Published Works that Support the BCC

This page is devoted to works directly related to BCC and the research program that generated it. The works on this page naturally cite a much broader literature. There are also many citations of the broader literature that appear as links within the BCC itself to justify certain classificatory choices.

A philosophical justification of this classification can be found in my “Complex Concepts into Basic Concepts” (JASIST, 2011) and “Classification, Interdisciplinarity, and the Study of Science” (Journal of Documentation 64:3, 319-32, 2008), as well as my Classifying Science (Springer 2004). I expand on these ideas in "Classifying for Social Diversity," (Knowledge Organization 41:2, 160-70, 2013), and "A Pluralistic Approach to the Philosophy of Classification," a paper published in a special issue of Library Trends in Spring, 2015. More details on each, and on several other publications, are provided below.

The paper “Classification, Interdisciplinarity, and the Study of Science” (Journal of Documentation 64:3, 319-32, 2008) argues for both the feasibility and desirability of a universal classification grounded in things (phenomena) rather than disciplines. It in particular disagrees with the notion that information scientists should focus exclusively on "domain analysis" (the inductive classification of particular domains grounded in the meanings applied to concepts within that domain). The paper argues that concerns with ambiguity can be surmounted in order to achieve a truly universal classification. And it is argued that such a classification is crucial in particular for interdisciplinary scholarship.

Birger Hjørland replied to that paper and I responded in turn in “Interdisciplinarity and Classification: A Reply to Hjørland” Journal of Documentation 64:4, 2008 (letter to the editor).

The paper “Complex Concepts into Basic Concepts,”Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology [62:11, 2247-65, 2011] makes the critical argument that complex concepts -- for which understanding varies across groups and individuals -- can be broken into basic concepts for which understanding is broadly shared across groups and individuals. A truly universal classification is thus feasible but only one that utilizes only basic concepts. This argument is grounded in a survey of the philosophical literature on concept theory, but also reports empirical results from a project that translated a section of DDC (Dewey Decimal System) into basic concepts. It is argued that basic concepts are (generally) the things we perceive in the world and the relationships we perceive among these. An appendix to that paper summarizes some of the schedules in the BCC. [For the (updated) DDC translation exercise see: DDC to BCC Translation Table Web Version 2013 which also provides a link to the DDC Thousands Translation Table which translates all three-digit DDC classes into BCC.]

[A related paper (see Communicating Complex Concepts) applies the idea of basic concepts to interdisciplinary communication.]

My thoughts on concept theory had earlier been contrasted with those of Hjørland in “Comment on Hjørland’s Concept Theory” (letter to editor), Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology 61:5,1076-7 (2010).

My classification of things (phenomena) had its genesis in a book A Schema for Unifying Human Science: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Culture (2003). That book was not written with information science in mind, but rather to give interdisciplinary scholars a 'map' of the phenomena that are studied in human science and the relations that (might) exist among these. That book contained a three page table of the key phenomena studied in human science, which was developed inductively as I read hundreds of works across all human science disciplines (though deduction was also employed to organize concepts hierarchically). The classification of things in BCC grew out of that table.

The table of phenomena was reprised (and suggestions made for how it could be expanded into natural science) in Classifying Science: Phenomena, Data, Theory, Method, Practice (2004). The 2004 book also developed classifications of the methods and the types of theory employed by scholars. These classifications too have been absorbed into the BCC so that works can be classified with respect to the theories and methods applied. Again, the book was largely aimed at interdisciplinary scholars, but chapter 7 did sketch the possibility of grounding a knowledge organization system in the classifications developed earlier in the book.

My 2004 book had placed a few grand theories within the typology of theory types. The paper (with Claudio Gnoli) “Classifying by phenomena, theories, and methods: examples with focused social science theories,” in Culture and identity in knowledge organization, proceedings of the 10th international ISKO conference, Montréal, 2008, Würzburg: Ergon, p. 205-211, showed how many more narrow theories could be classified.

The value of classifying works in terms of phenomena, theory, and method was outlined in “Interdisciplinarity and the Classification of Scholarly Documents by Phenomena, Theories, and Methods” in Blanca Rodriguez Bravo and Luisa Alvite Diez, eds., Interdisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity in the Organization of Scientific Knowledge: Actas del VIII Congreso ISKO-Espana (Leon, April, 2007). Leon: University of Leon, 469-77.

Claudio Gnoli, I and other like-minded scholars issued the Leon Manifesto after that conference, which called for the classification of works in terms of phenomena, causal relationships, theories, and methods. http://www.iskoi.org/ilc/leon.php

The classification of relationships came later in two papers: “Classifying Relationships” Knowledge Organization 39:3, May, 2012, 165-78, and “Toward a Classification of Relationships.” Knowledge Organization 39:2, March, 2012, 83-94. These papers also combined deduction and induction, first analysing the nature of such a classification, and then surveying an array of sources to ensure exhaustiveness.

One argument made in many of the above works is that most scholarly research -- and much/most general works of non-fiction -- discuss how one or more things affect one or more others; they are thus best classified in terms of such causal relations. This argument is stressed in the paper (With Claudio Gnoli) “Beyond Aboutness: Classifying Causal Links in the Service of Interdisciplinarity” Proceedings of ASIST Special Interest Group on Classification Research 20th Workshop, Vancouver, November 7, 2009. Archived on D-List. http://arizona.openrepository.com/arizona/handle/10150/105534

The argument that the best way to classify works about causal relationships is by allowing the free combination of things and relationships is summarized in “Classification in Terms of Basic Concepts” Advances in Classification Research 2012, Proceedings of the ASIST SIG/CR Workshop, October 26, 2012, Baltimore, MD, USA. http://journals.lib.washington.edu/index.php/acro/article/view/14234

I argue that domain analysis can be employed in the development of a truly universal classification in “Universal and Domain-specific Classifications from an Interdisciplinary Perspective” in Claudio Gnoli and Fulvio Mazzochi, eds., Paradigms and Conceptual Systems in Knowledge Organization: Proceedings of the 2010 conference of the International Society for Knowledge Organization (Rome, February, 2010). Wurzburg: Erlon Verlag. 7 pp. That paper also employs a work process analysis to show the benefits to interdisciplinary scholars of such a classification.

The paper “The Basic Concepts Classification” in Neelameghan, A. and Raghavan, K.S. (Eds.) Categories, Contexts and Relations in Knowledge Organization, Proceedings of the Twelfth International ISKO Conference 6-9 August 2012 Mysore, India. 24-30, outlines the basic structure of the BCC and provides an example of its application. Much of that material is now incorporated into this website in Guiding Principles and Approach Taken to "Facets" and elsewhere.

The classification of types of ethical analysis is grounded in the book Unifying Ethics (2005).

The paper "Classifying for Social Diversity" (presented at NASKO conference June 2013, Knowledge Organization 41:2, 160-70, 2013) argues that a classification such as BCC supports social diversity by facilitating both cross-group and within-group communication. But the latter depends critically on classifying works also by authorial perspective. The BCC instantiates a web-of-relations approach, as users can move from one search query to a related query by changing any of the freely combined things and relationships in the original query, or by looking for different theory types, methods, or authorial perspectives. It thus accords with a feminist approach to classification urged by Hope Olson in 2007. The BCC also solves much/most of a conundrum regarding how best to organize hierarchies: the difficulty largely stems from our failure to adequately distinguish things from relationships within existing classifications.

The paper "Skepticism and Knowledge Organization" (In Weislaw Babik, ed., Knowledge Organization in the 21^st Century: Between Historical Patterns and Future Prospects; Proceedings of the 2014 conference of the International Society for Knowledge Organization, Krakow, May, 2014, Wurzburg: Erlon Verlag.) discusses how a classification such as BCC can improve the scholarly enterprise, and in particular identify precise conflicts (and also apparent conflicts that reflect terminological confusion) and often the sources of these. Knowledge organization could then be an antidote to extreme skepticism.

The paper "Classifying the Humanities" (Knowledge Organization 41:4, 2014). discusses how a classification such as BCC would better classify both works of art (including literature) and works about these. It suggests that for works of art the theory dimension can be used to capture artistic style (in a very similar manner to the way scholarly theory is captured elsewhere). It also discusses how the free combination of things, relationships, and properties within BCC allows the classifier to much better capture the subject matter or theme of a work of art.

The paper "A Pluralistic Approach to the Philosophy of Classification," (Library Trends special issue on philosophy of information science,Spring 2015) argues that any classification should be judged in terms of a variety of both philosophical and practical criteria. It argues that (a classification like) the BCC best reflects the nature of the works classified, signals to users the likely importance of a work (by classifying theory, method and perspective applied, and precise causal arguments investigated), addresses several challenges associated with hierarchy, meets ethical standards, provides the best of both pre- and post-coordination, responds to various concerns raised by the lived experience of librarians, and is able to attach formal definitions to natural language concepts.

The paper, "The Basic Concepts Classification as a Bottom-Up Strategy for the Semantic Web," International Journal of Knowledge Content Development and Technology, June 2014. www.ijkcdt.net, shows how the BCC may be particularly well suited to the Semantic Web.

The paper (with Claudio Gnoli), "Universality is Inescapable," presented at the ASIST special interest group on classification research (Seattle, Nov. 1, 2014), and published in Advances in Classification Research Online, discusses the value of a universal classification (such as BCC), especially in the contemporary digital age. It then proposes a range of empirical tests to establish the feasibility of a classification such as BCC.

The paper, "Classifying Authorial Perspective," Knowledge Organization 42:7, 2015, discusses how various elements -- epistemological, rhetorical, ideological, etc. -- of an author's perspective could be classified using the BCC.

Two conference papers in 2016 discussed how the BCC could be used not just to classify published documents but also museum artifacts, works of art, and archival materials. These papers address a desire to integrate access across GLAM: galleries, libraries, archives, and museums. These papers review the classification systems employed across GLAM, and classify a sample of works of art, museum artifacts, and archival documents. Available from author. See "Employing a Synthetic Approach to Subject Classification across Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums," Proceedings of the International Society for Knowledge Organization conference, Rio de Janeiro, Sept., 2016, and . “Synthetic classification of museum artifacts using basic concepts.” Proceedings of the Museums and the Web conference, Los Angeles, April, 2016.

Richard Smiraglia and I compared UDC and BCC subject strings in “Comparative approaches to facets in interdisciplinary KOSs: UDC and Basic Concepts Classification,” Proceedings of the International UDC Seminar 2017 London (UK), 14-15 Sept.2017. Eds. A. Slavic, C. Gnoli. Würzburg: Ergon Verlag), 279-84, BCC subject strings were generally more precise but had notation of similar length. I also discussed the approach taken to facet analysis in BCC in that volume: .“Theory versus Practice in Facet Analysis,” Faceted classification today: Theory, technology and end users: Proceedings of the International UDC Seminar 2017, London (UK), 14-15 Sept.2017. Eds. A. Slavic, C. Gnoli. Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 259-69.

My co-authored book with Claudio Gnoli and Maria Lopez-Huertas, Interdisciplinary Knowledge Organization (Berlin: Springer, 2016), builds on many of the ideas in the publications above to justify a general classification grounded in phenomena and relationships.

I have in recent years appreciated that the subject strings used to classify a document or object or idea in BCC resemble sentences or sentence fragments. I have thus explored how the use of basic grammatical rules can be employed in structuring BCC subject strings, noting that such an approach serves to further clarify the meaning of each term in the subject string. Key publications here include “A Grammatical Approach to Subject Classification in Museums,” Knowledge Organization 44:7, 494-505, 2017, and “Facet Analysis without Facet Indicators” in Dimensions of Knowledge: Facets for Knowledge Organization. Edited by Richard Smiraglia and Hur-li Lee. Wurzburg: Ergon, 2017.

Richard Smiraglia and I are exploring how the BCC can be employed. in classifying works of music: The synthetic structure of BCC allows classification along diverse dimensions. See "Classifying Music within the Basic Concepts Classification," Proceedings of the Canadian Association for Information Science, 2019.

As noted above, the research supporting the BCC is itself grounded in a larger research agenda, The Classifying (Mapping) Scholarship Project, which has implications not just for information science but for interdisciplinary practice, university curricula, and public policy. I am at present involved in an international research grant with Richard Smiraglia, Andrea Scharnhorst and others that will (among other things) compare the BCC to the LOD cloud. The BCC should be itself translated into LOD in 2019.