Knowledge organization

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Knowledge organization (KO), organization of knowledge, organization of information, or information organization, is an intellectual discipline concerned with activities such as document description, indexing, and classification that serve to provide systems of representation and order for knowledge and information objects. According to The Organization of Information by Joudrey and Taylor, information organization:

Contents

examines the activities carried out and tools used by people who work in places that accumulate information resources (e.g., books, maps, documents, datasets, images) for the use of humankind, both immediately and for posterity. It discusses the processes that are in place to make resources findable, whether someone is searching for a single known item or is browsing through hundreds of resources just hoping to discover something useful. Information organization supports a myriad of information-seeking scenarios. [1]

Issues related to knowledge sharing can be said to have been an important part of knowledge management for a long time. Knowledge sharing has received a lot of attention in research and business practice both within and outside organizations and its different levels. [2]

Sharing knowledge is not only about giving it to others, but it also includes searching, locating, and absorbing knowledge. Unawareness of the employees' work and duties tends to provoke the repetition of mistakes, the waste of resources, and duplication of the same projects. Motivating co-workers to share their knowledge is called knowledge enabling. It leads to trust among individuals and encourages a more open and proactive relationship that grants the exchange of information easily. [3]

Knowledge sharing is part of the three-phase knowledge management process which is a continuous process model. The three parts are knowledge creation, knowledge implementation, and knowledge sharing. The process is continuous, which is why the parts cannot be fully separated. Knowledge creation is the consequence of individuals' minds, interactions, and activities. Developing new ideas and arrangements allude to the process of knowledge creation. Using the knowledge which is present at the company in the most effective manner stands for the implementation of knowledge. Knowledge sharing, the most essential part of the process for our topic, takes place when two or more people benefit by learning from each other. [4]

Traditional human-based approaches performed by librarians, archivists, and subject specialists are increasingly challenged by computational (big data) algorithmic techniques. KO as a field of study is concerned with the nature and quality of such knowledge-organizing processes (KOP) (such as taxonomy and ontology) as well as the resulting knowledge organizing systems (KOS).

Theoretical approaches

Traditional approaches

Among the major figures in the history of KO are Melvil Dewey (1851–1931) and Henry Bliss (1870–1955).

Dewey's goal was an efficient way to manage library collections; not an optimal system to support users of libraries. His system was meant to be used in many libraries as a standardized way to manage collections. The first version of this system was created in 1876. [5]

An important characteristic in Henry Bliss' (and many contemporary thinkers of KO) was that the sciences tend to reflect the order of Nature and that library classification should reflect the order of knowledge as uncovered by science:

Natural order → Scientific classification → Library classification (KO)

The implication is that librarians, in order to classify books, should know about scientific developments. This should also be reflected in their education:

Again from the standpoint of the higher education of librarians, the teaching of systems of classification ... would be perhaps better conducted by including courses in the systematic encyclopedia and methodology of all the sciences, that is to say, outlines which try to summarize the most recent results in the relation to one another in which they are now studied together. ... (Ernest Cushing Richardson, quoted from Bliss, 1935, p. 2)

Among the other principles, which may be attributed to the traditional approach to KO are:

Today, after more than 100 years of research and development in LIS, the "traditional" approach still has a strong position in KO and in many ways its principles still dominate.

Facet analytic approaches

The date of the foundation of this approach may be chosen as the publication of S. R. Ranganathan's colon classification in 1933. The approach has been further developed by, in particular, the British Classification Research Group.

The best way to explain this approach is probably to explain its analytico-synthetic methodology. The meaning of the term "analysis" is: breaking down each subject into its basic concepts. The meaning of the term synthesis is: combining the relevant units and concepts to describe the subject matter of the information package in hand.

Given subjects (as they appear in, for example, book titles) are first analyzed into a few common categories, which are termed "facets". Ranganathan proposed his PMEST formula: Personality, Matter, Energy, Space and Time:

The information retrieval tradition (IR)

Important in the IR-tradition have been, among others, the Cranfield experiments, which were founded in the 1950s, and the TREC experiments (Text Retrieval Conferences) starting in 1992. It was the Cranfield experiments, which introduced the measures "recall" and "precision" as evaluation criteria for systems efficiency. The Cranfield experiments found that classification systems like UDC and facet-analytic systems were less efficient compared to free-text searches or low level indexing systems ("UNITERM"). The Cranfield I test found, according to Ellis (1996, 3–6) the following results:

systemrecall
UNITERM 82,0%
Alphabetical subject headings 81,5%
UDC 75,6%
Facet classification scheme 73,8%

Although these results have been criticized and questioned, the IR-tradition became much more influential while library classification research lost influence. The dominant trend has been to regard only statistical averages. What has largely been neglected is to ask: Are there certain kinds of questions in relation to which other kinds of representation, for example, controlled vocabularies, may improve recall and precision?

User-oriented and cognitive views

The best way to define this approach is probably by method: Systems based upon user-oriented approaches must specify how the design of a system is made on the basis of empirical studies of users.

User studies demonstrated very early that users prefer verbal search systems as opposed to systems based on classification notations. This is one example of a principle derived from empirical studies of users. Adherents of classification notations may, of course, still have an argument: That notations are well-defined and that users may miss important information by not considering them.

Folksonomies is a recent kind of KO based on users' rather than on librarians' or subject specialists' indexing.

Bibliometric approaches

These approaches are primarily based on using bibliographical references to organize networks of papers, mainly by bibliographic coupling (introduced by Kessler 1963) or co-citation analysis ( independently suggested by Marshakova 1973 [8] and Small 1973). In recent years it has become a popular activity to construe bibliometric maps as structures of research fields.

Two considerations are important in considering bibliometric approaches to KO:

  1. The level of indexing depth is partly determined by the number of terms assigned to each document. In citation indexing this corresponds to the number of references in a given paper. On the average, scientific papers contain 10–15 references, which provide quite a high level of depth.
  2. The references, which function as access points, are provided by the highest subject-expertise: The experts writing in the leading journals. This expertise is much higher than that which library catalogs or bibliographical databases typically are able to draw on.

The domain analytic approach

Domain analysis is a sociological-epistemological standpoint that advocates that the indexing of a given document should reflect the needs of a given group of users or a given ideal purpose. In other words, any description or representation of a given document is more or less suited to the fulfillment of certain tasks. A description is never objective or neutral, and the goal is not to standardize descriptions or make one description once and for all for different target groups.

The development of the Danish library "KVINFO" may serve as an example that explains the domain-analytic point of view.

KVINFO was founded by the librarian and writer Nynne Koch and its history goes back to 1965. Nynne Koch was employed at the Royal Library in Copenhagen in a position without influence on book selection. She was interested in women's studies and began personally to collect printed catalog cards of books in the Royal Library, which were considered relevant for women's studies. She developed a classification system for this subject. Later she became the head of KVINFO and got a budget for buying books and journals, and still later, KVINFO became an independent library. The important theoretical point of view is that the Royal Library had an official systematic catalog of a high standard. Normally it is assumed that such a catalog is able to identify relevant books for users whatever their theoretical orientation. This example demonstrates, however, that for a specific user group (feminist scholars), an alternative way of organizing catalog cards was important. In other words: Different points of view need different systems of organization.

Domain analysis has examined epistemological issues in the field, i.e. comparing the assumptions made in different approaches to KO and examining the questions regarding subjectivity and objectivity in KO. Subjectivity is not just about individual differences. Such differences are of minor interest because they cannot be used as guidelines for KO. What seems important are collective views shared by many users. A kind of subjectivity about many users is related to philosophical positions. In any field of knowledge different views are always at play. In arts, for example, different views of art are always present. Such views determine views on art works, writing on art works, how art works are organized in exhibitions and how writings on art are organized in libraries. In general it can be stated that different philosophical positions on any issue have implications for relevance criteria, information needs and for criteria of organizing knowledge.

Other approaches

One widely used analysis of information-organizational principles, attributed to Richard Saul Wurman, summarizes them as Location, Alphabet, Time, Category, Hierarchy (LATCH). [9] [10]

See also

Related Research Articles

Information retrieval (IR) in computing and information science is the process of obtaining information system resources that are relevant to an information need from a collection of those resources. Searches can be based on full-text or other content-based indexing. Information retrieval is the science of searching for information in a document, searching for documents themselves, and also searching for the metadata that describes data, and for databases of texts, images or sounds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Library classification</span> Systems of coding and organizing documents or library materials

A library classification is a system of organization of knowledge in which sources are arranged according to the classification scheme and ordered very systematically. Library classifications are a notational system that represents the order of topics in the classification and allows items to be stored in the order of classification. Library classification systems group related materials together, typically arranged as a hierarchical tree structure. A different kind of classification system, called a faceted classification system, is also widely used, which allows the assignment of multiple classifications to an object, enabling the classifications to be ordered in many ways.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Information science</span> Academic field concerned with collection and analysis of information

Information science is an academic field which is primarily concerned with analysis, collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval, movement, dissemination, and protection of information. Practitioners within and outside the field study the application and the usage of knowledge in organizations in addition to the interaction between people, organizations, and any existing information systems with the aim of creating, replacing, improving, or understanding the information systems.

Information architecture (IA) is the structural design of shared information environments; the art and science of organizing and labelling websites, intranets, online communities and software to support usability and findability; and an emerging community of practice focused on bringing principles of design, architecture and information science to the digital landscape. Typically, it involves a model or concept of information that is used and applied to activities which require explicit details of complex information systems. These activities include library systems and database development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Library catalog</span> Register of bibliographic items

A library catalog is a register of all bibliographic items found in a library or group of libraries, such as a network of libraries at several locations. A catalog for a group of libraries is also called a union catalog. A bibliographic item can be any information entity that is considered library material, or a group of library materials, or linked from the catalog as far as it is relevant to the catalog and to the users (patrons) of the library.

Classification is a process related to categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated and understood. Classification is the grouping of related facts into classes. It may also refer to a process which brings together like things and separates unlike things.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glossary of library and information science</span>

This page is a glossary of library and information science.

A faceted classification is a classification scheme used in organizing knowledge into a systematic order. A faceted classification uses semantic categories, either general or subject-specific, that are combined to create the full classification entry. Many library classification systems use a combination of a fixed, enumerative taxonomy of concepts with subordinate facets that further refine the topic.

Document classification or document categorization is a problem in library science, information science and computer science. The task is to assign a document to one or more classes or categories. This may be done "manually" or algorithmically. The intellectual classification of documents has mostly been the province of library science, while the algorithmic classification of documents is mainly in information science and computer science. The problems are overlapping, however, and there is therefore interdisciplinary research on document classification.

In information science, authority control is a process that organizes information, for example in library catalogs, by using a single, distinct spelling of a name (heading) or a numeric identifier for each topic. The word authority in authority control derives from the idea that the names of people, places, things, and concepts are authorized, i.e., they are established in one particular form. These one-of-a-kind headings or identifiers are applied consistently throughout catalogs which make use of the respective authority file, and are applied for other methods of organizing data such as linkages and cross references. Each controlled entry is described in an authority record in terms of its scope and usage, and this organization helps the library staff maintain the catalog and make it user-friendly for researchers.

Controlled vocabularies provide a way to organize knowledge for subsequent retrieval. They are used in subject indexing schemes, subject headings, thesauri, taxonomies and other knowledge organization systems. Controlled vocabulary schemes mandate the use of predefined, preferred terms that have been preselected by the designers of the schemes, in contrast to natural language vocabularies, which have no such restriction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cataloging (library science)</span> Process of creating meta-data for information resources to include in a catalog database

In library and information science, cataloging (US) or cataloguing (UK) is the process of creating metadata representing information resources, such as books, sound recordings, moving images, etc. Cataloging provides information such as author's names, titles, and subject terms that describe resources, typically through the creation of bibliographic records. The records serve as surrogates for the stored information resources. Since the 1970s these metadata are in machine-readable form and are indexed by information retrieval tools, such as bibliographic databases or search engines. While typically the cataloging process results in the production of library catalogs, it also produces other types of discovery tools for documents and collections.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of library and information science</span> Overview of and topical guide to library science

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to library science:

Subject indexing is the act of describing or classifying a document by index terms, keywords, or other symbols in order to indicate what different documents are about, to summarize their contents or to increase findability. In other words, it is about identifying and describing the subject of documents. Indexes are constructed, separately, on three distinct levels: terms in a document such as a book; objects in a collection such as a library; and documents within a field of knowledge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metadata</span> Data about data

Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data itself, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including:

The Cranfield experiments were a series of experimental studies in information retrieval conducted by Cyril W. Cleverdon at the College of Aeronautics, today known as Cranfield University, in the 1960s to evaluate the efficiency of indexing systems. The experiments were broken into two main phases, neither of which was computerized. The entire collection of abstracts, resulting indexes and results were later distributed in electronic format and were widely used for decades.

In library and information science documents are classified and searched by subject – as well as by other attributes such as author, genre and document type. This makes "subject" a fundamental term in this field. Library and information specialists assign subject labels to documents to make them findable. There are many ways to do this and in general there is not always consensus about which subject should be assigned to a given document. To optimize subject indexing and searching, we need to have a deeper understanding of what a subject is. The question: "what is to be understood by the statement 'document A belongs to subject category X'?" has been debated in the field for more than 100 years

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kropyvnytskyi Region Universal Research Library</span>

The Kropyvnytskyi Regional Universal Research Library (RURL) is one of the oldest research libraries in Ukraine and the largest in the region. The library was named after D.I. Chyzhevskyi. It has universal books and documents on traditional and modern media. It houses collections of precious and rare publications and is the depositary of publications on local lore.

Dewey-free refers to library classification schemes developed as alternatives to Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC). Dewey-free systems are often based on the BISAC subject headings developed by the Book Industry Study Group, and are typically implemented in libraries with smaller collections. Instead of using numerical notation to indicate a document's shelving location, Dewey-free systems organize documents alphabetically by natural language words. Dewey-free systems have been implemented in both public and school libraries.

The Brian Deer Classification System (BDC) is a library classification system used to organize materials in libraries with specialized Indigenous collections. The system was created in the mid-1970s by Canadian librarian A. Brian Deer, a Kahnawake Mohawk. It has been adapted for use in a British Columbia version, and also by a small number of First Nations libraries in Canada.

References

  1. ↑ Joudrey, Daniel N., and Arlene G. Taylor. The Organization of Information, 4th ed. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited, 2018, p. 1. ISBN   9781598848595 OCLC   1005741949
  2. ↑ Rese, A., Kopplin, C. S. & Nielebock, C.(2020). Factors influencing members' knowledge sharing and creative performance in coworking spaces. Journal of knowledge management. Ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print)
  3. ↑ Yasir, M. & Majid, A. (2017). Impact of knowledge management enablers on knowledge sharing. World Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development. 13(1), p. 16–33.
  4. ↑ Intezari, A., Taskin, N., & Pauleen, D. J. (2017). Looking beyond knowledge sharing: an integra-tive approach to knowledge management culture. Journal of Knowledge Management. 21(2), p. 492–515.
  5. ↑ Miksa, Francis. 1998. The DDC, the Universe of Knowledge, and the Post-Modern Library. Albany, NY: Forest Press.
  6. ↑ HULME, E.W. Principles of book classification. Library Association Record, n.13–4, 1911–1912.
  7. ↑ Barité, Mario. 2018. "Literary warrant". Knowledge Organization 45, no. 6: 517–536.
  8. ↑ "System of Document Connections Based on References" (PDF). Nauchn-Techn.Inform. 1973.
  9. ↑ Wurman, Richard Saul (1989). Information Anxiety. New York: Doubleday. ISBN   0385243944. OCLC   18442022.
  10. ↑ Greene, David (October 1998). "LATCH: a syllabus design for EFL instruction in CALL". Computer Assisted Language Learning. 11 (4): 381–396. doi:10.1076/call.11.4.381.5668.
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