Page 9 - DLIS002_KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION CLASSIFICATION AND CATALOGUING THEORY

Knowledge Organization: Classification and Cataloguing Theory

Notes A class is a group of concepts that have at least one thing in common. This shared property gives
the class its identity. Classifications may be designed for various purposes. They include:
1. Scientific classification

2. Classification for retrieval
Scientific classifications arrange the phenomena of the natural world as an aid to systematic
study. They include the arrangements in systematic botany and zoology, and the table of chemical
elements, and they often form the basis of field guides. The other kind of classification is
designed for retrieval – in other words, locating the things you need. It includes documentary
classifications – that is: an aid to the management of documents, in order to make information
locatable. The distinctions are not watertight, and a documentary classification may incorporate
scientific ones, as UDC does to some extent in Chemistry, Botany and Zoology. A document is
an information carrier (2.1) – anything that is a source of information, not necessarily verbal
(it could be an image or an object).
Classes may consist of various kinds of concept, such as physical things (objects, persons, places
etc.) and their parts, activities, processes, abstract ideas.

Example:
1. Buildings (schools, churches, houses, etc.) - thin
2. Parts of buildings (doors, walls, stairways, etc.) - parts
3. Building services (joinery, glazing, plumbing, etc.) - activities
4. Architectural styles (classical, Georgian, etc.) - abstract ideas

A class may be further divided into smaller classes (or subclasses), and so on, until no further
subdivision is feasible. So classification is likely to be hierarchic, with each level of division
(except the lowest) divided into its logical subsets.

1.1.3 Classification Terminology in India

In Brussels on 16 September 1955, the General Assembly of FID adopted a resolution to prepare
a glossary of classification terms. In 1957, it was recommended and agreed, each school of
thought on the theory of classification should prepare the glossary of terms used by it and
finally these glossaries should be collated to arrive at a Universal Comprehensive Glossary of
all the classification terms. With increase in the awareness in literacy and the phenomenal
expansion and in the number of libraries in the country, there was a need to have an authoritative
and comprehensive glossary for the guidance of technical professional staff (in Classification
and Cataloguing) working in libraries. The Documentation Sectional Committee of the Indian
Standards Institution (now it is known as Bureau of Indian Standards) took up the preparation of
glossary of classification terms. Not only Indian School of Thought but also other Schools of
Thought in English speaking countries were taken.
The definitions in the first draft were taken from the ALA Glossary and the works of Henry
Evelyn’s Bliss, Donker Duyvis, S. R. Ranganathan, W. C. Berwick Sayers, B.C. Vickery and Frand
S Wangner, Jr.in the second draft included only those terms that were considered by the Sectional
Committee as fit for retention. These included some alternate terms and some definitions.
At the third and final draft, suggestions received because of wide circulation of the second draft
were considered and the final standards were prepared. This standard IS: 2550-1963 contains
23 chapters under three broad headings: Classification in general, Universe for Library
Classification and Classification of the Universe of Knowledge.

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