Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
> What are the points of a classification? I submit that there are
> several. And only ONE of them requires the kind of compact notation that
> Bernhard assumes--shelf order.
> ...
> 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.
>
> None of these purposes, in and of themselves, in fact require a
> notation suitable for shelf ordering. What DO they require, ...
>...
> This is what we need to discover, by emperical research as well as
> intellecutal analysis.
>
Notations need to be human-understandable, learnable, and compact,
shelf-order or no.
Because humans will have to apply the classification and allocate
notations to documents. Yes, software could aid these processes,
but don't get carried away on that idea! Those who work with it
will not all have the appropriate software to their service, at
all times and on all occasions. So, it must be easy and quick for the
unaided human to understand, learn, and apply the notations.
Which doesn't mean there shouldn't be a complex authority database
network to keep things together and facilitate the maintenance
of the classification, including multi-lingual thesaurus features.
There has to be an outline of at most 2 pages showing the top
level of the hierarchy. My initial question was just what that top
level should look like. What division of knowledge or resources
would be useful and plausible for our time and age, and open for
future extensions as well? Perhaps lets compare BSO with Dewey and LC
and pick those sections that we think will cover today's world and
in their sum make a good first level. Only after that, think about good,
brief, plausible, learnable notations for that list.
B. Eversberg
Received on Thu Jun 07 2007 - 02:31:00 EDT