ISKO UK 2011, London

Vickery’s late ideas on classification by

phenomena and activities 

Claudio Gnoli

(University of Pavia. Science and Technology Library)

(ISKO Italy)

Dear Brian, ...

Facet analysis

photo by Chris Overfield

“Ranga” and the CRG

S.R. Ranganathan B.I. Palmer

source: DRTC

Facets vs. operators

“[Farradane] was never a whole-hearted “faceteer”. [...] Foskett and I used to say, that the more Jason expounded his ideas on his “operators”, the more we disagreed with him, and the more we liked him.”

[BCV, email, 2007]

An interesting minority in the CRG [Kawamura pers. comm.]supporting free over faceted classification [Gardin 1965]:

facet: free (phase) relationship:A has property B A is related to B

(Vickery, Foskett, Mills...) (Farradane, Coates, Austin...) BC2 PRECIS

A scientific approach

J. D. BernalCRG

Joseph Needham

J.E.L. Farradane (CRG): “I want to list the wind where it bloweth”

i.e. place of unique definition

Integrative levels

[CRG 1969]

Integrative levels

“Any transition may seem mysterious when we understand very little about it.” [BCV, email, 2007]

“the concept of levels of phenomena is today well beyond a philosophical idea: [... it] may be accepted as a “reliable” fact.” [BCV, email, 2009]

Phenomena vs. disciplines

• Subject Classification (Brown, 1906) •CRG NATO classification (esp. Foskett, Austin, 1969)

• BC2 classes 4/6 (Mills & Broughton, 1977)• BSO class 088 (Coates et al., 1978)

• ICC (“objects of being”, Dahlberg, 1982)

• other proposals (Bonner, Scheele, Shpackov, 1980s)

• ILC project (Gnoli, Hong, Cousson, Pullman et al., 2004-)

• León Manifesto (Szostak, López-Huertas, Gnoli et al., 2007)

The León Manifesto

• interdisciplinarityinterdisciplinarity

• requires some new KOSrequires some new KOS

• based on phenomenabased on phenomena

• allowing to shift between allowing to shift between

perspectivesperspectives

• by analytico-synthetic techniquesby analytico-synthetic techniques

• “The world = Phenomena

• People’s activities = Disciplines, fields of activity

• Reports of activities

• Subjects of reports

• Classification of subjects”

[BCV commenting on León Manifesto, 2007]

“From the world to the classifier”

Dimensions of knowledge

reality, “noumena”

phenomena

perspectives

carriers

=

( ) activities

Fields of activity•”Economic (production, commerce, finance)• Technological (innovation)•·Welfare (medical, social benefits, charities, information)• Cultural (arts, sport, entertainment, the media, hobbies)•·State (government, law, police, military)•·Political (to change aspects of society, the struggle for power)• Religious activities•·Educational activities (general, and within any of the above)•·Specialist intellectual (theoretical studies of any of the above)•·General intellectual (e.g. philosophy, mathematics, sciences)•·Consumption (everyday use of the products or services

of the others)”[BCV, 2007]

molecules

phenomena planets

plants

mining

agriculture

activities research

Problem of the border

practical

intellectual

Facets

phenomena P, M, E, S, T

activities ?

Activity theory

Activity theory

USSR psychology

A.N. Leontev (1903-1979)S.L. Rubinshtein (1889-1960)

Activity theory

basic notions:

motivation, goal, activity, tools, object,

outcome, rules, community, division...

“all directly applicable to the conduct of

information behaviour research” [Wilson 2006]

Facets

phenomena P, M, E, S, T

activities Motivation, Goal, Tool, Outcome, Rule, ...

Open problems

• Is dimension α (noumena) necessary in KO models?

• Should the perspective/activities dimension also include such classes like agriculture and the arts?

• How could disciplines be treated in the framework of activity theory?...

Conclusions

• Late BCV was very active in theoretical KO debate

• He supported non-standard or new ideas, like abandoning disciplines as main division

• Original contributions not widely known yet

• worth to be considered and possibly developed

Thank you...

source: BCV’s website