INFO 340 Information Retrieval Categorization, Order and Authority

Order & Classification/Categorization The concept of order and categorization continues to evolve – As recently as last century, Mortimer Adler – American Educator, Philosopher, Encyclopedia Britannica though leader – fought against the use of alphabetization as a mechanism for ordering – He wanted the encyclopedia, amongst other things, arranged alphabetically – He called alphabetization “intellectual dereliction”

Order & Classification/Categorization 1952 – Adler wrote & Britannica published Great Books of the Western World – Chronologically ordered – 443 ‘great works’ of Western history – 54 volumes – Syntopicon – 1 st two volumes – 102 ‘Great Ideas’ Adler wrote Propaedia – ‘Outline of Knowledge’ – 186 sections arranged in 10 topics – He said it, “captures the intellectual heterodoxy of our time” What’s the issue ? – Work of one man & his perspective & biases

Order & Classification/Categorization Spatial Ordering – Dewey Decimal system – 1876 Philosophy 100s Religion 200s Social sciences 300s Language, natural sciences, & math 500s Technology & applied sciences 600s Arts & recreation 700s Literature & rhetoric 800s Geography, history, & biography 900s – Physical layout of libraries reflected basic structure of knowledge

Order & Classification/Categorization Philosophy 100sTechnology & applied sciences 600s Religion 200sArts & recreation 700s Social sciences 300sLiterature & rhetoric 800s Language, natural sciences, & math 500s Geography, history, & biography 900s -- Dewey believed library physical layout should reflect this basic structure of knowledge. -- Whole numbers provide top level categorization within these classes -- Subcategories are indicated with decimals to the right of the whole number

Order & Classification/Categorization Some issues w/Dewey’s system – Ultimately tree-like w/several roots Philosophy, Religion, Social Sciences, etc Each tree always implies a top or root and hence an order. For example, – 8 of the 9 major divisions under Religion are explicitly for Christian books – Judaism gets its own whole number (296) – Islam shares its number with two other religions (Babism & Baha’i (297) – Buddhism doesn’t even get a whole number (294.3)

Order & Classification/Categorization Other classification tidbits – Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 1952 – homosexuality listed as ‘sociopathic personality disturbance’ 1968 – first entry under disorder 302, “Sexual Deviations” 1972 – taken off ‘sick list’ Categorizing, classifying, and ordering – and who does it – is powerful

Order & Classification/Categorization Dewey’s biographer Wiegand writes, “the organization of knowledge Dewey produced solidified “a worldview and knowledge structure taught [on a particular college campus (Amherst)] between ” (Weinberger & Weigand) This is not knocking those that created ordering systems before (or that create them now) – They usually provided order where there was not before. What good is a library if you can’t find a book ? What good is a phone book if you can’t find a name ? However, it is important for us to know the biases of those systems as well as the limitations of those systems

Order & Classification/Categorization Other early cataloguing systems: – Library at Alexandria organized by poet Callimachus 3 rd century BCE 120 volume catalogue of over 400,000 scrolls – Catalogues frequently used topical categorization such as by type of author – poet, lawmaker, historian, etc. – Just 50 years after Gutenberg’s printing press, some libraries organized by size because of the volume of books – Charles Coffin Jewett, Smithsonian librarian developed his own system in 1852 and … came up with the idea of putting the catalogue entries on cards

Order & Classification/Categorization Other cataloguing systems – S. R. Ranganathan born in Southern India in 1892 Proposed 5 basic areas of classification or facets – Personality, matter, energy, space, & time – Created a ‘colon classification’ system » Eg, a book on management of Indian banks up to 1950 would be: X62:8.44’N5” » X for economics (personality), 62 for banks (matter), 8 for management (energy), 44 for India (space), and N5 for 1950 (time)

Order & Classification/Categorization So if Dewey Decimal System is so limited, why not fix it ? It can’t be because the classification system is fixed – – Categories & classifications change on a regular basis because, among other things, perceptions and beliefs change Some punk, hip-hop, heavy metal becomes pop World views change

Order & Classification/Categorization Classic classification system – Linnaeus (born 1702) – Divided the animals into vertebrates & invertebrates Vertebrates (which we now know contains 40,000 species) into 4 categories Invertebrates (containing approx a million species) into 2 categories Only approx 15,000 species were known at the time – Stephen Jay Gould points out that if your categorization system divides your domain into 2 lumps that are not very even, there is reason for suspicion. (Weinberger)

My desk drawer

Periodic Tables Many versions Best known is Mendeleev’s based on Atomic Number – But not necessarily most accurate – Not best in all cases

Periodic Table Mendeleev

Periodic Table

Plato & Pluto Plato – philosophical divisions of knowledge – implied there were known & natural divisions of knowledge – Compared knowledge of the world to butchering an animal Knowing where the joints of the animal were – Where to cut Suggested similarly that knowledge also has ‘natural’ points of division – but does it ? Planetary classification -- What happened to Pluto ? – CalTech astronomer discovered a chunk of ice beyond Neptune that was bigger than Pluto If it’s bigger than Pluto and it’s not a planet, should Pluto be a planet ? What exactly is a planet ? – Is it a cultural term ? Scientific term ? Both ?

Weinberger suggests 3 orders of order – 1 st order – the object itself – 2 nd order – physical redirection, e. g. card catalogue – 3 rd order – bits, almost zero-space and almost zero-time ordering Order & Classification/Categorization

Class Exercise Divide into groups of 5 – 6 & answer these questions: – Is the American political party system – roughly Republican, Democrat, and Independent the best system ? What would be better ? Why ? BTW, do you think that I implicitly gave an order of importance when I listed the parties above ? – What about the ones that I left out ? – Identify 3 sets/groups of things that are poorly classified. Why is it poorly classified ? What would you do to fix it? e.g., Albertsons.com ? Homedepot.com ?

Class Exercise Jorge Borges Classification System (from ‘a certain Chinese encylopedia’, The Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge) : 1. those that belong to the Emperor, 2. embalmed ones, 3. those that are trained, 4. suckling pigs, 5. mermaids, 6. fabulous ones, 7. stray dogs, 8. those included in the present classification, 9. those that tremble as if they were mad, 10. innumerable ones, 11. those drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, 12. others, 13. those that have just broken a flower vase, 14. those that from a long way off look like flies. Exercise: In groups, give yourselves 10 minutes to do the following: Imagine spending 4 hours in Woodland Park Zoo on a sunny day. Enumerate as many animals (caged, uncage, other) as possible for each of the above categories.