Page 218 - DLIS002_KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION CLASSIFICATION AND CATALOGUING THEORY

Unit 11: Chain Procedure

summaries of the content of documents. He was enough of a positivist to believe that within Notes
documents, despite the errors and opinions therein, lies the kernel of truth in the form of ‘facts’,
and it was the ‘facts’ that he was interested in identifying and representing. He envisaged his
classificatory language becoming used to represent the skeleton of ‘meaning’ in the form of
‘facts’ found within the flabbiness of the original document. Essentially, the symbols of UDC
were to form a scientific language with which one could cut through the ambiguities and
complexities of ‘natural language’.

Task Do you think that Knowledge organisation systems are first and foremost concerned
with surrogates, in the case of library classification schemes? If yes, give reasons.
For Ranganathan, notational language could at least theoretically function as a system of material
signs signifying aspects of individual experience not translatable into ‘natural language’. S.R.
Ranganathan was an Indian librarian who studied under Berwick Sayersat UCL’s School of
Librarianship. His Colon Classification scheme, based on faceted classification, was a completely
novel approach to organising knowledge in libraries. Colon classification was not a hierarchically
derived scheme: it was rather a set of independent tables for subjects, for relations, forms and
other aspects of classification, each one of which could be used in combination with other tables
to sub-divide. Berwick Sayers describes these tables as parts of a ‘Meccano set which by the use
of nuts and bolts can be used for many different constructions.’

Did u know? All division of subjects in this scheme is determined by what Ranganathan
calls the ‘fundamental concepts’: Time, Space, Energy, Matter and Personality, but the
specific meanings of these concepts are determined by the context in which they occur.

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:
1. The general library classification system developed into a tool consisting of a system of
‘classes’ made up of Main Classes.
2. The taxonomies are not the product of rational, and are not pragmatic and functionalist,
worldviews.
3. A number of classification theorists were particularly interested in the establishment of
symbolic languages through notation.
4. Classification experts and librarians have not recognized the potential of library
classification schemes for improving subject access to information.

5. S.R. Ranganathan was an Indian librarian who studied under Berwick Sayers at UCL’s
School of Librarianship.

11.2 Postulate-based Permuted Subject Indexing (POPSI)

Postulate-based Permuted Subject Index (POPSI), designed by Ganesh Bhattacharyya at the
Documentation Research and Training Centre (DRTC), Bangalore, is another indigenous indexing
model besides Ranganathan’s Chain Procedure. It is now about fifteen years since it has been
designed and is in the process of further development, particularly in its application. POPSI can
be applied to micro and macro level documents available in the form of non-print/non-book

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