On 6/7/07, Jonathan Rochkind <rochkind_at_jhu.edu> wrote:
> but in fact, we want and NEED a classification (NOT just tagging, but a:
> _controlled_ vocabulary; of subject, disciplinary, and genre
> characteristics; with relations between terms of hiearchy, association,
> and possibly other relation types---that is, a classification)--for
> reasons other than shelf order.
The problems that I see discussed here is that there are pro's and
con's to both free tagging, folksonomies, tagsonomies, taxonomies,
controlled vocabulariers, free classification systems, Dewey, LC* and
whatever else have we. If we feel we need all varieties, should we
embrace all, which may result in dilution and incompatibilities? Or
are we thinking that one classification scheme to rule them all, which
results in, er, dominance and draconian rule? (All of these approaches
do however clash with basic category thoery; see below)
If a classification scheme is done in one language, the culture of
that language will influence the classification scheme. If a
classification scheme is done with numbers, the culture of the
language(s) of the people doing the numbers will influence the
classification scheme. If classification is abstracted away ... etc,
ad infinitum. The point here is that therre will never be a culturally
neutral classification scheme. We're talking about the cultural
influences over the way a global movement tries to do something. We
don't have a global culture, at least not one that easily goverened
and agreed upon, and certainly not anything that's persistant over
time.
What all our classification systems *don't* have is a factor that they
will change dramatically over time, rendering a lot of it incompatible
with any other contemporary time period. And, perhaps, the time to
find a solution to that is due as we now have technology to support
retrospecitve classification.
> What sorts of interfaces might we want to present to users, and what
> _formal features_ of a classificatory controlled vocabulary assist or
> get in the way of providing them?
All our classification systems are for librarians first and foremost.
They require you to go to library school to make perfect sense of
them. It's an age-old problem, though.
But you speak of interfaces here, and interfaces are, indeed, a tricky
thing. It always start and stop with the same question; what is it
that our users want? And the simple answer here is that we do not
know. In fact, we can't possibly know. This isn't unique to us; it is
a problem in any system ever designed or will be designed. And the
more complex data in any system, the less likely you are to deliver
what users want. Why?
The term "user" is the first thing to get rid of; it's easy to try to
segment the user-base into categories and use-cases and scenarios, and
it might yeild good results when you test with people that fall square
into whatever category you put them in. But it's also completely
wrong, as not a single person will be in a single category for long;
this is the fallacy of thinking you can classify complex things into
basic category theory. (For those interested, look up (and read)
"Women, Fire and Dangerous things" by Lakoff)
We can't give our "users" solutions to their problems; by that you
will always fail. What you need to give them are flexible tools which
they adapt to whatever they're trying to acomplish, and as simple as
that sounds it can't be shoehorned into most common development and
organisational development models; it requires brave new steps.
> LCC or Dewey (or LCSH) are not the end of hte road. They are the
> beginning.
Agreed, but I'd also point out that there is a danger in persuing
something that looks like the truth as if it *was* the truth. Just
because LCSH (for example) looks like a good starting point doesn't
mean that it *is* a good starting point. The solution might be to
scrap the whole thing and travel in a completely new direction.
> This is what we need to discover.
Amen! We need to discover so much, both about ourselves and our "users". :)
Alex
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchymist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps
------------------------------------------ http://shelter.nu/blog/ --------
Received on Wed Jun 06 2007 - 21:21:10 EDT