Subject Analysis: Chapter 9

Presenters: Brandy Jesernik and Jeanne Jesernik

Information Retrieval

Importance of Subject Analysis

Ranganathan’s Fifth Law: Save the “Reader” Time!

The Library is for ALL Users! The less bias in subject analysis—the greater resource retrieval will be for the User.

What Is Subject Analysis?

* It is a process of analyzing an information item’s content or its aboutness

* It is determining which aboutness concepts are to be represented in the surrogate record

*It is translating these concepts and applying these to the surrogate record (e.g., subject headings)

Remember: Subject Analysis is carried out by people!

Controversy?

“Despite the difficulties and costs associated with subject analysis, information professionals still see the value inherent in identifying precisely an item’s subject matter (often referred to as aboutness in the library and information science literature), and then carefully choosing the most suitable terms and symbols from a subject language to represent the item’s aboutness in its surrogate record” (Taylor and Joudrey 2009, 303).

What other options are there?

Search engines, automated indexing . . . But, at what cost? What are the difficulties involved?

“Original” Cataloging Crucial in 21st Century!

(not to be confused with “in-house” cataloging—a very significant topic, but alas—not part of this chapter)

“Sophisticated” algorithms used in search engine technology do not lend themselves to accuracy or relevancy (they do lend themselves to determining how often a specific word is referenced in a text etc. Think Google searches)

Humans as cognitive thinkers can understand meanings of texts and represent those meanings through the use of Subject Languages (i.e., classification schemes and controlled vocabularies). For example, LCSH “God (Christianity)”

If I Only Had a Brain

FAQs

This presentation will answer:

What is Subject Analysis?—in greater detail.

What are the inherent difficulties in this process?

How is the process performed?

What surrogate record features are useful in determining aboutness?

How is aboutness determined for nontextual materials?

And much more!

Subject Analysis Part of Metadata creation process (our good friend metadata once

again)

Subject Analysis process (a quick overview)

1. determine information item’s content or aboutness: aka conceptual analysis

2. write an “aboutness statement”—a sentence, a paragraph, etc. while keeping in mind that from this writing . . .

3. . . . apply Controlled Vocabulary that will be used to search for the item, to understand its relationship with other items in a collection (e.g., LCSH, DDC classification notations)

Charles Ammi Cutter

In other words, Charles Cutter proposed that catalogs should help users find work on a certain subject and other works on that subject too (idea of collocation): today’s catalogers use subject analysis to achieve these goals.

Challenges in Subject Analysis

What is the topic?

Who is determining the item’s aboutness?

How is consistency achieved?

Nontextual Information—how to determine topic?

At what point is exhaustivity of subject analysis reached?

What is an analyzable unit?

Is objectivity possible?

What is the topic?

What exactly is the topic?

Sometimes the topic is more straightforward (meaning there is a more or less universal acceptance as to what it is among various catalogers).

Book Title: An Introduction to Anthropology

Versus –A Historiography of Anthropology in the 19th Century

The latter book title immediately signals a greater complexity—deals with anthropology and the evolution of anthropology

Whose Decision Is It?

Who is determining the information item’s aboutness? Inherent biases:

Education, time and place, language, cultural background, on the job training, time constraints etc. of individual cataloger impacts their decisions: examples

Time Constraints: Our class “guessing” game

Time and Place: “From the postmodernist perspective, every discourse, every text, every artifact, is just one representation of reality; one narrative among many . . . Nothing is neutral and nothing is objective” (Joseph Deodato in Progressive Librarian 2006) –archivist

Consistency Achievable? How is Consistency achieved?

Different individuals use different natural language to determine and describe an item’s ‘aboutness’—Once controlled vocabulary is applied, consistent subject headings will result

How is controlled vocabulary decided?

One step among others is . . . Don’t confuse what the work is about with the purpose of the work—D.W. Langridge (subject analyzer)

How is this accomplished? Read the author’s Statement of Purpose (if you are fortunate enough to have access to one!), Table of Contents, captions with illustrations etc.

Nontextual Challenge

What do you see? What do you know? What is your interpretation? (Step 3 will lead to the least consistent vocab)

Non-text Info

Nontextual Information (e.g., works of art, musical works, archaeological artifacts)

3 levels of meaning in works of art (still viable since art historian Erwin Panofsky first proposed this in 1939)

1. Primary or natural subject matter: iconographical level (what is seen)

2. Secondary or conventional subject matter: general meaning of images understood

3. Tertiary or intrinsic meaning/content: iconological level (interpretive meaning of images in an even greater context)

Degrees of Exhaustivity At what point is Subject Analysis exhaustivity reached?

2 basic degrees of exhaustivity (# of concepts that are considered in analysis)

1. Summarization of the main themes (library cataloging)

2. In-Depth Indexing: topics, subtopics etc. (periodical indexing)

The latter examines parts of an item (journal articles, book chapters-sections-paragraphs even, etc.)

Why wouldn’t library catalogers want to go more in-depth? Summarization allows easy item retrieval (Ranganathan’s 5th law)! Subsequent information retrieval is then possible.

What is Being Analyzed? What is an analyzable unit?

Catalogers focus on visible and universal aspects of an item’s ‘aboutness’ Top layers of the onion

Presently summarization can lead to greater recall in number of “relevant” books, because broader terms are used.

In depth indexing uses precise terms that leads to more precise findings in --online journal articles, for example.

As intangible items (e-resources: internet, digital libraries) increase—greater attention to measurements of precision and recall must be given. Google=less precise + greater recall: Problematic?

Objectivity?

No, objectivity is not possible—at least that is my subjective viewpoint! (Joudrey’s dissertation work is in agreement)

Positivist—empirical worldview is that ‘aboutness’ is waiting to be revealed

Constructivist worldview is that item is analyzed through the author’s subjective ‘lens’ (mood, skills, cultural background, time constraints etc.)

What to do? Be aware of biases—be open to suggestions and changes as needed. Understand that your job as a cataloger is important and do your best work. If you don’t, someone will miss out on finding the resource they need! Stay inspired!

Methods for Determining Aboutness

Langridge’s Approach

Wilson’s 4 Approaches

Use-based Approaches

Conceptual Analysis Process

Langridge’s Approach

1. What is it?

(Category of knowledge)

2. What is it for?

(Why created? Who for?)

3. What is it about?

(Topic)

Wilson’s Approaches

1. Purposive Method:

Creator’s purpose?

2. Figure-Ground Method:

What stands out?

3. Objective Method:

What is referred to? How many times?

4.Cohesion Method:

What concept unifies the work?

Use-based Approaches

What is it about?

Why has it been added to our collection?

What aspects will our users be interested in?

Conceptual Analysis Approach

• Item Examination

• Content Examination

• Other performed stages

Stages in Aboutness Determination

Input Process

Assumption Making

Revision Process

Sense Making

Stopping

Document it!