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Ambiguity in Knowledge Organization: Four Proposed Types
Full text linkClassification and categorization order by creating or seeking certainty. Yet inevitably we encounter things that defy ready placement, which we may label other or miscellaneous, or force into another category. The literature of knowledge organization recognizes the consequences of classification and misrepresentation, but has not systematically outlined what circumstances or conditions render a thing ambiguous to those who would seek to describe it. This paper proposes four major sources or type of ambiguity in classification. While examples of these types may be found in many disciplines and settings, they have in common similar requirements for accurate or improved representation. Multiplicity is a source of ambiguity when a resource or object requires more terms to describe than the system allows. Emergence is ambiguity that arises when phenomena, from medical observation to literary genre, is at an early stage of description and thus unstable. Privacy-related ambiguity is that which stems from a gap of understanding or trust between those classifying and what is being classified, particularly in human communities. Conditional ambiguity arises when something requires narrative due to conditional contexts such as temporality or geography. This term also describes things that have dichotomous or fragmentary identities that are not easily represented by most systems. These types of ambiguity may arise in formal and informal organization systems. While observing these types of ambiguity may not offer immediate or feasible solutions, it may allow us to discuss their unique challenges and to better understand their manifestations across disciplines
Authority and Universalism: Conventional Values in Descriptive Catalog Code
Full text linkEvery standard embodies a particular set of values. Some aspects are privileged while others are masked. Values embedded within knowledge organization standards have special import in that they are further perpetuated by the data they are used to generate. Within libraries, descriptive catalog codes serve as prominent knowledge organization standards, guiding the creation of resource representations. Though the historical and functional aspects of these standards have received significant attention, less focus has been placed on the values associated with such codes. In this study, a critical, historical analysis of ten Anglo- American descriptive catalog codes and surrounding discourse was conducted as an initial step towards uncovering key values associated with this lineage of standards. Two values in particular were found to be highly significant: authority and universalism. Authority is closely tied to notions of power and control, particularly over practice or belief. Increasing control over resources, identities, and viewpoints are all manifestations of the value of authority within descriptive codes. Universalism has guided the widening coverage of descriptive codes in regards to settings and materials, such as the extension of bibliographic standards to non-book resources. Together, authority and universalism represent conventional values focused on facilitating orderly social exchanges. A comparative lack of emphasis on values concerning human welfare and empowerment may be unsurprising, but raises questions concerning the role of human values in knowledge organization standards. Further attention to the values associated with descriptive codes and other knowledge organization standards is important as libraries and other institutions seek to share their resource representation data more widely
E. Wyndham Hulme's Classification of the Attributes of Books: On an Early Model of a Core Bibliographical Entity
Full text linkModelling bibliographical entities is a prominent activity within knowledge organization today. Current models of bibliographic entities, such as Functional Requirements for Bibliographical Records (FRBR) and the Bibliographic Framework (BIBFRAME), take inspiration from data-modelling methods developed by computer scientists from the mid-1970s on. Thus, it would seem that the modelling of bibliographic entities is an activity of very recent vintage. However, it is possible to find examples of bibliographical models from earlier periods of knowledge organization. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to one such model, outlined by the early 20th-century British classification theorist E. Wyndham Hulme in his essay on “Principles of Book Classification” (1911–1912). There, Hulme set forth a classification of various attributes by which books can conceivably be classified. These he first divided into accidental and inseparable attributes. Accidental attributes were subdivided into edition-level and copy-level attributes and inseparable attitudes, into physical and non-physical attributes. Comparison of Hulme’s classification of attributes with those of FRBR and BIBFRAME 2.0 reveals that the different classes of attributes in Hulme’s classification correspond to groups of attributes associated with different bibliographical entities in those models. These later models assume the existence of different bibliographic entities in an abstraction hierarchy among which attributes are distributed, whereas Hulme posited only a single entity— the book—, whose various aspects he clustered into different classes of attributes. Thus, Hulme’s model offers an interesting alternative to current assumptions about how to conceptualize the relationship between attributes and entities in the bibliographical universe
The Development of Classification on Women's Studies in LCC (1910-2010)
No full textWe surveyed the classes on women’s studies in different editions in the LCC (from the 1980 to the 2010 edition) to determine what the main classes consisted of and how they changed over that period. We broke down the main subtopics on women’s studies, doing a statistical analysis at the class and subclass level, and then selected several typical examples for in–depth examination. The goal was to show the relationship between the disciplinary development of women’s studies and classes on this topic in the LCC. We found that studies about women historically interweaved with family and marriage, but its development should have its own avenue. We found six patterns in the revising of classes associated with women’s studies: synthesis, analysis, new creation, expansion, class name change, and removal. Through the comparison and analysis of classes with the additions and revisions to LCCs, supplemented by the bibliographic records from the LC online catalog, we determined that: historic revisions of a certain class show its disciplinary development; synthesis, analysis, comparison, and deduction played important roles in revisions and reflected the discipline’s self–understanding on a subject; and a threshold, in terms of number of titles (or "sub–subtopics"), can be established for the creation of a new class. We concluded that a well– systematized classification system facilitates predictions concerning new directions in a discipline. Also, revisions of classification, based on the development of a discipline, will influence that discipline’s future development
The Autism Prism: A Domain Analysis Paper Examining Neurodiversity
No full textAutism is a complex neurological phenomenon that affects our society on individual, community, and cultural levels. There is an ongoing dialog between the medical, scientific and autism communities that critiques and molds the meaning of autism. The prevailing social model perspective, the neurodiversity paradigm, views autism as a natural variation in human neurology. Towards the goal of crystallizing the various facets of autism, this paper conducts a domain analysis of neurodiversity. Through this analysis, we explore the dynamics between diagnosis, identity, power, and inclusion
FINDING GREENER PASTURES: THE LOCAL DEVELOPMENT OF AGRO-PASTORALISM IN THE ORDOS REGION, NORTH CHINA.
Full text linkThe results of recent archaeological research in the Ordos region provide new information on the timing and process of the development of agro-pastoralism in China. Integrating previously published archaeological materials with archaeological research conducted since 2000, this essay synthesizes our current understanding of archaeological data for the middle to late Neolithic period (c. 3500–1800 B.C.) of the Ordos Region. The region is generally defined as including northern Shaanxi, southwestern Inner Mongolia, eastern Ningxia, and western Shanxi Provinces. Research into this transition to large-scale reliance upon domesticated herd animals is just beginning, but sheep, goat, and cattle husbandry were important from the Late Neolithic period onwards. During this time wild resources obtained through hunting and foraging appear to have been complementary to the diet in this region, though in small amounts. With the increasing use of zooarchaeological analysis, the foundation is laid for a greater understanding of the origins and the development of agro-pastoralism in the Ordos Region, Northwest China