Group items tagged

A paradigm is a two-dimensional classification (imagine a spreadsheet). Use paradigms when there are two independent aspects to consider. Kwasnick (1999, 35-36) uses the example of terms describing kinship relations, which can be organized into a grid, with sex (male/female) along one axis, and relation (parent, sibling, parent's sibling) along the other axis

Facets will handle three or more dimensions of classification.

Kwasnick (1999, 40-42) lists several things in favour of faceted classifications: they do not require complete knowledge of the entities or their relationships; they are hospitable (can accommodate new entities easily); they are flexible; they are expressive; they can be ad hoc and free-form; and they allow many different perspectives on and approaches to the things classified.

Ranganathan's Colon Classification has five facets, now classic (see Ranganathan (1962), among his many books, for an introduction to the facets and how to use them): Personality (the something in question, e.g. a person or event in a classification of history, or an animal in a classification of zoology) Matter (what something is made of) Energy (how something changes, is processed, evolves) Space (where something is) Time (when it happens

look to BC2 for ideas (Broughton 2001, 79): thing/entity kind part property material process operation patient product by-product agent space time

Spiteri follows Ranganathan and divides classification into three parts: "the Idea Plane, which involves the process of analyzing a subject field into its component part; the Verbal Plane, which involves the process of choosing appropriate terminology to express those component part; and the Notational Plane, which involves the process of expressing these component parts by means of a notational device

Going from Idea (which Spiteri divides into two parts) to Verbal to Notational Planes take us from idea to word to number, from the general concept of what the entity is about to expressing that concept in a controlled vocabulary to turning those words into notation.

My procedure for making the faceted classification system rearranges Vickery's steps, and adds to the start and finish to make it complete from beginning to end.

There are three questions to ask when planning how to build the web site. Finding and blending the appropriate answers will give you a good starting point for building navigational tools for the site.