the term bibliographic classification schemes laid down by taxonomy has been expanded to cover new purposes. these authors are often used and referred to as the We now use taxonomies for creating metadata, or foundation for bibliographic classification theory1. common words to describe an object, for information BHAT & SHAFI: TAXONOMIES IN KNOWLEDGE ORGANISATION- NEED, DESCRIPTION, AND BENEFITS 103 retrieval, categories supporting browse navigation, extending more than 93 million miles from the earth schemas governing Web page layout and structure, to the sun. The study predicts that the amount of and data control lists used in support of data mining information created and copied in 2010 will surge (searching thousands of data records to uncover more than six fold, from 161 to 988 Exabyte’s, a patterns and relationships contained within the compound annual growth rate of 57%, nearly 70% of activity and history store to fulfill a reporting request). which will be generated by individuals. Taking into Examples of these classification systems and the account the exponential growth of information and resulting taxonomies vary in structure, composition, knowledge, in the digital and Internet domains, it is and purpose, but they are all organized according to necessary to classify content in some order so that defined principles4. search and retrieval becomes manageable7, 8 . Art Group’s research as reported by Cheung, Lee & 9 Objective of the Study Wang has revealed that 80 to 98 percent of all data in all computers are unstructured knowledge such as e- The objective of this study is to survey different mails, office documents, PDF-files and many other aspects of taxonomies viz., need, description, and text-based documents. According to IDC Research, benefits, using a literature review. 15% to 30% of an employee's time is spent looking for information, and they find it only 50% of the Methodology and Scope time10. Williamson11 therefore stresses the need for This paper is based on the published literature more user friendly interfaces and greater emphasis on human computer interaction to aid the user in discussing various aspects of taxonomies. The survey 12 is based on free text search for the terms: Taxonomy, achieving successful searches on Internet. Patkar Knowledge organisation, Knowledge organisation observes that as the Web technology is entering in its next stage called Semantic Web, automatic processing systems, and Knowledge organisation tools in various online databases (Emerald, Taylor & Francis, Wilson of information to represent semantic relationship web, Science Direct, Wiley online), and Google. between entities or objects in the given context Besides online databases some articles were identified becomes critical. However feasible and sustainable from conventional journals and books. A number of solutions for WWW coverage have been mostly based on pure technological devices with a very low level of periodicals across disciplines cover the subject. 13 14 Prominent among these are Journal of semantic processing . Park apprehends that Documentation, Cataloging and classification dramatic environment change resulting from the Quarterly, Journal of the American Society for production and exchange of tremendous amounts of Information Science and Technology, Econtent, Information nearly instantaneously via web has raised Online, Information Management Journal, Legal concerns regarding the maintenance of precision and Information Management, Journal of Internet recall in the retrieval of information. Although the Cataloging, etc. After analysis the relevant articles indexing capability of search engines increases with each passing year- 76% for Google, 69% for Yahoo, coinciding with the scope of the paper are presented 15 using three categories: need, description, and benefits. 62% for MSN and 58% for ASK/Teoma in 2005 , the search results are often cluttered with a huge amount of irrelevant information16. Riccio17 believes that even Need (Why Taxonomies) very sophisticated intranet search engines, there is The experience of difficulties with cataloguing and still a need to categorize information and to aid the retrieving unstructured information effectively is an user in finding the most relevant information. It is reported18 that the most powerful search engines are eternal problem. Not only it has become a pressing issue for generations, there is also evidence to believe able to retrieve only 20% of relevant information that we will always seek better, more efficient from what is available on the web due to lack of approaches towards the ultimate goal of perfect recall organized data and failure to express the inter and keen precision5. An IDC study6 estimated that the relationship of ideas. These search engines search for “the digital universe” equals approximately three text strings, not concepts, as they do not understand million times the information in all the books ever meaning19. This has brought in to light the potential of written - or the equivalent of 12 stacks of books, each discovery over search. A search engine’s main 104 ANN. LIB. INF. STU., JUNE 2014 function is to locate documents based on the user’s Prahst, Jackson, et al.31 a contextual framework helps keywords. A discovery engine on the other hand to overcome language complexities thus improving attempts to extract relevant textual data from a corpus such effectiveness. Research has shown that using of text and then provides a graphical, dynamic and natural language for defined metadata fields or a navigable index20. controlled vocabulary, result in superior knowledge retrieval and re-use in a classified or clustered 21 Belkin, Oddy, & Brooks while concentrating on knowledge base32,33,34. Tudhope, Binding, Jeffrey, cognitive