“A successful man is usually a classifier and a chartmaker. This applies as much

to modern business as to science or libraries…

A large business or work unclassified or uncharted is not a worthy organisation but mere material from which a clever

brain may construct one.

It differs in efficiency from the ideal as a mob of men differs from a well

disciplined army.”

Melvil Dewey

•Organising/classifying provides advantages the task is more effectively achieved, we have a higher chance of survival

•We must have evolved an ability to classifiy objects in the brain long before we started naming objects

•Now we name things and communicate we need to classify so we can find our way about the objects of our communication

The mental thesaurus .. is sometimes torn into pieces with clean edges... Among anomic patients (those who have trouble using nouns) different patients have problems with different kinds of nouns. ... Some can name animals and vegetables but not foods, body parts, clothing, vehicles, or furniture.

Steven Pinker - The Language Instinct

Classification is a natural activity of the brain - as some problems have revealed

All forms of classification and indexing help discriminate between what may and may not be relevant.

Faceted classification in online information retrieval and OPACs will

provide the user with more power to discriminate with

less effort.

This presentation takes up the cause of faceted classification and indexing in

the provision of what I have called

view-based searching

- direct user interaction with thesauri and classification schemes -

for online information retrieval

and

OPACs

View-based searching uses classification and thesauri for both

specifying the query and

presenting the results

HIBROWSEHigh resolution Interface for BROWsing

and SEarching

integrates the browsing and searching functions - as a device for navigating

n-dimensional information space

The following example of view-based searching

with HIBROWSEuses a subset of more than

600,000 recordsto biomedical publications

fromEMBASE

published by Elsevier Science BV

The following example of view-based searching

with HIBROWSEuses a subset of more than

600,000 recordsto biomedical publications

fromEMBASE

published by Elsevier Science BV

Views aretaken from the

EMTREE thesaurus 38,000 controlled vocabulary terms

with 300,000 entry terms15 main subject facets

e.g.Physical DiseasesChemicals & DrugsTherapeutic Techniques

Views aretaken from the

EMTREE thesaurus 38,000 controlled vocabulary terms

with 300,000 entry terms15 main subject facets

e.g.Physical DiseasesChemicals & DrugsTherapeutic Techniques

The HIBROWSE interface relates to Ranganathan’s Colon Classification

e.g.

DISEASEDISEASE : : THERAPYTHERAPY : : GROUPS BY AGEGROUPS BY AGE

each facet is a hierarchical view using EMTREE descriptors assigned to

67,497 documents on diseasedisease and therapytherapy

which also refer to a group by agegroup by age

DISEASEDISEASE : : THERAPYTHERAPY : : GROUPS BY AGEGROUPS BY AGE

DISEASEDISEASE : : THERAPYTHERAPY : : GROUPS BY AGEGROUPS BY AGE

17,859 cardiovascular disease

each one of the 17,859 documentson cardiovascular diseasecardiovascular disease must also

concern some aspect of therapytherapyand refer to a group by agegroup by age

46,715 drug therapy

each one of the 46,715 documentson drug therapydrug therapy must also

concern some aspect of diseasediseaseand refer to a group by agegroup by age

DISEASEDISEASE : : THERAPYTHERAPY : : GROUPS BY AGEGROUPS BY AGE

DISEASEDISEASE : : THERAPYTHERAPY : : GROUPS BY AGEGROUPS BY AGE

12,661 child

each one of the 12,661 documentson childchild must also

concern some aspect of diseasediseaseand therapytherapy

pointing and clicking on childchild in the groups by age groups by age facet refines

all three views to 12,661 documents

2,209 cardiovascular disease

the 17,859 documents on cardiovascular diseasecardiovascular disease

reduces to 2,209 each one relating to childchild

the groups by age facet now contains

more specific descriptors for childchild

pointing and clicking on thedrug therapydrug therapy folder

reveals more specific descriptorse.g. 300 documents on

antibiotic therapyantibiotic therapy

pointing and clicking on antibiotic therapyantibiotic therapy

further refines all three viewsto 300 documents

revealing which diseasesdiseasesare treated by antibiotic therapy

Adding a new view enables us to see what types of study types of study were used

pointing and clicking onthe document icon againstrandomized controlled trialrandomized controlled trial leads to a display of the actual

documents

Unfortunately:

EMBASE is not using pre-coordinated index terms

The results are from post-coordination

We will get false drops - which could be avoided if we use pre-coordinated terms

The best performance from view-based searching will be achieved with indexing

which uses faceted classification

“It is the duty of documentalists to spread the multi-dimensional universe of

knowledge along one line.

We have to map an n-dimensional space on a one-dimensional space.

S R Ranganathan

This is the problem in the organization of information and knowledge for use.”

Unlike Ranganathan’s Colon Classification and other faceted schemeswe do not need to choose

a sequence for the facets for view-based searching

DISEASE DISEASE : : THERAPY THERAPY : : GROUPS BY AGEGROUPS BY AGETHERAPY : DISEASE : GROUPS BY AGETHERAPY : DISEASE : GROUPS BY AGEGROUPS BY AGE : THERAPY : DISEASEGROUPS BY AGE : THERAPY : DISEASE DISEASE : GROUPS BY AGE : THERAPYDISEASE : GROUPS BY AGE : THERAPY

etc..etc..

Unlike Ranganathan’s Colon Classification and other faceted schemes

we can use as many or as few facets as are appropriate for the database and the information need

TYPES OF STUDY :DISEASETYPES OF STUDY :DISEASE::THERAPY THERAPY ::GROUPS BY AGEGROUPS BY AGETHERAPY : DISEASE : GROUPS BY AGETHERAPY : DISEASE : GROUPS BY AGE

THERAPY : DISEASETHERAPY : DISEASEPUBLICATION TYPE : DISEASE : THERAPYPUBLICATION TYPE : DISEASE : THERAPYDISEASE : COUNTRY OF AUTHOR : YEARDISEASE : COUNTRY OF AUTHOR : YEAR

etc..etc..

At the University of Huddersfield22 shelving assistants each walk some55 miles every week from September to

June to keep our books in order43,560 miles a year

In UK Universities these assistantswalk some 6.5 million miles a year

(10.5 million kilometers)

Computers can rearrange the multimedia library stock in a matter

of seconds

We can use the power of Information We can use the power of Information Technology to Technology to free ourselves from thefree ourselves from the

shackles of physical arrangementshackles of physical arrangement

Information is Information is multi-dimensionalmulti-dimensional

Ranganathan’s “one dimensional space”Ranganathan’s “one dimensional space”can be can be particular to each individualparticular to each individual..

That That individualindividual can can choosechoose how that how that space can be space can be effectivelyeffectively organised, organised,

given tools such as given tools such as HIBROWSEHIBROWSE® ® and and knowledge structures knowledge structures