Page 216 - DLIS002_KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION CLASSIFICATION AND CATALOGUING THEORY

Reena Kapoor, Lovely Professional University Unit 11: Chain Procedure

Unit 11: Chain Procedure Notes

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction

11.1 Classification Scheme Relationship
11.2 Postulate-based Permuted Subject Indexing (POPSI)
11.3 Preserved Context Indexing System (PRECIS)

11.4 Summary
11.5 Keywords
11.6 Review Questions
11.7 Further Readings

Objectives

After studying this unit, you will be able to:

Explain the Classification Scheme Relationship
Discuss the Postulate-based Permuted Subject Indexing (POPSI)
Describe the Preserved Context Indexing System (PRECIS)

Introduction

Now a days most of the documents deal with complex and compound subjects; each comprising
a number of components or concepts. The coordination of these component terms is either done
at the input stage or at the output stage. The index in which the coordination of components
(index terms) is done at the input stage, is known as pre-coordinate index. Coordination of index
terms at the input stage means coordination of index terms at the time of preparation of the
index by the indexer. In pre-coordinate indexing a number of selected terms or keywords are
coordinated by the indexer and the cards are prepared for display to the users.

11.1 Classification Scheme Relationship

General classification schemes for libraries are concerned with mapping knowledge so that
‘subjects’ are differentiated from each other and the relationships between ‘subjects’ are spatially
represented. Classification theorists believe that there is some sort of ‘order of things’ and that
the ‘order’, which relates to the abstract world of ideas, can be made material in the form of
highly conventionalized, symbolically annotated classification schemes. The general library
classification system developed into a tool consisting of a system of ‘classes’, made up of Main
Classes, each of which was divided into increasingly specialized sub-classes; a series of symbols,
called notation, which operate as signs signifying the classes; and an index which links subject
terms and the notational sign. The classification notation in effect becomes a symbolic language
built on what Ranganathan terms ‘natural language’. Method, order and objectivity, which carry
with them the connotations of ‘science’, are achieved in the general library classification scheme
through the rational structures and conventions of Main Classes which assert forms of logical
taxonomy, and through the artificially constructed symbols which bear with them connotations

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