Indexing Languages

14,000,000 Leading Edge Experts on the ideXlab platform

Scan Science and Technology

Contact Leading Edge Experts & Companies

Scan Science and Technology

Contact Leading Edge Experts & Companies

The Experts below are selected from a list of 5040 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform

Joseph T Tennis - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • intellectual history history of ideas and subject ontogeny
    15th INTERNATIONAL ISKO CONFERENCE, 2017
    Co-Authors: Joseph T Tennis
    Abstract:

    Subtheme: Foundations and methods for Knowledge Organization Title: Intellectual History, History of Ideas, and Subject Ontogeny Objectives: Outline methodological stances in subject ontogeny research through examination of work in intellectual history, history of ideas, and in the philosophical commitments of realism and nominalism Methods: Comparative analysis and construct creation and naming, logical argumentation. Main results and conclusions: A rich vocabulary is available to us through this comparative work and we can begin to differentiate kinds of subject ontogeny work through these descriptions of methodologies. Keywords: Nature of Subjects; Subject Ontogeny; Comparative Work; Foundations in Knowledge Organization Intellectual History, History of Ideas, and Subject Ontogeny Joseph T. Tennis University of Washington In the context of subject ontogeny research, that is, the study of how subjects change or do not change through revision of Indexing Languages, there a number of methodological questions.  The nature of semantics, ideas, and subjects is a long and rich discussion in the context of knowledge organization (Raganathan, 1967; Wilson, 1968; Foskett, 1969; Hjorland, 1992; Mai, 2001; Olson, 2002; Zeng, Zumer, and Salab,a 2010; Dutta, 2015).  This discussion is kept current by Birger Hjorland’s reference work on the matter (Hjorland, 2017).  However, the discussion predates the founding of the discipline of library and information science.  Ranganathan cites the early Vedic work (fl. 1500-600 BCE) on subjects (Ranganathan, 1957).  Plato (c. 380 BCE) lists those subjects that are required for a good education of future leaders and contemplates their nature (Emlyn-Jones and Preddy 2013).  Following Plato’s dialogues the Western encyclopedists, and ultimately bibliographers, write subjects into their work, sometimes reflecting on them, but often not (c.f., Diderot and d’Almbert 1751-1772). Our contemporary preoccupation with subjects and how they remain the same or change is linked directly to our philosophical assumptions.  In this context we often talk about realism and nominalism (Bosewell, 1986).  Realism considers subjects (categories, ideas, semantics) to be “the footprints of reality… they exist because humans perceive a real order of the universe and name it,” (Bosewell, 1982 p.91).  The nominalists subscribe to “the belief that categories are only the names… of things agreed upon by humans, and that the ‘order’ people see is their creation rather than their perception,” (Bosewell, 1982 p. 91).  There are refinements and caveats to these two extremes, and there are different and various ways realism or nominalism manifests (e.g., in the mind, external to the mind, in action, or in culture).   Further, it is rare to see any researcher hold one of these beliefs absolutely.  It is possible to hold a realist position and assume the same phenomenon is named differently in different context and in different points in time.  And here is where the methodological question comes back to subject ontogeny work.  Namely, does research done in one or the other camp use different methods to arrive at a description of how a subject changes over time in the life of an Indexing language? Because of our rich tradition within and before, we can work within those context to find some answers, but to date, most of those discussions assume a kind of asynchronicity to subjects, i.e., the reason we would change our Indexing Languages, to discuss subjects, would be to add new subjects, or to further refine the subject that was already present in the Indexing language.  The subject itself does not change in this case.  It remains the same or is further specified.  However, we have a recent literature that looks at change (Fox, 2016) or the lack thereof (Lee, 2016), and builds on more than a decade of investigation into this topic (Tennis, 2002).  So if change is observed, what is changing? Is it the subject or the name or some admixture of the two?  What ways can we make arguments for any of these three camps?  This brings us to our discussion of the disciplines of intellectual history and history of ideas. In a piece from 2012, Peter Gordon addressed the relationship between intellectual history and history of ideas.  Of the former he said, “[b]roadly speaking, intellectual history is the study of intellectuals, ideas, and intellectual patters over time.  Of course, that is a terrifically large definition and it admits of a bewildering variety of approaches,” (Gordon, 2012, no page numbers given).  For this history of ideas, he says, it is a discipline “which looks at large-scale concepts as they appear and transform over the course of history.  An historian of ideas will tend to organize the historical narrative around one major idea and then follow the development or metamorphosis of that idea as it manifests itself in different contexts and times, rather a musicologist might trace a theme and all of its variations throughout the length of a symphony,” (Gordon, 2012, no page numbers given).  He goes on, “[b]y insisting that the idea is recognizably the same thing despite all of its contextual variations, the history of ideas approach tends to encourage a kind of Platonist attitude about thoughts, as if they somehow preexisted their contexts and merely manifested themselves in various landscapes,” (Gordon, 2012, no page numbers given).  In contrast, intellectual history “regards ideas as historically conditioned features of the world which are best understood within some larger context, wither it be the context of social structure and institutional change, intellectual biography (individual or collective), or some larger context of cultural or linguistic dispositions (now often called ‘discourses’),” (Gordon, 2012, no page numbers given). Using Gordon as a point of departure, I enumerate the ways in which intellectual history, the history of ideas, realist and nominalist debates, and the literature on subjects, ideas, and semantics in knowledge organization resonate with the methodological challenges borne out in contemporary subject ontogeny work.  The purpose being, to work toward providing us with a robust framework to describe our methodological stances (both philosophically and tactically) we take in describing subject change in Indexing Languages, and their deployment in information systems through time. References Boswell, J. (1982). IV: Toward the Long View Revolutions, Universals and Sexual Categories. In Salmagundi 58/59: 89-113. Diderot, D., and d’Almbert, J. l.R. (1751-1772). Encyclopedie, ou dictionnaire raisonne des sciences, des arts et des metiers. Andre le Breton, Michel-Antoine David, Laurent Durand, and Antoine-Claude Briasson. Dutta, A. (2015). Ranganathan’s elucidation of subject in the light of ‘Infinity (∞)’.  Annals of Library and Information Studies 62: 255262. Emlyn-Jones, C. J. and Preddy, W. Eds. Plato, Republic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Foskett, A. C. (1969). Subject Approach to Information. London: Bingley. Fox, M. (2016). Subjects in Doubt: The Ontogeny of Intersex in the Dewey Decimal Classification. In Knowledge Organization 43(8): 581-593. Gordon, P. E. (2012). What is Intellectual History? A frankly partisan introduction to a frequently misunderstood field. Available: http://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/history/files/what_is_intell_history_pgordon_mar2012.pdf Hjorland, B. (1992). The Concept of Subject in Information Science. In Journal of Documentation 48(2): 172-200. Hjorland, B. (2017). Subject (of documents). In the Encyclopedia of Knowledge Organization.  Available: http://www.isko.org/cyclo/subject Lee, W-C. (2016). An Exploratory Study of the Subject Ontogeny of Eugenics in the New Classification Scheme for Chinese Libraries and the Nippon Decimal Classification. In Knowledge Organization 43(8):594-608. Mai, J-E. (2001). Semiotics and Indexing: An Analysis of the Subject Indexing Process.  In Journal of Documentation 57(5): 591-622. Olson, H. (2002). The Power to Name: Locating the Limit of Subject Representation in Libraries. Boston: Kluwer. Ranganathan, S. R. (1957). Prolegomena to Library Classification. 3rd Ed. Bombay: Asia Publishing House. Ranganathan, S. R. (1967). Prolegomena to Library Classification. 3rd Ed. Bombay: Asia Publishing House. Tennis, J. T. (2002). Subject Ontogeny: Subject Access through Time and the Dimensionality of Classification. In Challenges in Knowledge Representation and Organization for the 21st Century: Integration of Knowledge across Boundaries: Proceedings of the Seventh International ISKO Conference. (Granada, Spain, July 10-13, 2002).  Advances in Knowledge Organization, vol. 8. Wurzburg: Ergon: 54-59. Wilson, P. (1968). Two Kinds of Power: An Essay on Bibligraphical Control. Berekeley, CA: University of California Press. Zeng, M. Zumer, M., and Salaba, A. (2010). Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Data: A Conceptual Model. Final Report Approved by the Standing Committee of the IFLA Section on Classification and Indexing.

  • Conceptual Provenance in Indexing Languages
    Building Trust in Information, 2016
    Co-Authors: Joseph T Tennis
    Abstract:

    This chapter discusses conceptual provenance, the phenomenon of conceptual change in Indexing Languages through the introduction of the author’s previous work. Observations from looking at large classification schemes, like ontogeny, semantic gravity, and collocative integrity, are introduced. The chapter closes with a discussion of key challenges in the methodology and outlines future research.

  • Collocative Integrity and Our Many Varied Subjects: What the Metric of Alignment between Classification Scheme and Indexer Tells Us About Langridge’s Theory of Indexing
    NASKO, 2013
    Co-Authors: Joseph T Tennis
    Abstract:

    As the universe of knowledge and subjects change over time, Indexing Languages like classification schemes, accommodate that change by restructuring. Restructuring Indexing Languages affects indexer and cataloguer work. Subjects may split or lump together. They may disappear only to reappear later. And new subjects may emerge that were assumed to be already present, but not clearly articulated (Miksa, 1998). In this context we have the complex relationship between the Indexing language, the text being described, and the already described collection (Tennis, 2007). It is possible to imagine indexers placing a document into an outdated class, because it is the one they have already used for their collection. However, doing this erases the semantics in the present Indexing language. Given this range of choice in the context of Indexing language change, the question arises, what does this look like in practice? How often does this occur? Further, what does this phenomenon tell us about subjects in Indexing Languages? Does the practice we observe in the reaction to Indexing language change provide us evidence of conceptual models of subjects and subject creation? If it is incomplete, but gets us close, what evidence do we still require?

  • Diachronic and Synchronic Indexing: Modeling Conceptual Change in Indexing Languages
    Proceedings of the Annual Conference of CAIS Actes du congrès annuel de l'ACSI, 2013
    Co-Authors: Joseph T Tennis
    Abstract:

    This is a revised version of the paper available at: http://www.cais-acsi.ca/proceedings/2007/tennis_2007.pdf

  • term morphologies as meaningful typology characteristics for Indexing Languages
    2011
    Co-Authors: Joseph T Tennis
    Abstract:

    Every Indexing language is made up of terms. Those terms have morphological characteristics. These include terms made up of single words, two words, or more. We can also take into account the total number of terms.

Stefano Tartaglia - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

Jennifer Rowley - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • the controlled versus natural Indexing Languages debate revisited a perspective on information retrieval practice and research
    Journal of Information Science, 1994
    Co-Authors: Jennifer Rowley
    Abstract:

    This article revisits the debate concerning con trolled and natural Indexing Languages, as used in searching the databases of the online hosts, in-house information retrieval systems, online public access catalogues and databases stored on CD-ROM. The debate was first formu lated in the early days of information retrieval more than a century ago but, despite significant advances in technology, remains unresolved. The article divides the history of the debate into four eras. Era one was characterised by the introduction of controlled vocabulary. Era two focused on comparisons between different Indexing Languages in order to assess which was best. Era three saw a number of case studies of limited generalisability and a general recognition that the best search performance can be achieved by the parallel use of the two types of Indexing Languages. The emphasis in Era four has been on the development of end-user-based systems, including online public access catalogues and databases on CD-ROM. Recent developments in the use of expert systems techniques to support the representation of meaning may lead to systems which offer significant support to the user in end-user searching. In the meantime, however, information retrieval in practice involves a mixture of natural and controlled Indexing Languages used to search a wide variety of different kinds of databases.

  • The controlled versus natural Indexing Languages debate revisited: a perspective on information retrieval practice and research
    Journal of Information Science, 1994
    Co-Authors: Jennifer Rowley
    Abstract:

    This article revisits the debate concerning con trolled and natural Indexing Languages, as used in searching the databases of the online hosts, in-house information retrieval systems, online public access catalogues and databases stored on CD-ROM. The debate was first formu lated in the early days of information retrieval more than a century ago but, despite significant advances in technology, remains unresolved. The article divides the history of the debate into four eras. Era one was characterised by the introduction of controlled vocabulary. Era two focused on comparisons between different Indexing Languages in order to assess which was best. Era three saw a number of case studies of limited generalisability and a general recognition that the best search performance can be achieved by the parallel use of the two types of Indexing Languages. The emphasis in Era four has been on the development of end-user-based systems, including online public access catalogues and databases on CD-ROM. Recent developments in the use of expert systems techniques to support the representation of meaning may lead to systems which offer significant support to the user in end-user searching. In the meantime, however, information retrieval in practice involves a mixture of natural and controlled Indexing Languages used to search a wide variety of different kinds of databases.

Mariangela Spotti Lopes Fujita - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • Indexing Languages IN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES: AN ANALYTICAL STUDY
    Universidade Estadual de Londrina, 2019
    Co-Authors: Mariangela Spotti Lopes Fujita, Maria Carolina Andrade E Cruz, Bruna Otreira Muniz Patrício, Luciana Beatriz Piovezan Rio Branco
    Abstract:

    Introduction: The Indexing language is a fundamental part of the Indexing policy, considering its mediating role in the representation and retrieval of information. In order to know the reality in online catalogs of university libraries, an analytical study on language was carried out in the policy of Indexing university libraries. Objective: The objective of the analytical study is to verify the use of Indexing language by professionals, which language (s) they use, the existence of Indexing policy manual and the use of construction and maintenance software available to the cataloger. Methodology: For this, a questionnaire was constructed and applied in a sample of university libraries in the southeast region of Brazil. Results: The questionnaire was answered by 60 libraries with the following profile: 60% have specialized collections from one to four subject areas, 73% of libraries have 1 to 3 professionals dedicated to Indexing, 83% of libraries integrate a network or system, 50% participate in collective catalogs. With regard to use, 49 (89.1%) used some Indexing language, 25 (51%) used an Indexing language, 20 with their own language without using specific software for construction and maintenance, and 24 (49%) more than one language. Among libraries that use Indexing language, 19 libraries adopt procedures when no terms are found in the language, 17 libraries update the language through semantic interoperability. The formalization of the Indexing policy in a document is performed by 58.3% and only 22% do not describe the Indexing language. Conclusions: The analytical study carried out with the application of the questionnaire reveals new scenarios in the use of Indexing Languages in libraries with advances, problems and gaps that are real challenges to be faced jointly by professionals and researchers

  • construction and evaluation of hierarchical structures of Indexing Languages for online catalogs of libraries an experience of the sao paulo state university unesp
    Knowledge Organization, 2018
    Co-Authors: Mariangela Spotti Lopes Fujita, Maria Carolina Andrade E Cruz, Walter Moreira, Luciana Beatriz Dos Piovezan Santos, Rosane Rodrigues De Barros Ribas
    Abstract:

    Researcher of Information Science Academic Program Sao Paulo State University-UNESP, Av. Hygino Muzzi Filho, 737

  • The logical and hierarchical structure of Indexing Languages used by university libraries
    2016
    Co-Authors: Mariangela Spotti Lopes Fujita, Luciana Beatriz Piovezan Dos Santos
    Abstract:

    Univ Estadual Paulista, Av Hyg Muzzi Filho 737,Campus Univ, BR-17525900 Marilia, SP, Brazil

  • Evaluation of indexed language used in collective catalogues of university libraries: a socio-cognitive study using verbal protocol
    2011
    Co-Authors: Vera Regina Casari Boccato, Mariangela Spotti Lopes Fujita
    Abstract:

    The use of Indexing language in university libraries’ collective catalogs and the socio-cognitive context of Indexing and users were evaluated. The methodology consisted of a diagnostic study elaboration of the functioning and treatment procedures of the Indexing information from nine libraries of the UNESP network, Brazil, representing the civil engineering, education and dentistry areas from a data collection using the verbal protocol introspective technique in the individual and group forms. The study conducted a reflection upon the statements issued by the seventy-two participating individuals whose the results revealed unsatisfactory results about the use of the subject headings list of the BIBLIODATA network, Indexing language utilizing by the UNESP Libraries Network, Brazil, in the representation and in the information retrieval process in the ATHENA catalog, about the sequent aspects of the language: lack of specialized vocabulary as well as updated; lack of remissives and of specific headings, and others. We have concluded that the adequate use of Indexing Languages of specialized scientific areas becomes by means of evaluation as to updating, specificity and compatibility in order to meet the needs of Indexing and information retrieval.

Mario Barité - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • The notion of Category : Its implications in subject analysis and in the construction and evaluation of Indexing Languages
    Knowledge Organization, 2000
    Co-Authors: Mario Barité
    Abstract:

    The notion of category, from Aristotle and Kant to the present time, has been used as a basic intellectual tool for the analysis of the existence and changeableness of things. Ranganathan was the first to extrapolate the concept into the Theory of Classification, placing it as an essential axis for the logical organization of knowledge and the construction of Indexing Languages. This paper proposes a conceptual and methodological reexamination of the notion of category from a functional and instrumental perspective, and tries to clarify the essential characters of categories in that context, and their present implications regarding the construction and evaluation of Indexing Languages.

Indexing Languages - 15 days free trial to Access Experts & Abstracts