Sunday, 29 Apr 2007
Beghtol, Clare. “Semantic Validity: Concepts of Warrant in Bibliographic Classification Systems.” Library Resources & Technical Services 30 (2), Apr/Jun 1986: 109-125.
Argues “that the semantic axis of bibliographic classification systems can be found in the various warrants that have been used to justify the utility of classification systems” (109). Traces the evolution of literary, scientific/philosophical, educational and cultural warrants in the 20th century. Specifically considers the use that the Classification Research Group made of each of these warrants. E. Wyndham Hulme, credited with coining the term “literary warrant” in his 1911 paper “Principles of Book Classification,” also explicitly discussed all of these warrants at some point, except for cultural warrant, which he discussed implicitly in a series of lectures at Cambridge in 1921 and 1922.
Calls for “detailed examination of the interrelationships among various kinds of semantic warrant … before the underlying semantic theories of bibliographic classification systems can be clearly defined and their effects and advantages exploited with confidence” (122).
Recommended for anyone interested in the concept of warrant, or of the work of members of the Classification Research Group.
Thursday, 3 May 2007
Nielsen, Marianne Lykke. “A Framework for Work Task Based Thesaurus Design.” Journal of Documentation, vol. 57, no. 6, November 2001, pp. 774–797.
Cited by Tudhope, Binding, et. al. 2006. “Query expansion via conceptual distance in thesaurus indexed collections.” Journal of Documentation 62 (4):509-533.
Now that I look at the citation (p. 516), I have no idea why this was cited. Maybe I missed something when I read it yesterday; I was pretty much physically and mentally exhausted.
thesauri, thesaurus construction, task based design, group interviews, word association, content analysis, discourse analysis, person-in-situation, work domain, information environment, domain study, case study, information behavior, search behavior
Dahlberg, Ingetraut. “Conceptual Structures and Systematization.” International Forum on Information and Documentation 20 (3), 1995: 9-24.
Cited by Veltman, Kim H. “Towards a Semantic Web for Culture.” Journal of Digital Information 4 (4) abstract Read a few weeks ago.
The twentieth century brought new studies of Aristotle’s basic categories, namely, his accidents. Thinkers such as Ranganathan and Dahlberg linked form-categorical relations to syntax (Veltman, 10).
This is a good article that should have been in my relationships bibliography.
Reading Dahlberg is generally a treat, but every once in a while the Teutonic sentence structure is hard to parse out. Having lived in Germany a couple times and having had a couple semesters of college German probably make it easier for me, but every so often there’s an important and deep sentence where I can only say, “Please, this is critical to the argument. What is it saying?” I can’t seem to find it now, but I know there was at least one in this article. Anyway, anything of value is worth a little work.
Looks at the representation of knowledge by conceptualizing it in its most basic form, knowledge units or concepts. Discusses relationships between concepts, characteristics of concepts, conceptual structures for concept definitions, systematization of conceptual systems, conceptual systematization and functionality. It is in the discussions of systematization that the Information Coding Classification (ICC) is introduced. The final section is on the analytical, referent-oriented concept theory as this has been called.
It implies that any systemization of concepts presupposes an analysis of the characteristics of a concept and this analysis can only work if one can relate the necessary statements to an item of reference (22).
These ideas, written about in other venues, seem to be fundamentally important to the design of coherent and systematic conceptual structures as the basis for various classificatory structures, be they classification systems, thesauri, ontologies, etc. My concern comes with what seems to be Dahlberg’s views that these ideas can be the basis of universal conceptual structures. Dahlberg’s complaint about previous classification systems is that they were based on little in the way of principles, except the division of disciplines. Even Ranganathan fell back on disciplines as main classes after devising some true principles.
For one who has given up on a universal classification as attainable the above critique, while accurate, rings hollow. Any attempt at attaining a universal conceptual system is bound to fail. That said, these are important ideas which can and should be employed in the generation of more limited, local, classificatory structures.
Highly recommended, particularly for those interested in knowledge organization and representation.
conceptual structures, systematization, knowledge, knowledge representation, concepts, Knowledge Elements, Knowledge Unit, Concept Triangle, Concept Circle, conceptual relationships, formal relationships, form-categorical relationships, material relationships, generic relationships, abstraction relationships, partition relationships, opposition relationships, complementary relationships, functional relationships, concept characteristics, subject characteristics, meronymic relationships, concept definitions, definitions, conceptual systematization, principles, Systematifier, Information Coding Classification (ICC)
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