Sarah Levine

May 5, 2015

LIS590 Naming & Power

Professor Kathryn La Barre

LONG DEFINITION“The term knowledge organization systems is intended to encompass all types of schemes for organizing information and promoting knowledge management. Knowledge organization systems include classification and categorization schemes that organize materials at a general level, subject headings that provide more detailed access, and authority files that control variant versions of key information such as geographic names and personal names. Knowledge organization systems also include highly structured vocabularies, such as thesauri, and less traditional schemes, such as semantic networks and ontologies. Because KOS are mechanisms for organizing information, they are at the heart of every library, museum, and archive.”

-Gail Hodges

CONDENSEDKnowledge organization shapes how information is found, by whom, and with what required strategies. Knowledge organization systems are based in language and cognition.

-Me

• HOW do we organize information and WHY?•One of these things is not like the other…

• Classification organizes things based on COMMONALITIES. •And thus, it also highlights DIFFERENCES. It is not A or B, but rather A or not-A. •Classification embodies biases in the process of knowledge organization: a hierarchy takes shape when considering 1. What is the same? and 2. Which sameness takes precedence?

•To maintain manageable order, knowledge organization systems “privilege one facet over another…divide first by one facet, then by another and another and so on in a prescribed citation order” (Olson 2001). And that order is influenced by inherent cultural biases…

• Classification:•Context-independent

• Categorization:•Dependent on immediate context

• The bodies being organized in knowledge organization systems are CONCEPTS• Concepts are studies of human cognitive processes.

• Classical Theory of Concepts: a concept is a summary representation of some sets of things in terms of conditions that are singly necessary and jointly sufficient for determining membership in that set. It is also often assumed that to possess a concept is to know its defining conditions.

- attributed to Aristotle

• “Wittgenstein (1979) understands knowledge as an endless walk through contexts and contextualizations, knowledge as action, conferring upon an individual or his social group direct importance in the construction of senses for the world that surrounds it…interaction among routine actors emerges from the knowledge of each specific community, because each group of individuals understands the world differently, and recreates this world according to its own perspective” (Saldhana).

• From Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations:• The signification of words is a result of their use in discourse. • The use of the term is what confers its meaning.

• Family resemblance:• Wittgenstein’s theory of family resemblance argues that things which may be thought to be connected by one essential common feature may in fact be connected by a series of overlapping similarities, where no one feature is common to all. 

• Consider conditions that define a concept to be probabilistic rather than either/or. By implication, some exemplars are more typical examples than others (Hjorland 1521).

• Formulated from Eleanor Rosch’s study Natural Categories wherein she determined that categories develop around “natural prototypes” that are generally learned faster than other stimuli.

• Cognitive recognition of the most basic representation of a category is the fastest and easiest to comprehend, making the prototype a good choice for classification terms.

• Prototype theory avoids essentialism and acknowledges similarities – an entity can possess some, but not all, characteristics of a certain category and still belong within it.

• Problem: lack of stability due to reliance on CONTEXT. An excellent framework for a local control system, but difficult to employ on a large scale.

• Words exist by virtue of a network of relations with other words.

• Words can be lined up in certain orders, creating “distributive” relations.

• Some other words can exist in this environment, but create a different though still sensible sentence. The words are linguistic elements.

• When we begin to consider linguistics and cognition in relation to sex and gender, we see that:

• The social-symbolic order (think hierarchy of sameness) mirrors language in general with social elements that parallel linguistic elements. • This order is Othering.

• When we seek to classify, we hope to do so based on TRUTH. But what is the truth about gender, and how can it be represented in knowledge organization and classification schemes? Some ideas from third wave feminism tell us:

• “Woman is just a construct, indeed a construct of phallocentrism.”• “Anything anyone says about women will exclude some women.”• “Woman is an essentialist notion.”• “Gender is a fiction.”

• And now we are back to ANTIESSENTIALISM – a corner stone of queer theory and 3rd wave feminism.

• The problem we run into is that social categories cannot be considered sets the same way as other markers like “red” or “chair” or “round.” There are not truly fixed and necessary conditions for a social category strong enough to suffice as essential and whole. Social categories are not sets.

• “…however social categories work in perception, cognition, behavior, social processes, and operations of power (both appropriate or oppressive), they do it without having boundaries fixed by necessary and sufficient conditions and consequently without having any absolute sameness as their principle coherence, and not by an operation of sorting” (Frye 48).

• The categories exist, but we cannot force entities into them, or exclude them for not meeting ALL criterion. As hard as it is accept the unbounded in a profession based in organization, it’s par for the course when it comes to classifying identity. Classification terminology has agency, and that agency cannot be ignored – rather handled with care and consideration for all users. It won’t be a fast or easy feat!

• Lots more work to be done!

•Some ideas from my research:• Create new catalog ranges within LCC or DDC – a tough process!• Alternate thesauri• Local control systems to augment professional standards• Philosophical review of knowledge organization• More serious incorporation of queer theory and 3rd wave feminist ideals in LIS pedagogy

•Some things to consider:• HOW does knowledge organization support communication between the searcher and the system? • HOW can knowledge organization structures create valid information environments for ALL users?• WHO should be creating these systems and structures? •WHAT steps need to be taken?

1. Academic theory vs. practical application and personal emotions

2. Naming in LIS vs. other areas of society

3. Will there ever be a definitive solution to these issues, or an ongoing process into the foreseeable future? What does an ideal form of knowledge organization look like?

4. What are the obstacles to creating and/or maintaining classification systems that are appropriate to modern understanding of sex and gender identity?

5. Can these considerations be brought to work with classification of other identity types (race, religion, etc.)?

6. Other thoughts or questions?

Classification vs. CategorizationJacob, Elin K. "Classification And Categorization: A Difference That Makes A

Difference." Library Trends 52.3 (2004): 515-540. Academic Search Complete. Web. 28 Mar. 2015.Olson, Hope Alene. "Classification Or Organization—What's The Difference?." Knowledge Organization 28.1 (2001): 1-3. Library & Information Science Source. Web. 28 Mar. 2015.Olson, Hope Alene. "Sameness And Difference: A Cultural Foundation Of Classification." Library Resources & Technical Services 45.3 (2001): 115-122. Library & Information Science Source. Web. 28 Mar. 2015.

Knowledge OrganizationGutiérrez, Antonio García. “Declassifying Knowledge Organization.” Knowledge Organization 41:5 (2014): 393-409.Hjørland, Birger. "Concept Theory." Journal Of The American Society For Information Science & Technology 60.8 (2009): 1519- 1536. Business Source Complete. Web. 28 Mar. 2015.Olson, Hope Alene. "Exclusivity, Teleology And Hierarchy: Our Aristotelean Legacy." Knowledge Organization 26.2 (1999): 65- 73. Library & Information Science Source. Web. 28 Mar. 2015.

Linguistic TheoryFoucault, Michel. Language, Counter-memory, Practice: Selected Essays And Interviews. Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 1980. Print.Fromkin, Victoria, ed. Linguistics: An Introduction To Linguistic Theory. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000. Print.Saldanha, Gustavo Silva. “The Philosophy of Language and Knowledge Organization in the 1930s: Pragmatics of Wittgenstein and Ranganathan.” Knowledge Organization 41:4 (2014): 296-303.

Cognitive TheoryFoucault, Michel. The Archaeology of Knowledge. New York: Pantheon Books, 1982. Print.Langacker, Ronald. The Foundations of Cognitive Grammer: Volume I: Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford, CA: 1987. Print.Rosch, Elanor H. “Natural Categories.” Cognitive Psychology. 4.3 (1973). 329-350. Web. 25 March 2015.Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigation. New York: Macmillan, 1953. Print.

 Applications to Issues of Sex and Gender in LISBerman, Sanford. “Section IV: Man/Woman/Sex.” Prejudices and Antipathies: A Tract on LC Subject Headings Concerning People. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1993. Print.Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism And The Subversion Of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1990. Print.Fox, Melodie J. “Prototype Theory: An Alternative Concept for Categorizing Sex and Gender.” Knowledge Organization. 38.4 (2011): 328-244. Web. 25 March 2015. Frye, Marilyn. “Categories in Distress.” Feminist Interventions in Ethics and Politics: Feminist Ethics and Social Theory. Eds. Barbara S. Andrew, Jean Keller, and Lisa H. Schwartman. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2005. Print.Haslanger, Sally. “Gender and Race: (What) Are They? (What) Do We Want Them To

Be?” NOÛS 34:1 (2001): 31-55.Keilty, Patrick, and Rebecca Dean, eds. “Part Four: Information Organization.” Feminist and Queer Information Studies Reader. Sacremento, CA: Litwin Books, 2013. 249-350. Print---“Sexual Boundaries and Subcultural Discipline.” Knowledge Organization 39:6 (2012): 417-431.--- “Tagging and Sexual Boundaries.” Knowledge Organization 39:5 (2012): 320-324.Johnson, Matt. “GLBT Controlled Vocabularies and Classification Schemes.” ALA: GLBBTRT. ALA, 2007. Web. 28 March 2015.Lakoff, George. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1987. Print.Nye, Andrea. Words of Power: Feminist Readings of the History of Logic. New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc., 1990. Print.Olson, Hope A. "How We Construct Subjects: A Feminist Analysis." Library Trends 56.2 (2007): 509-541. Academic Search Complete. Web. 28 Mar. 2015.Roberto, K. R.  Radical cataloging : essays at the front / edited by K.R. Roberto ; introduction by Sanford Berman. Jefferson, NC:  McFarland & Co, 2008. Print.