Page 225 - DLIS002_KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION CLASSIFICATION AND CATALOGUING THEORY

Knowledge Organization: Classification and Cataloguing Theory

Notes
For instance, at Rakow, “Pack Your Bags” brings together travel books and language
books, which would be separate under Dewey, but which people planning a trip often
want together.
Some readers, like Gena McNamara of Elgin, remain sceptical.

While the system may be good for new books, McNamara questioned how easy it is to
find works by genre, such as “Thriller” and “Horror,” as she discovered when looking for
movies.
“In whose eyes is it a comedy, a drama, or action?” she asked. “You’d have to look in three
different sections … which are useless.”

Some librarians share those concerns, calling BISAC part of a fad to dumb down libraries.
They say libraries can be more user-friendly simply by putting better signs with subject
headings on existing Dewey shelves.
Other librarians fear a lack of standardization will mean chaos when lending books
between libraries, or for librarians working in different systems.

Rather than Dewey, most academic libraries use the Library of Congress classification,
which is more efficient and specific for large collections and new technical material, but
also more complex. The Chicago Public Library, which uses Library of Congress, tries to
keep it user-friendly by separating the most popular or timely books into bookstore-style
display areas.
The debate between Dewey and BISAC enflames passions in the stereotypically staid
domain of librarians.

Question
Critically analyse the challenging task before these libraries.
Source:http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-02-18/news/ct-met-drop-dewey-20110218_1_dewey-
decimal-system-main-library-newer-books

11.4 Summary

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.

Classification theorists have attempted to ‘discipline epistemology’ in the sense of imposing
main class structures with the view to simplifying access to knowledge in documents for
library users.
A number of classification theorists were particularly interested in the establishment of
symbolic languages through notation.

Knowledge organisation systems are first and foremost concerned with surrogates, in the
case of library classification schemes, of symbolic notation standing in place of ‘subject
terms’ representing ‘concepts’.

Classification experts and librarians have long recognized the potential of library
classification schemes for improving subject access to information.

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’.

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