Labels

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Labels

• the practice and science of classification

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Classification

• Classification provides a system for organizing
  knowledge.
• Classification provides a system for organizing
  knowledge.

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Classification Types

• Controlled Vocabulary
• Classification
• Taxonomy
• Thesaurus
• Ontology

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Commonalities of Controlled Vocabulary,
Classification, Taxonomy, Thesaurus, Ontology

• Standardized naming conventions
• Highly structured
• Generally hierarchical
• Highly specific application
• Highly specific audience
• Prescriptive, rather than descriptive
• Low adaptability
• Enables more efficient indexing and searching

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Controlled Vocabulary

• List of terms that have been enumerated
  explicitly.
• Controlled by and is available from a controlled
  vocabulary registration authority.
• All terms in a controlled vocabulary should have
  an unambiguous, non-redundant definition.

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Purpose of Controlled Vocabulary

• Translation Provide a means for converting the
  natural language of authors, indexers, and users
  into a vocabulary that can be used for indexing
  and retrieval.
• Consistency Promote uniformity in term format
  and in the assignment of terms.
• Indication of relationships Indicate semantic
  relationships among terms.
• Label and browse Provide consistent and clear
  hierarchies in a navigation system to help users
  locate desired content objects.
• Retrieval Serve as a searching aid in locating
  content objects.

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Control Rules

• Synonyms (two words with the same meaning, like
  jeans and dungarees)
• Homonyms (words that sound the same, but have
  different meanings, like bank the financial
  institution and bank the side of a stream or
  river)
• Common misspellings

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Control Rules

• Changes in content (e.g., countries that change
  their name or have multiple spellings)
• Identifying Best Bets connecting a womans
  married name to her maiden name
• Connecting abbreviations to the full word (e.g.,
  NY and New York, the chemical symbol Si with the
  element Silicon)

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Classification Types

• Controlled Vocabulary
• Classification
• Taxonomy
• Thesaurus
• Ontology

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Classifying a work with the DDC

• Requires determination of
• The subject
• The disciplinary focus
• The approach or form (if applicable)

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Dewey Decimal Classification - 1876

• 000 Computers, information general reference
• 100 Philosophy psychology
• 200 Religion
• 300 Social sciences
• 400 Language
• 500 Science
• 600 Technology
• 700 Arts recreation
• 800 Literature
• 900 History geography

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Notational hierarchy
600 Technology (Applied sciences) 630
Agriculture and related technologies 636
Animal husbandry 636.7 Dogs 636.8 Cats
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Table of Last Resort (tie breaker)

• Kinds of things
• Parts of things
• Materials from which things, kinds, or parts are
  made
• Properties of things, kinds, parts, or materials
• Processes within things, kinds, parts, or
  materials
• Operations upon things, kinds, parts, or
  materials
• Instrumentalities for performing such operations

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Book Industry Study Group Subject Headings
http//www.bisg.org/standards/bisac_subject/major_
subjects.html
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Taxonomy

• Word comes from the Greek t????, taxis, 'order'
  ??µ??, nomos, 'law' or 'science'.
• Collection of controlled vocabulary terms
  organized into a hierarchical structure

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Taxonomy Classification

• Biological classification has two basic
  objectives
• To serve as a basis for generalization in
  comparative studies.
• To serve as an information storage system.

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Linnaean System of classification
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Search Dilemma
Peter Morville
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Example

• Taxonomy Warehouse

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Classification Types

• Controlled Vocabulary
• Classification
• Taxonomy
• Thesaurus
• Ontology

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Thesaurus

• Networked collection of controlled vocabulary
  terms.
• Uses associative relationshipsin addition to
  parent-child relationships.

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Thesaurus Provides Variant Terms
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http//www.visualthesaurus.com/
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Classification Types

• Controlled Vocabulary
• Classification
• Taxonomy
• Thesaurus
• Ontology

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Z39.50

• Client-server protocol for searching and
  retrieving information from remote computer
  databases.
• Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and
  Management of Monolingual Controlled Vocabulari
• ANSI/NISO Z39.19-2005

http//www.niso.org/standards/resources/Z39-19-200
5.pdf
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Extend taxonomies to be more descriptive

• Thesaurus BT/NT, USE/UF, SN and RT
• ISO standard 2788 - Properties
• BT Broader term - one level up in the hierarchy
• NT Narrow term / Inversed with BT
• SN Scope note (Explanation of meaning of the
  term)
• RT Related term (No synonym or BT/NT See
  also)
• USE Other term preferred/synonym /Inversed with
  UF
• To provide a much richer vocabulary for
  describing the terms than taxonomies do.

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Z39.50

• It is covered by ANSI/NISO standard Z39.50, and
  ISO standard 23950.
• (ANSI) American National Standard For Information
• (ISO) International Organization for
  Standardization
• (NISO) National Information Standards
  Organization
• The standard's maintenance agency is the Library
  of Congress.

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5.2.2 Content Objects

• There are two classes of content objects, primary
  and secondary, although this distinction is
  rarely made.
• A primary content object is the item itself,
  whether it exists in physical form (e.g. print,
  audiotape, DVD, movie) or exists solely in
  electronic form.
• A secondary content object is the metadata that
  describes the primary content object.
• Many data stores combine the primary content
  object and its metadata into a single, hybrid
  content object.

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9.3.1 Alphabetical Displays

• An alphabetical listing is the most basic type of
  vocabulary display. It may contain both preferred
  terms and entry terms with their respective USE
  and USED FOR references.

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9.3.1.2 Flat Format Displays

• Most commonly used controlled vocabulary display
  format.
• All terms arranged in alphabetical order,
  including their term details, and one level of
  BT/NT hierarchy.
• (BT/BT) Broad Term / Narrow Term

(SN) Scope Note
(UF) Used For
(RT) Related Term
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9.3.4.1.1 Multilevel Broader and Narrower Terms
Hierarchical Displays

• In a multilevel hierarchical display format, all
  levels of the broader and narrower terms related
  to a given term are immediately visible.
• This is in contrast with the flat format
  described above, in which only one level of
  broader or narrower terms is displayed and the
  user is required to navigate from term to term
  one level at a time to discover the full
  hierarchy.

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Multilevel Hierarchy using Tree Structure
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Ontology

• Ontology is a controlled vocabulary expressed in
  an ontology representation language.
• Includes a grammar for using vocabulary terms
  within a domain of interest.
• The grammar contains formal constraints
• Rule define what constitutes a
• well-formed statement
• assertion
• query

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Commonalities of Controlled Vocabulary,
Classification, Taxonomy, Thesaurus, Ontology

• Standardized naming conventions
• Highly structured
• Generally hierarchical
• Highly specific application
• Highly specific audience
• Prescriptive, rather than descriptive
• Low adaptability
• Enables more efficient indexing and searching

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http//magia3e.wordpress.com/2007/02/04/informatio
n-classification-part-ii-taxonomy/
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Creating a Controlled Vocabulary

• What is this content object?
• How can I describe it?
• What distinguishes it from other content objects?
  
• How can I make it findable?

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Creating a Top-Down Classification

• Define the sites target audience.
• List all topics, actions, concepts, theories,
  functions, roles other aspects of the sites
  projected content.
• Categorize the items according to
  functional-topical
• verb or noun, action or actor, entity or
  relationship splits.
• Analyze the categories from a user perspective
  and build a tentative structure.
• Develop a unifying metaphor to incorporate into
  the design, expressing the relationships in a
  holistic, symbolic way.
• User test the site structure and labeling.

Louise Gruenberg
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Consideration Specificity
http//www.zappos.com/welcome.zhtml
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Consideration Stability
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
2007
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Faceted System Bottom-up Approach

• Focuses on the important, essential or persistent
  characteristics of content objects.
• Useful for fine-grained rapidly changing
  repositories.
• Easy to add a new facet at any time.
• Example a facet map file http//facetmap.com/con
  f/wine.txt

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Other Considerations

• Implicit information?
• Classification of objects over fuzzy boundaries.

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Faceted Classification

• Bottom-Up approach
• Central concept How do I describe this?
• Oct 2003 69 of sites made at least some use of
  faceted classification.

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Faceted Classification is not new!

• S. R. Ranganathan ((1892-1972)
• a clearly defined, mutually exclusive, and
  collective exhaustive aspects, properties or
  characteristics of a class or specific subject.
• Describing documents from various perspectives
• Prolegomena to Library Classification (1967)
  definitive resource on faceted classification

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Potential Facets

• Topic
• Product
• Document Type Format?
• technical report
• white paper
• news article
• Source Creator?
• Intended Audience
• Geography
• Price

Peter Morville
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Usability is Key

• Don't have to predict what facets the users will
  find most intuitive.
• MUST create an intuitive interface, so that the
  user, with a minimum amount of effort can use the
  facets to search the site.

Kathryn La Barre
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Principles for Choice of Facets

• Principle of Differentiation
• Principle of Relevance
• Principle of Ascertainability
• Principle of Permanence
• Principle of Homogeneity
• Principle of Mutual Exclusivity
• Principle of Fundamental Categories

Louise Spiteri
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Creating a Faceted Classification

• Content analysis
• Gathering a representative sample site's content.
  
• Adopt a Noah's Ark approach Try to capture a
  couple of each type of animal.

Peter Morville
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Resources

• Introduction to Dewey Decimal Classification
  system from OCLC
• BISAC Subject Headings 2006 Edition - September
  2006
• Everything is Miscellaneous blog by David
  Weinberger
• What are the differences between a vocabulary, a
  taxonomy, a thesaurus, an ontology, and a
  meta-model? by Woody Pidcock
• Building a Synonymous Search Index by Peter
  Morville
• Creating a Controlled Vocabulary by Leise, Fast
  and Steckel
• Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and
  Management of Monolingual Controlled Vocabulari
  Z39.50 Standard Document (pdf) from NISO
• A Simplified Model for Facet Analysis by Dr.
  Louise Spiteri