Page 141 - DLIS002_KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION CLASSIFICATION AND CATALOGUING THEORY

Knowledge Organization: Classification and Cataloguing Theory

Notes Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:
5. There is only one standard systems of library classification.
6. Enumerative subject headings are listed alphabetically.

7.4 Work of Classification in Three Planes

Ranganathan suggested that information is created in three steps (each in a separate location or
plane). An initial idea occurs in someone’s mind (the idea plane); then it is described or discussed
in words (the verbal plane); and finally it is written down (the notation plane).
1. Idea Plane: Ranganathan and Gopinath (1967) said, “The destiny of any idea created by
one mind is the minds of the others. The others too need the ideas to be communicated to
them.”
There are lots of approaches to the concept of ideas (the idea of ideas?). Neurolinguists
might refer to an excited state of neurons and axons; philosophers might refer to a mental
image; mathematicians might refer to a perceived pattern; and psychologists might refer
to a particular mental state. For the moment, because it is the most general definition and
is understood by the largest audience, let us select the philosophers’ approach. (If you
know me, you know how painful writing that last sentence was.)
But even the philosophers’ stance isn’t enough. The idea must live within a mental
environment comprising the person’s other ideas and attitudes and feelings. In other
words, ideas are part of a system which we will call a mental state. The idea is the black
box and the thinker’s mind is the environment which modifies the idea.

2. Verbal Plane: Again, from the Prolegomena to Library Classification (Ranganathan and
Gopinath, 1967): “Along with the capacity to create ideas, came also the capacity to develop
an articulate language as medium for communication.”
The work of the language plane is that of organization, formalization, and translation
which might not be necessary if we could communicate through a Vulcan mind meld. On
the other hand, our ideas are often rather amorphous; if we sent this column directly (my
mind to your mind) it would probably be seriously confused.

3. Notational Plane: Finally, about notation, Ranganathan and Gopinath (1967) said, “Words
are often replaced by symbols pregnant with precise meaning. Ordinal numbers are often
used as helpful symbols. A distinctive contribution of the discipline of classification, as
found and as being cultivated in the field of Library Science, is the Notational Plane.
Uniqueness of the idea represented by an ordinal number and the total absence of
homonyms and synonyms are the distinctive features of the notational plane, when
compared with the verbal plane.”
Work on the notation plane is a form of coding. A DDC number represents specific categorical
language defined in authorized manuals. The same is true of an LC mark (except that it is
alphanumeric). Computers represent work on the language plane with ones and zeros (or their
electrical analogues). An older example of work on the notation plane is shorthand writing in
which words spoken in the presence of the note taker are converted to marks that most of us
can’t read.

Some of these examples beg the question of whether externalized (written and spoken) language
represents work on the language plane or work on the notation plane. What, in other words, is
the difference between the verbal plane and the notation plane? If Ranganathan’s work is taken

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