Bias in Classification

Sitting in class right now, I'm contemplating the issues that surround the inherent biases in classification systems. I think there are strong arguments that any specialized group of people would benefit from a custom-fitted classifiaction system for organizing and retreiving information; however, I don't think it's possible to create a universally useful system.

In order to create such a system without any bias, the system would have to be composed of an entirely arbitrary classification system (...and who is that useful to? No one!).

I'm wondering if a database sorting system could help with this. For example, every work in a database is assigned an ID number. It doesn't matter how te numbers are assigned. Then, librarians could go through and customize organization systems for specialized groups of users by using a tagging system to identify works of a group and assigning labels to the categories. This might work similar to the way that Pandora has music specialists assigning works in relation to each other.

Then, users could come in and pick the organizational schema that fits their needs best, or possibly even create their own.

Grocery Stores and the Dewey Decimal System

Ah, crossover. This represents one of the many times thus far that I have had a reading assigned for one of my MA programs that I have already read for the other.

This one was assigned for LI804, but I read it (many times) during my linguistic undergrad studies:

LAKOFF, GEORGE (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things. University Of Chicago Press.

What does this matter to grocery stores and DDS?--It demonstrates the principle that one's cultural or individual background can have a large influence on the way classification systems are created and perceived. As talked about before in my post on Linguistic Relativity, people divide up the world in many interesting ways.

Grocery stores are masters in the art of classification and seeking behaviors, which is the reason they know that when you find your target quickly you spend less time in the store. And the more time you spend in the store, the more you are apt to buy. But no one will shop a "disorganized" grocery store, so they have to keep things organized while at the same time keeping people in the store longer.

This is the reason things like milk and eggs, which people always run in to get when they notice they're out, are at the back of the store. It's so a customer has to pass through aisles of food before they get to the target and then back, hoping they pick up another item or two on the way.

Melvil Dewey. What an interesting guy--one of many to attempt reform of the English language with regards to spelling, among other OCD organizational tasks. Here's a link to the Wikipedia page on Melvil Dewey. (And for the record, there are no spelling rules in English. Absolutely none. Zero sound to letter combination correspondance. It's amazing anyone ever learns to read and write in English given that the history of the language means there are no phonological-spelling rules. Check out my favorite poem demonstrating this here.)

Now, the DDS. I've never been a DDS fan. It's not user centered, and by and large, library subjects and media (I feel) have outgrown it. I never learned DDS until I started my MA in Library and Information Management Science; without the headers on the end of the aisles that listed subject matter I would have been lost in a library. For me, it's bookstore model all the way. In my dream world the computer system will also help a person find things on the shelve by providing exact directions (maybe a map) to the location of the book.

804 first weekend

Theory of Organization of Information



Classification: putting a letter and number scheme to something to put things in a particular order



Categorizing: putting things into categories "we do it all the time"? (I believe this means a looser fit organization, like a blog tagging system)



Annotated Bibliography: What is this?



There used to be a position in most libraries called "Bibliographer." These individuals would pick a core area of speciality, i.e. French Fiction or the Spanish War, and write bibliographies. These positions have largely disappeared due to lack of funding.



The supermarket experience: