Search (4 results, page 1 of 1)

0.024038067 = product of:
  0.048076134 = sum of:
    0.048076134 = product of:
      0.09615227 = sum of:
        0.09615227 = weight(_text_:bibliographic in 3621) [ClassicSimilarity], result of:
          0.09615227 = score(doc=3621,freq=20.0), product of:
            0.17672792 = queryWeight, product of:
              3.893044 = idf(docFreq=2449, maxDocs=44218)
              0.045395818 = queryNorm
            0.54406947 = fieldWeight in 3621, product of:
              4.472136 = tf(freq=20.0), with freq of:
                20.0 = termFreq=20.0
              3.893044 = idf(docFreq=2449, maxDocs=44218)
              0.03125 = fieldNorm(doc=3621)
      0.5 = coord(1/2)
  0.5 = coord(1/2)

Abstract

Henry Evelyn Bliss (1870-1955) devoted several decades of his life to the study of classification and the development of the Bibliographic Classification scheme while serving as a librarian in the College of the City of New York. In the course of the development of the Bibliographic Classification, Bliss developed a body of classification theory published in a number of articles and books, among which the best known are The Organization of Knowledge and the System of the Sciences (1929), Organization of Knowledge in Libraries and the Subject Approach to Books (1933; 2nd ed., 1939), and the lengthy preface to A Bibliographic Classification (Volumes 1-2, 1940; 2nd ed., 1952). In developing the Bibliographic Classification, Bliss carefully established its philosophical and theoretical basis, more so than was attempted by the makers of other classification schemes, with the possible exception of S. R. Ranganathan (q.v.) and his Colon Classification. The basic principles established by Bliss for the Bibliographic Classification are: consensus, collocation of related subjects, subordination of special to general and gradation in specialty, and the relativity of classes and of classification (hence alternative location and alternative treatment). In the preface to the schedules of A Bibliographic Classification, Bliss spells out the general principles of classification as weIl as principles specifically related to his scheme. The first volume of the schedules appeared in 1940. In 1952, he issued a second edition of the volume with a rewritten preface, from which the following excerpt is taken, and with the addition of a "Concise Synopsis," which is also included here to illustrate the principles of classificatory structure. In the excerpt reprinted below, Bliss discusses the correlation between classes, concepts, and terms, as weIl as the hierarchical structure basic to his classification scheme. In his discussion of cross-classification, Bliss recognizes the "polydimensional" nature of classification and the difficulties inherent in the two-dimensional approach which is characteristic of linear classification. This is one of the earliest works in which the multidimensional nature of classification is recognized. The Bibliographic Classification did not meet with great success in the United States because the Dewey Decimal Classification and the Library of Congress Classification were already weIl ensconced in American libraries by then. Nonetheless, it attracted considerable attention in the British Commonwealth and elsewhere in the world. A committee was formed in Britain which later became the Bliss Classification Association. A faceted edition of the scheme has been in preparation under the direction of J. Mills and V. Broughton. Several parts of this new edition, entitled Bliss Bibliographic Classification, have been published.

Footnote

Original in: Bliss, H.E.: A bibliographic classification extended by systematic auxuliary schedules for composite specification and notation. vols 1-2. 2nd ed. New York: Wilson 1952. S.3-11.

0.016457738 = product of:
  0.032915477 = sum of:
    0.032915477 = product of:
      0.06583095 = sum of:
        0.06583095 = weight(_text_:bibliographic in 3487) [ClassicSimilarity], result of:
          0.06583095 = score(doc=3487,freq=6.0), product of:
            0.17672792 = queryWeight, product of:
              3.893044 = idf(docFreq=2449, maxDocs=44218)
              0.045395818 = queryNorm
            0.3724989 = fieldWeight in 3487, product of:
              2.4494898 = tf(freq=6.0), with freq of:
                6.0 = termFreq=6.0
              3.893044 = idf(docFreq=2449, maxDocs=44218)
              0.0390625 = fieldNorm(doc=3487)
      0.5 = coord(1/2)
  0.5 = coord(1/2)

Abstract

This paper argues that the semantic axis of bibliographic classification systems can be found in the various warrants that have been used to justify the utility of classification systems. Classificationists, theorists, and critics have emphasized the syntactic aspects of classification theories and systems, but a number of semantic warrants can be identified. The evolution of four semantic warrants is traced through the development of twentieth-century classification theory: literary warrant, scientific/philosophical warrant, educational warrant, and cultural warrant. It is concluded that further examination of semantic warrants might make possible a rationalized approach to the creation of classification systems for particular uses. The attention of scholars on faceted schemes and classificatory structures had heretofore pulled our attention to the syntactic aspects (e.g., concept division and citation order), with semantics being considered more or less a question of the terms and their relationships and somewhat taken for granted, or at least construed as a unitary aspect. Attention is on the choice of the classes and their meaning, as well as their connection to the world, and not so much on their syntactic relationship. This notion is developed by providing an historical and conceptual overview of the various kinds of warrant discernible in working with bibliographic systems. In Beghtol's definition, warrant concerns more than just the selection of terms, but rather the mapping of a classification system to the context and uses.

0.016125225 = product of:
  0.03225045 = sum of:
    0.03225045 = product of:
      0.0645009 = sum of:
        0.0645009 = weight(_text_:bibliographic in 3651) [ClassicSimilarity], result of:
          0.0645009 = score(doc=3651,freq=16.0), product of:
            0.17672792 = queryWeight, product of:
              3.893044 = idf(docFreq=2449, maxDocs=44218)
              0.045395818 = queryNorm
            0.3649729 = fieldWeight in 3651, product of:
              4.0 = tf(freq=16.0), with freq of:
                16.0 = termFreq=16.0
              3.893044 = idf(docFreq=2449, maxDocs=44218)
              0.0234375 = fieldNorm(doc=3651)
      0.5 = coord(1/2)
  0.5 = coord(1/2)

Abstract

This paper, presented at the Ottawa Conference an the Conceptual Basis of the Classification of Knowledge, in 1971, is one of Fairthorne's more perceptive works and deserves a wide audience, especially as it breaks new ground in classification theory. In discussing the notion of discourse, he makes a "distinction between what discourse mentions and what discourse is about" [emphasis added], considered as a "fundamental factor to the relativistic nature of bibliographic classification" (p. 360). A table of mathematical functions, for example, describes exactly something represented by a collection of digits, but, without a preface, this table does not fit into a broader context. Some indication of the author's intent ls needed to fit the table into a broader context. This intent may appear in a title, chapter heading, class number or some other aid. Discourse an and discourse about something "cannot be determined solely from what it mentions" (p. 361). Some kind of background is needed. Fairthorne further develops the theme that knowledge about a subject comes from previous knowledge, thus adding a temporal factor to classification. "Some extra textual criteria are needed" in order to classify (p. 362). For example, "documents that mention the same things, but are an different topics, will have different ancestors, in the sense of preceding documents to which they are linked by various bibliographic characteristics ... [and] ... they will have different descendants" (p. 363). The classifier has to distinguish between documents that "mention exactly the same thing" but are not about the same thing. The classifier does this by classifying "sets of documents that form their histories, their bibliographic world lines" (p. 363). The practice of citation is one method of performing the linking and presents a "fan" of documents connected by a chain of citations to past work. The fan is seen as the effect of generations of documents - each generation connected to the previous one, and all ancestral to the present document. Thus, there are levels in temporal structure-that is, antecedent and successor documents-and these require that documents be identified in relation to other documents. This gives a set of documents an "irrevocable order," a loose order which Fairthorne calls "bibliographic time," and which is "generated by the fact of continual growth" (p. 364). He does not consider "bibliographic time" to be an equivalent to physical time because bibliographic events, as part of communication, require delay. Sets of documents, as indicated above, rather than single works, are used in classification. While an event, a person, a unique feature of the environment, may create a class of one-such as the French Revolution, Napoleon, Niagara Falls-revolutions, emperors, and waterfalls are sets which, as sets, will subsume individuals and make normal classes.
The fan of past documents may be seen across time as a philosophical "wake," translated documents as a sideways relationship and future documents as another fan spreading forward from a given document (p. 365). The "overlap of reading histories can be used to detect common interests among readers," (p. 365) and readers may be classified accordingly. Finally, Fairthorne rejects the notion of a "general" classification, which he regards as a mirage, to be replaced by a citation-type network to identify classes. An interesting feature of his work lies in his linkage between old and new documents via a bibliographic method-citations, authors' names, imprints, style, and vocabulary - rather than topical (subject) terms. This is an indirect method of creating classes. The subject (aboutness) is conceived as a finite, common sharing of knowledge over time (past, present, and future) as opposed to the more common hierarchy of topics in an infinite schema assumed to be universally useful. Fairthorne, a mathematician by training, is a prolific writer an the foundations of classification and information. His professional career includes work with the Royal Engineers Chemical Warfare Section and the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE). He was the founder of the Computing Unit which became the RAE Mathematics Department.

0.006651316 = product of:
  0.013302632 = sum of:
    0.013302632 = product of:
      0.026605263 = sum of:
        0.026605263 = weight(_text_:bibliographic in 3631) [ClassicSimilarity], result of:
          0.026605263 = score(doc=3631,freq=2.0), product of:
            0.17672792 = queryWeight, product of:
              3.893044 = idf(docFreq=2449, maxDocs=44218)
              0.045395818 = queryNorm
            0.15054363 = fieldWeight in 3631, product of:
              1.4142135 = tf(freq=2.0), with freq of:
                2.0 = termFreq=2.0
              3.893044 = idf(docFreq=2449, maxDocs=44218)
              0.02734375 = fieldNorm(doc=3631)
      0.5 = coord(1/2)
  0.5 = coord(1/2)

Abstract

The Colon Classification has not been widely adopted; however, the theory of facet analysis and synthesis Ranganathan developed has proved to be most influential. Although many theorists of subject analysis do not totally agree with his fundamental categories or citation order, Ranganathan's concept of facet analysis and synthesis has provided a viable method and a framework for approaching subject analysis and has become the foundation of subject analysis in the twentieth century. In this sense, his theory laid the groundwork for later investigations and inquiries into the nature of subject and classificatory categories and citation order. His influence is felt in all modern classification schemes and indexing systems. This is attested to by the citations to his ideas and works in numerous papers included in this collection and by the fact that other modern classification systems such as the Dewey Decimal Classification and the Bliss Bibliographic Classification have become increasingly faceted in recent editions. The following chapter from Elements of Library Classification represents one of Ranganathan's many expositions of facet analysis and fundamental categories. It is chosen because of its clarity of expression and comprehensibility (many readers find the majority of his writings difficult to understand).