Broughton, V.: Essential classification (2004)
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- Abstract
- Classification is a crucial skill for all information workers involved in organizing collections, but it is a difficult concept to grasp - and is even more difficult to put into practice. Essential Classification offers full guidance an how to go about classifying a document from scratch. This much-needed text leads the novice classifier step by step through the basics of subject cataloguing, with an emphasis an practical document analysis and classification. It deals with fundamental questions of the purpose of classification in different situations, and the needs and expectations of end users. The novice is introduced to the ways in which document content can be assessed, and how this can best be expressed for translation into the language of specific indexing and classification systems. The characteristics of the major general schemes of classification are discussed, together with their suitability for different classification needs.
- Footnote
- In Chapter 10, "Controlled indexing languages," Professor Broughton states that a classification scheme is truly a language "since it permits communication and the exchange of information" (p. 89), a Statement with which this reviewer wholly agrees. Chapter 11, however, "Word-based approaches to retrieval," moves us to a different field altogether, offering only a narrow view of the whole world of controlled indexing languages such as thesauri, and presenting disconnected discussions of alphabetical filing, form and structure of subject headings, modern developments in alphabetical subject indexing, etc. Chapters 12 and 13 focus an the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), without even a passing reference to existing subject headings lists in other languages (French RAMEAU, German SWK, etc.). If it is not surprising to see a section on subject headings in a book on classification, the two subjects being taught together in most library schools, the location of this section in the middle of this particular book is more difficult to understand. Chapter 14 brings the reader back to classification, for a discussion of essentials of classification scheme application. The following five chapters present in turn each one of the three major and currently used bibliographic classification schemes, in order of increasing complexity and difficulty of application. The Library of Congress Classification (LCC), the easiest to use, is covered in chapters 15 and 16. The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) deserves only a one-chapter treatment (Chapter 17), while the functionalities of the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC), which Professor Broughton knows extremely well, are described in chapters 18 and 19. Chapter 20 is a general discussion of faceted classification, on par with the first seven chapters for its theoretical content. Chapter 21, an interesting last chapter on managing classification, addresses down-to-earth matters such as the cost of classification, the need for re-classification, advantages and disadvantages of using print versions or e-versions of classification schemes, choice of classification scheme, general versus special scheme. But although the questions are interesting, the chapter provides only a very general overview of what appropriate answers might be. To facilitate reading and learning, summaries are strategically located at various places in the text, and always before switching to a related subject. Professor Broughton's choice of examples is always interesting, and sometimes even entertaining (see for example "Inside out: A brief history of underwear" (p. 71)). With many examples, however, and particularly those that appear in the five chapters an classification scheme applications, the novice reader would have benefited from more detailed explanations. On page 221, for example, "The history and social influence of the potato" results in this analysis of concepts: Potato - Sociology, and in the UDC class number: 635.21:316. What happened to the "history" aspect? Some examples are not very convincing: in Animals RT Reproduction and Art RT Reproduction (p. 102), the associative relationship is not appropriate as it is used to distinguish homographs and would do nothing to help either the indexer or the user at the retrieval stage.
