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SUBJECT ACCESS

INF 389F: Organization of Records Information

Professor Fran Miksa

October 29, 2003

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What Does the Phrase “Subject Access” Mean?—Pre-1890s—I

Subject Access associated with Classification of Knowledge (i.e., with a classificatory structure of subjects)Subjects are the products of human mental discoverySubjects are socially established and are naturally

classifiedKinds of subjects (General—Concrete—Individual)—

where “specific” means most concreteChief value—subjects considered part of a grand

structure of knowledge

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What Does the Phrase “Subject Access” Mean?—Pre-1890s—II

Subjects and IEsIEs “treat” a subject IEs have “themes” but these themes are of a

“treated” subject

Virtually all “Subject Access” up to 1850s is based on the association of subjects as elements of classifications of knowledge

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Classification of Knowledge and an IE

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What Does the Phrase “Subject Access” Mean?—1890s-1950

Shift towards equating “subject” with document contentLibrary cataloging (1890s-present)

Document has a subject like a human being has a personality Forcefulness of Card Catalog format

Documentation (1890s—1920s—1950s) A document has many “subjects” Subject = a “topic” (where topic is a word/term denoting

where in a document some idea is mentioned) Attempts to keep subject structures intact.

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Classification of Knowledge and IEs as Sources of Subjects

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What Does the Phrase “Subject Access” Mean?—III

1960s—The computer revolutionDocumentation becomes ISARPerceived “bottleneck” & Automatic indexingAtomization of subjects & the loss of structurePosition of other traditions of practice

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The Complications Raised by Other IE Features

Medium of IE Presentation format & Genre Audience & Use Complex subjects/Compound subjects

Physics of music; Sociological aspects of sports; History of Chemistry

Physics in India; Sports in 20th century England Combinations of subjects & Other features of IEs

Dictionary of the physics of musicHumorous aspects of sports [i.e. an essay]Children’s book of sports stories

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Content Access Attributes

Generator of content Topicality of content (“Aboutness”? “Of-ness”?) Form (of presentation) & Genre (“in-ness”) of

content Audience & Use (“for-ness”) of content Relationships of content with other “contents”

Same contentAugmented contentTransformed content (Essentially the same—

Essentially different and therefore a new content)

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Content Attribute Issues

Natural language vs. Controlled vocabulary

Automatic extraction vs. Manual assignment

Questions related to StructureNo structure—Minimal structure—Extensive

structureStructural relationships

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Structural Relationships

Ordinate structureSuperordinate - Coordinate - SubordinateChains; Arrays

KindsEquivalenceHierarchical

Generic Part Instance

Associative Thesaurus relators: BT, NT, RT, Use/Used for

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Methods for Identifying and Employing Content Attributes

Automatic extraction (if text is digital)Read/study an IEGather clues

Clues from the IE itself (Title page; Table of contents; Index; Illustrations, etc.)

Clues from outside the IE itself (Container; Reviews; Reference works, etc.)

Convert Findings to Vocabulary of a Given System.

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Subject Structures

Value related to purpose Formats of:

Alphabetical onlyAlphabetical with term relationships (Thesauri; Topic

maps?)Systematic

Ontologies of domains Hierarchical taxonomies

• Straight hierarchies

• Faceted structures

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Classical Library Taxonomies

Dewey Decimal Classification (1876- )Universal Decimal Classification (1895-Library of Congress Classification

(1898- )Bibliographic Classification (1st version,

1933-1960; BC2, 1960- )Colon Classification (1933- )BBK (Russian) (1955- )