Paper I)

CLASSIFICATION AND HETRIEVALPROBLE~S OF PURSUIT

DE P THe LAS SI Fie ,AT I 0 H 32

Begins with a brief account of the work Qonein recent past in the theory of classifica-tion, including facet analysis, fundamentalcategories, zone analysis, common isolates,special isola"es, and postulational approach.Estimates the CommonIsolates for advance enu-meration to be about 1,000 for Energy, 10,000for Matter, and 100 for Personality. Conjeo-tures the likelil).ood of special I solates be-coming quasi-common or seminal for Ener5J.Estimates the Special Matter Isolates for ad-vance enumeration to be of the order 1010•States that the notational devices for theSpecial Personality Isolates are available tohandle them as and when they emerge. Pointsout the need for additional principles to fa·-cilitate assignment of facets to levels androunds, and for the investigation of semanticproblems involved in the br eaki.ng down of Com-posite terms to fundamental ones.

Contractions used

CC: Colon ClassificationUDC: Universal Decimal Classification

o PAST WORK

01 Facet Analysis

Even micro subjects have to be classifiedto-day to facilitate literature search. Theirnumber is already running into several mil-lions. The annual addition to their nurrbe r runsto several thousands. An all-through enumera-

V 6 N 2 Iun 1959

S H RA~GANATHAN

ti ve schedule of them is impracticable. There-fore, recent work in the theory of classificationhas reduced enumeration to a number of smallschedules at the l~\I€l of i!lJi..-id:Jal facets ofsubjec:ts. This is the r esuIt cf fa c et analysis.For each facet, the number" of enumerated iso-Iat es is small, often Les s tn an a hunared. Thearmu aI addition of new onum er e.ted isolates, inthe case of most facets, is nil or negligiblysma Il , In some facets, they r,cn :'\.11be antici-pated and enumerated in a dvanc e, without wait-ing for literary warrant to develop ,

011 Isolates in Deeper Level

A facet .mprehends only fundamentalthought-units or isolates bel.onging to a deepsemantic level, unlike compo sit e thought-blocks01' subjects belonging to the semantic surfacelevel. At the deeper semantic Le v el , the fre-quency of formation o i n ew thought -urrit s orisolates is small, unlike at the semantic surfacelevel where the frequency of formation of newthought -b Iock s or subjects is very large -extremely large in the ca ae of rn ic r o s subj ect a.This is a result of the po s sdbi Iity of thesubjects at the semantic surface level beingformed out of n - isolates. Future work shouldtake enumeration to still deeper level - theseminal level. The number of seminal isolateswill be extremely srnaLl, Even the decennialaddition to their number will be negligiblysmall.

33

D02 RANGANATHAN

02 Five Fundamental Categories

The postulation of the five fun.damental cate-gories - Personality, Matter, Energy, Space,and Time - has implied the recognition of fivecorresponding kinds of facets. This has madefurther work more manageable. For, thenumber of isolates and the number of seminalisolates in facets vary from kind to kind. Therate of addition to their number' also variesfrom kind to kind. The extent, to which forma-tion of new isolates a tt r a ct ing literary warrantcan be anticipated, varies similarly from kindto kind of facet. Facets of certain kinds arenow known to consist on.ly-of a relatively smallnumber of isolates. The few facets, requiringan indefinite addition to isolates have now beensingled out. Further, these few are am eriab l eto different methods of investigation. This isexplained later in the paper.

03 Zone Analysis

For convenience of reference, we shall de-note a focus in an array by the term Array-Isolate. We can use two characteristics todevide the array isolates into groups.

031 Special vs Common

One characteristics for division is thearray-isolate being either

1 special to its host basic class or to itsimmediate universe; or

2 not special - that is beir:g a common iso-late likely to arise in relation to any ornearly any host classes.

032 Enurreration ~ Device

The second characteristic for the divisionof array isolates into groups is the array beinggot either by

1 ~ enumeration:, or2 a device, such as alphabetical, chronolo-

gical or subject device.

34

033 Kinds of Array Isolates

Each of the two characteristics is dichtomicthat is, each yields only two groups of array

isolates. The successive application of the twocharacteristics gives Iou rvd.ivis ion s , In otherwords, four kinds of array-isolates are possiblein an array. They are

1 Common isolate got by enumeration;2 Special isolate got by enumeration;3 Special isolate got by a Device; and4 Common isolate got by a Device.

034 Zone Formation

It is helpful to put together - that is con-secutively in the array - all the array isolatesof one and the same kind. This creates fourzones in an array. There are 24 ways of form-ing these four zones. In CC, they are formedin the sequence in which they are mentioned ins ect io» 33. The zones are numbered accord-ingly as zones i, 2, 3 and 4.

035 Notational Character

T'h e mixed notational system of CC makesthe a r z-a y-d soIa t e s numbers of each zone have,generally speaking, a distinctive character. Anurnb er of Zone 1 begins with a Roman small.A nurnb er of Zone 2 begins with an Indo-Arabic numeral or if it begins with an octa.vi s»ing Indo -A'r ab ic numeral 9, its first significantdigit is an Arabic numeral. A number of zone 3begins with a Roman capital or if it begins withthe octavising Indo-Arabic numeral 9, its firstsignificant digit is a Roman capital. A numberof Zone 4 begins with a circular bracket. UDChas not yet recognised the existence of thesezones in an array being naturally formed in theidea plane its elf.

04 Common Isolatesby Subject Device: Zone 4

Zone 4 of an array does not raise any seriousproblem. Its isolates can be easily given iso-late numbers as and when they emerge. Theonly possibility is that an isolate number got bysubject device may become long. But, as and

An lib sc

r

CLASSIFICATION AND RETRIEVAL D08t

when literary warrant of a particular isolate ofthis zone increases or is likely to go beyond alimit, it will be useful to transfer it to Zone 2.Notational provision can be easily made forthis. Some experiments have been alreadydone.

05 Common Isolatesby Enumeration: Zone i

The 'Form Divisions' or, 'Common Sub-divisions' of the DC tradition had permeated allthe schemes of classification including CC.Their schedule has been found to be a hot ch «

porch, A summary of this analysis will befound in Prolegomena to library classification,ed Z, i957, see 458 to 45823. Section 458 ofthis book examines critically the Form Divi-sion of U. D. C. Some of its isolates do notbeleng to subject-classification at all. Thesehave now been separated out in CC; they havebeen transferred to the care of Book Number.The residue is denoted by the term CommonIsolate. An isolate having the same isolateterm to denote it and the same isolate num-ber to represent it, in the context of all orneadyall subjects, it> called a Common Iso-late. The common isolates lend themselves to1urtb.er analysis. They fall into the fivegroups:

o Anteriorising common isolate;i Posteriorising common time Laol at e ;2 Posteriorising common space isolate;3 Posteriori sing common energy isolate;4 Poateriorising common matter isolate;

and5 Posteriorising common personality

isolate.

By definition, they all belong to Zone i. Theyneed enumeration. In the light of the trend ofthe literary warrant of the past and the pre-sent, these common isolates can be anticipatedmore or less exhaustively. If their schedulesare constructed, they will take care of nearly80 per cent of the new micro-subjects turningup fr~m time to time.

06 Special Isolatesby Device: Zone 3

Zone 3 does not raise any serious problem.

V 6 N 2 Jun 1959

Definite criteria have now been established forthe use of alphabetical device. The use of chro-nological device also has been made to rest onmore or less definite rules. Therefore, thespecial isolates amenable to any of these de-vices can be easily given isolate numbers, asand when they arise.

07 Special Isolatesby Enumeration: Zone Z

In general, Zone 2 alone cannot be filled upin anticipation. The isolates in it will have to beenumerated and added to from time to time in thelight of and after the emergence of literarywarrant. This problem will engage more atten-tion in the case of Personality Facet than ofothers. Further, the necessity for this may becreated only by about iO per cent of the newlyemerging micro-subjects. This is a conjec-ture.

08 Future Work

We shall next take a peep into the future.Some problems are pressing. Some requirea good deal of man-power. Others requireonly small man-power. Some require onlyroutine investigation. Others require moreserious investigation. Some fall entirely within the filed of the library profession. A fewinvoke the aid of other professions. What-ever result can be achieved will be equallyof use for library classification, for thebuilding of the library catalogue, and for thebuilding of the machine language.

081 List of Problems

A list of 44 p r oblern s for pursuit is givenin chapter 88 of my Prolegomena to libraryclassification, ed Z, 1957. They stand groupedas follows:

Category

Idea PlaneNotational planeConstruction of schedulesProbably insolubleAbstrac t c1as sification

Total

Number

i6H

736

...!L

35

D08i RANGANATHAN

When the above list was drawn up, postula-tional approach was not well developed. Thesucceeding sections examine some of the majorproblems for pursuit as they appear when viewedfrom the anlge of postulational approach.

i TIME FACET

The entire time facet is a facet of commonisolates. A considerable amount of work hasbeen done on it. Analysis has disclosed theneed for

i Representing time measured in differenteras;

2 Representing private time - that is timemeasured from a point intrinsic to asubject;

3 Use of different units for measurement- durations ranging from fraction of asecond to geological ages; and

4 Second level of time-facet to representseasons, night, twilight, etc.

ThisIt

This has been called Featured Times.does not admit of quantitative division.admits only of topological division.

The notational system of CC is resilientenough to implement the findings of the ideaplane in respect of all these. The notationalsystem of UDC is near.ly resiEent. Suggestionshave been made to make them fully resilient.All this work is only a first attempt. It is con»tained in my Common isolates in documentationwork: (3) Time isolate, (Review of documenta-tion, 23, i956, 70-79). It requires testing,improvement, and being placed on a firm foot-ing.

2 SPACE FACET

The entire space facet is a facet of commonisolates. A considerable work has been done onit. Analysis has disclosed the need for

i D~viding the surface of th e earth as wellas any area in diverse ways to meet therequirements of different subject;

Z Second level of apac e-da cet to representphysical features, etc. (This has beencalled Featured Space); and

36

3 Third level of space to represent differ-ent horizontal strata.

The notational ,system of CC is resilientenough to implement the findings of the ideaplane in respect of most of these. The nota-tional system of UDC can be made equally re-silient. Its sequence of levels needs examina-tion. The result is contained in my Commonisolates in documentation work(4) Space isolate(Review of documentation, 24, 1957, 18-28).The isolates in space facet have generally tobe formed topologically and not quantitatively.It requires testing, improvement, and beingplaced on a firm footing. No scheme gives afully detailed list of political and administrativedivisions of all countries. This must be done.It is becoming urgent as extensive research insocial sciences has begun and is accumulatingliterary warrant on intensive regional studiesand local surveys pertaining even to tiny loca-lities. It is also needed for maintaining localrecords in a helpful sequence in central collec-tions and to retrieve them easily. There ishowever one unsolved problem which is prob-ably insoluble. It is the situation created by thepolitical and administrative divisions £loutingthe Canon of Pe r mananc e, This routine workmaT require not more than one man-year.

3 ENERGY FACET

31 Common Isolate

Literary warrant brings out that most of theenergy isolates needed in depth classification fordocumentation are common isolates. Some ofthese figure most in Natural Sc renc es , Othersfigure most in Social Sciences. It is conjec-tured that their total number III••.y not exceed1,000. Micro literature should be systemati-cally scanned to list the posteriorising comrnonenergy isolates. A study of this list will dis-close helpful ways of making filiatory gr.oupsand sub-groups of them. Once this grouping ismade in the idea plane, the work in the nota-tional plane will be easily done with Group No-tation. (Ranganathan: Prolegomena to libraryclassification, ed 2, 1957, see 368 and its sub-divisions). Probably the average number ofdigits in the ultimate isolate numbers may beonly 3 in CC and 4 in UDC, An extensivescanning of micro literature and the establish-

An lib sc

CLASSIFICATION AND RETRIEVAL

ment of a schedule of common energy isolatesmay require about 2 man-years:

32 Special Isolate

Most of the special energy isolates arequasi-common isolates in the Sense that theyare amenable to the Canon of Seminal Mnemo-nics. In other words, though the term denotingan isolate idea in the context of different subjectsmay be different, the identity of the isolate ideaat the deeper seminal semantic level of all thesubjects is recognisable. Therefore, it can b~denoted by the same isolate number in all sub-jects. This would make the amplification ofZone 2 of an energy schedule comparativelyeasy. It can be left to the autonomy of individ-ual classifiers even. Work should be done toconstruct such a seminal schedule in all its full-ness. There is an Indian tradition that isolatesin this deep seminal level had been spotted outand fitted with notation in some earlier age.But I have not yet been able to get at this. Thehelp of Indologists - particularly specialists intantra literature - should be sought. The resi-due of the special energy isolates will be verysmall.

4 MATTER FACET

4f Common Isolate

Properties and values figure large in microsubjects. It is helpful to review them as po st e»riorising common energy isolates. It is conje c-itured that their number may not exceed fO, 000.lf a achedufe is constructed for them, it willgive great relief in the depth classification of:micro subjects. Pilot work was done on it lastyear. It has been found that its schedule can beconstructed easily by applying the Ce non ofScheduled Mnemonics. In CC, we have only tochange the Roman capitals representing mainclasses into the corresponding Roman smalls.There are also a few principles to be arrivedat in respect of the overlooking of some of thefacets in the main classes used. The zonenotation is found particularly helpful in certaincases. Side by side with deriving the scheduleof common isolates from the schedule of specialisolates for the basic classes as indicatedabove, micro literature also should be syste-

V 6 N 2 Jun 1959

D5f .

matically scanned, to discover any propertiesand values that may escape the a priori sweepsuggested above. This work may require 3man-eye a r s , Now that thought is being turnedon the special requirements of the cla s sificationof social sciences, part of this schedule dealingwith values will be of considerable help.

42 Special Isolate

There should be an over-all master sched-ule of matter isorat e s , 'I'hi s will have to in-clude all raw materials, ultimate commodities,all stages of intermediate commodities, and allservices. Their number may be of the order

10fa. The work done in the notational plane ofCC is such that all the findings in the ideaplane can be implemented. The only work tobe done is scanning macro and micro literatureand making a list of all materials and ser-vices. The Customs Authorities have donesome spade work in the field. Their list canform the starting point. It is estimated thatthis work will require about fOO man-years.The results of this work belong essentially tothe idea plane. They will therefore be of usefor incorporation in any scheme of classifica-tion including UDC. Now that thought isbeing turned on the special requirements of theclassification of Social Sciences, this schedulewill be of use not only in Economics but also inthe part of Sociology dealing with antefacts. lfit is completed, depth classification will getgreat relief. For much can then be left to theautonomy of individual classifiers.

5 PERSONALITY FACET

51 Common Isolate

Little work has been done on posteriorisingcommon personality isolates. They may notfar exceed fOO. By a systematic scanning ofmicro literature, a list of these can be made.lf thi s work in the idea plane is completed, thework in the notational plane will be simple.Most of the original sources and other archi-ves of the various kinds of bodies - govern-mental and non-governmental - with all degreesof ramification will need this. A completion ofthis schedule and of the common energy sched-ule will make the classification and organisationof such source materials easy.

37

D51 RANGANATHAN

Therefore in addition to FID bodies interestedin Social Science research should also help anearly completion of this project.

52 Special Isolate

The special isolates in the personality facetswill be many. Even the special isolates of Zone2 _ that Ls special isolates to be enumerated -will be many. The building of their scheduleswill have to be a continuing piece of work, in thelight of the literary warrant developing fromtime to time. In CC, the need for a formalschedule can be by-passed to a large extent,with the aid of the Canon of Scheduled Mnerno s,

nic s and the Cannon of Seminal Mnemonic s,However, much has to be done to make full useof these aids. Some guiding principles shouldbe got. Probably, they will have to be got byempirical methods. It is not impos sible to fitUDC also to take advantage of a similarapproach.

53 Environmented Entity

The behaviour of an entity varies with en-vironment. In a new environment, it has to betreated as if it were a new entity. I have calledit Environmented Entity. It figures much inmicro literature. The ifrst study of the prob-lem will be found in my Classification of enu-merated entity: (Report 8 of FID/CA, GeneralTheory of Classification, 1958) (Review of 'documentation, 25, 1958, 122-127). There,environment was treated as if it were anotherfacet. According to the further work done inthe subject, this does not give helpful results.The helpful result as reviewed from the ideaplane, can be got only by treateng the environ-mented entity as a new brand of the originalentity of the normal or favoured environment.In other words, an environmented entity shouldbe treated as if it were a sharper focus of theoriginal in its own facet. In the array ofbrands, environemted entities should haveprecedence over the brands themselves. Thisis got by the superimposition of the environ-ment isolate over the original isolate. Thisfinding in the idea plane is easily implementedin the notational plane of CC. The environmentisolate should be got normally by subject device.

38

The helpfulness of this way of treating an envr--ronmented entity needs to be tested and con-firmed. While most environmented entitiesare personality isolates, some may be matterisolates.

54 Telescoped Facet and Array

To secure economy in notation, the per-sonality facet has often to be telescoped one orto be made of a telescoped array. Telescop-ing will cause economy in the coding formachine search also. Not only consecutivearrays in a facet can be telscoped but alsofacets belonging to consecutive levels can betelescoped (Prolegomena to library classifica-tion, ed 2, 1957, see 367). The telescopingtechnique is still in the infant stage. It pre-sents many problems for investigation andsolution. Most of them belong to the notationalplane. One such problem concerns the tele_scoping of energy facet and personality facet.This has been brought out in sections 8231and 8232 of my Depth classification(19)Classification of management (Annals of lib-rary science, 3, 1956, 33-85).

55 Ineffability of Personality

There is a difficult problem to be pursuedin the future. It is concerned with the recog-nition of an isolate as a personality isolate.This is made difficult by three causes. In thefirst place, a personality isolate is often gotby chronological device or geographical de-vice. When geographical device is used, theisolate term used to denote the personalityisolate is identically the same a:.. the one usedto denote a space isolate. This bas produceda wrong, but deep, tendency in mind to lookupon the personality isolate concerned as aspace isolate. For example, when we speakof History of England, England is uncon-sciously taken to denote the geographical areaEngland _ i,e. a space isolate. But inreality it stands for the community living inEngland _ a personality isolate. The samewrong tendency exists to a smaller degree inrespect of chronological device. Secondly,energy and matter also may officiate as per-sonaHty in some cases, as time and space do.

An lib sc

CLASSIFICATION AND RETRIEVAL D6ZZ '

Classifiers can be easily made to get overthese two difficulties by practice. But thethird difficulty is deeper. It requires con-siderable insight to distinguish between per-sonality and matter isolates. This dis tinctiondepends on the context of the host-class. Forexample, in the context of carpentry, 'Chairl

is personality. It is only the ITimber' or the'Steel' or the 'Aluminium of which it is made,that is matter. But in the context of metal-lurgy or chemistry, 'steel' and 'aluminiuml

have to be taken as personality. There arecases which are not even as easy as this. Atpresent, personal demonstration is necessaryto develop the necessary insight and reflexaction into this delicate decision. Much workremains to be done to put the solution of thisproblem on an objective basis. Some criteriashould be evolved to identify an isolate as apersonality isolate or any other isolate in agiven subject-context.

6 POSTULATES AND PRINCIPLES

61 Po stulational Approa ch

As stated already in section 1, severalthousands of micro documents call for classi-fication every year. Many of them embodynew micro subjects. It is impracticable tomake a schedule for them in anticipation. Itis tantalising to choose consistently one of theseveral millions of the possible sequence ofthem as a preferred helpful sequence. It isequally tantalising to find, by special reason-ing in each case, to find a helpful place forthem among the already existing subjects.This leads to a confusion. Even the choice ofthe sequence of the micro subjects should bemechanised _ and not merely the maintenanceof a preferred sequence. This has been madepossible by postulational approach to classifi-cation. This approach has been actively pur-sued during the year under report. In thisapproach work in the idea plane, the verbalplane, and the notational plane is based on arespective set of postulates. A definite pro-cedure of severe steps is prescribed for thefacet analysis of any subjects in the idea planeand for the facet synthesis in the notationalplane. The postulates and the associatedprinciples are such that in the resulting classes

V 6 N 2 Jun 1959

numbers throw the subjects in a helpful filia-tory sequence in a consistent way - in otherwords, mechanises the choice and sequence ofsubjects.

62 Steps in Classification

Probably we may begin with a demonstra-tion of classification according to postulationalapproach.

620 Step 0: Raw Title

.Effect of a dosage of 5 cc of C367 everytwo days for dog-bite".

6201 Explanation

Raw title is the title found in the document.

621 Step 1: Expressive Title

·Effect of injection· of a dosage of 5 cc of.the vaccine .C367· with a periodicity of twodays "for curing" "the disease" ·of the centralnervous system" "caused by virus from" dog-bite "in Medicine".

6211 Explanation

1 The following kernel terms have been in-serted along with their auxiliaries within quotesto make explicit the basic class and the isolatesomitted in the raw title but implied in it.

InjectionVaccinePeriodicityCuring

DiseaseCentral nervous systemVirusMedicine

2 ·Medicine" really stands for the basicclass dealing with human body.

622 Step 2: Kernel Title

"Effect injection 5 cc Vaccine C367 Pe-riodicity of two dyas curing disease centralnervous system Virus Dog-bite Medicine".

39

D6ZZi RANGANATHAN

622:1 Explanation

1 Auxiliaries are omitted2 Only the kernel terms are retianed3 'Medicine' is the basic term4 The other terms are isolate terms5 Each of the terms denotes a facet of the

subject of the document.

623 Analysed Title

Effect [4~ (PCEI) Injection [3EJ Scc [3~(PC MI) Vaccine 367(3P) Periodicity of twodays [T] Curi!!p [2EJ Disease [EJ Virus [z.pJDog -bite [ZP2d Medicine (BC).

6231 Explanation

1 Explanation of the contractual symbols

1: Meaning of contractions:

rEJ -2~ -

[2P~

[3E][3~ -[)~ -

BE] -(BC)[pJ -(PCEI) =

rrJ

Second round energy facetSecond round first level personalityfacetSecond round second level persona-lity facetThird round energy facetThird round first level matter facetThird round first level personalityfacetFourth round energy facetBasic ClassFirst round first levelPosteriorising Common Energy Iso-latePosteriorising Common matter Iso-late= PropertyFirat level time facet

(PCMI) =

2 By postulate, energy has only rounds andno levels.

3 By Later-in -Time Principle, 'Curing'follows 'Disease'. Therefore 'Curing' isassigned to the second round.

4 By Actand-Action-Actor Principle, 'Cen-tral nervous system' proceeds 'Disease'; and'Disease' precedes 'Virus'. Therefore, 'Cen-tral nervous system is assigned to the firstround; and 'Virus' is assigned to the secondround.

40

S By Entity-Source Principle, 'Virus' pro-cedes 'Dog_bite'. The later has to be assignedto the same round as the former. Therefore'Dog-bite' is assigned to the second roundsecond level.

6 By Actand-AcHon-Actor-Principle,'Curing' precedes 'Vaccine C367'. Thereforethe latter is assigned to the third round.

7 '5 cc! has to be assigned to the sameround as 'Vaccine' _ that is to the thirdround. Moreover, by postulate it has tosucceed 'Vaccine'.

8 By Actand-Action-Actor-Principle,'Vaccine C 367' and '5 cc! should precede'Injection'. Therefore, it is assigned to thethi rd round.

9 By Later-in-Time Principle, 'Effect'succeeds 'Injection'. Therefore, it isassigned to the fourth round.

624 Stage 4: Title inTransposed Form

-Medicine (BC) Central nervous system (p]Disease 1):;] Virus (2~ Dog-bite [tPi) Curingf?E] Vaccine C367 [3P) 5 cc [3M] Injection [3EJPeriodicity of two days T Effect 4EfI.

6241 Explanation

1 By postulate, (BC) occupies the firstplace

Z By postulate, ['lj should come in the lastround

3 But there is now no objective principle tofix the position of a common isolate suchas 'Effect'. It is left to our vague seman-tic sense. It is added after [T]

4 Or perhaps, it is wrong to take 'periodi-city' of two days' as a manifestation of thefundamental category Time qua Time. Inother words, the analysis in Step 3 isperhaps wrong.

5 The sequence of the other facets is theresult of the analysis in Step 3.

An lib sc

CLASSIFICA TION AND RETRIEV AL D631

625 Step 5: Title in StandardFacet Terms

Medicine (BC) Central nervous system [p]Disease [E] Virus [2~ Dog ~P~ TherapeuticsIj~ Vaccine C367 Dfj Scc [)M] ~njection DE]Periodicity two days [T] Facts BE]

6251 Explanation

1 A Standard term is the one found in theschedule of classification. If it does not occurin the schedule. the terms of art in usage is tobe used.

2 'Dog-bite' has been replaced by 'Dog'.

3 'Curing' has been replaced by 'Thera-peutics'.

4 'Effect,' has been replaced by 'Fact'(which is got by experiment and observation).

626 Title in Facet Numbers

-L (BC) 71 [P] 4 [E] 24 [?:e K1 ~P~ 6[2~ 697 C367 3 b635 [3l.{] 6 [3~ a B 2 [T]BE-]

6261 Explanation

1 The facet numbers are according to theColon Clas sification.

2 The number for 'Dog' is not in the sched-ule. It has been constructed in accordance withthe Canons of Classification.

3 In the 'schedule. 6 is Serum, therapy. Itis now proposed to use 6 to denote Antigen andAntibody collectively. 63 is now improvisedfor Vaccine, which is Antigen. 62 will be usedfor Serum, which is Antibody.

4 C367 is the code symbol used for a spe-cific vaccine. Its use is equivalent to the useof Alphabetical Device.

5 In 635, it is taken that cc is the favouredunit in measuring vaccine. Therefore, nounit digit is inserted between 3 and 5.

V 6 N 2 Jun 1959

627 Step 7: Class Number

L71:424, K1: 663 C367; b635 :6-ab2:j.

6271 Explanation

1 The connecting symbols have been pre-fixed to the facet numbers according to po atu>late.

The resulting class number is the ColonNumber - that is, the translation of the name ofthe subject into the Colon Classificatory lan-guage.

631 Idea Plane

The following are the provisional postulatesfor the Idea Plane:

i Personality, Matter, Energy, Space andTime are the five fundamental categories.

2 Arranged in the decreasing sequence oftheir relative concreteness, the five fundamentalcategories fall in the sequence of Personality,Matter, Energy, Space and Time.

3 Basic classes are those enumerated assuch by the scheme of classification.

4 Anteriorising common isolates are thoseenumerated as such by the scheme of classifi-cation.

5 Every subject rnc lu de s a basic class. Itmay also include isolates each of which is amanifestation of one and only one of the fivefundamental categories, and also anteriorisingcommon isolates.

6 A subject may include many rounds ofmanifestation of the fundamental categorie"s,Energy, Matter, and Personality.

7 Space and Time isolates can nor rna l Iyoccur as manifestations of Space qua Space andTime qua Time, only in the last round of a sub-ject.

8 A subject may inclu.de many levels ofmanifestations of the fundamental categoriesPersonality and Matter within any round andmanifestations of Spa c'e and Time in more tha~one level in the last round. The levels of Per-sonality within a round occur cons ecut ively ,

41

D631 RANGANATHAN

So also with the levels of Matter, Space, andTime.

As pointed out in category 3 of sec 6241,the postulate 7 requires examination in thecases when helpful sequence requires that acommon energy facet should succed time facet.

6321 Colon Classification

The following are the postulates forming thebasis of the work in the notational plane in theColon Classification:-

1 The connecting symbols to be insertedbefore an isolate number are as shown below:-

Nature of Isolate ConnectingSymbol

Read inwords as'

CommaSemicolonColonDotDot

Personality IsolateMatter IsolateEnergy IsolateSpace IsolateTime IsolateAnteriorising

Common IsolateNil

2 The ordinal value of any connecting symbolshould be smaller than that of any substantivesymbol _ i, e. a digit occurring in a basicnumber or an isolate number.

3 Arranged in the increasing sequence oftheir ordinal values, the connecting symbolsfall in the sequence 0 , : ; . -

4 The digits in each of the conventionalgroups - Roman smalls, Indo-Arabic numerals,and Roman capitals - have their respectiveconventional ordinal values.

5 Arranged in the increasing sequence oftheir ordinal values, the three conventionalgroups of digits fall in the sequence of Romansmalls, Indo-Arabic numerals, and Romancapitals.

6 The ordinal values of the starterbracket - (- is greater than that of Z; and theordinal value of the arrester bracket II)" issmaller than that of O.

7 The ordinal value of each Greek letterbrought into use is defined ad hoc, such thatits place is adjacent to the Roman capital whichis its phonetical equivalent.

6322 Generalisation

In sec 71 of his paper 'Grammar of depthclassification' (Ann lib sc 5, 1958, 122-131),S Parthasarathy has suggested the followingseven postulates for adoption by an analytico-synthetic classification:

i The digits in each of the conventionalgroups _ such as alphabets, numerals, etcused in a scheme of classification have theirconventional ordinal values.

2 The conventional groups used fall in adefinite sequence.

3 The ordinal value of each additionalsymbol brought into use is defined ad hoc.

4 The ordinal value of any connectingsymbol is smaller than that of any sub-stantive symbol - ie., the digit occurring in abasic number or an isolate number.

5 The ordinal value assigned to connectingsymbols for Personality Isolate, Matter Iso-late, Energy Isolate, Space Isolate, and TimeIsolate is such that it secures the arrangementof subjects according to the Principle of In-creasing Concreteness.

6 A Personality Isolate Number, imme-diately following a basic Class Number, neednot be preceded by its connecting symbol.

7 The digits used for Anteriorising Commonisolates have anteriorising quality.

64 Work to be doneon the Postulates

The postulates for the idea plane are work-ing satisfactorily. The postulates of CC ofthe notational plane are also working satis-factorily. But the postulates of UDC for thenotational plane need considerable revision.The revision is possible. Even in the ideaplane, there are some difficult situationstranscending the capacity of the present postu-lates. It needs examination whether the diffi-culty is due to inadequate insight in the identi-fication of personality isolates and their dis-tinction from the other isolates, or whetherthere should be some additional postulates. Thishas been brought out in Explanation 4 of Section6241.

An lib sc

CLASSIFICATION ANO RETRIEVAL

65 Principles for Assignment toRounds and Levels

So far, only four principles have been for-mulated to help the assignment of an isolate tothe appropriate round and level. They aresuccessively

1 Whole-Organ principle2 Later-in-Time principle3 Actand-Action-Actor principle; and4 Entity-Source principle

66 Work to be doneon the Principles

The helpfulness of these principles should betested extensively. There are many cases be-yond the capacity of these principles. Suchcases are more numerous in Social Sciences.In those cases, we depend on a vague semanticfeeling. New principles should be discovered.Some may be discovered empirically. Othersmay be derived from the psychology of think-ing. The different syntactical arrangements ofthe kernels of a sentence, in different lang-uages, hide the principles to be derived fromthe psychology of thinking. Moreover, thepsychology of thinking is not yet well-developed.Till this work is done, it may be difficult toget a a priori principles for unerring assign-ment of isolates to rounds and levels. Butperhaps, the proportion of such difficult casesis comparatively small. Perhaps, these casescan be isolated and decided upon by the pro-fession as a whole empirically in a tentativeway.

7 SEMANTIC PROBLEMS

71 Level of Fundamental Terms

Another baffling problem is determining thesemantic level to which a composite term oridea should be broken down and re-expressed in

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terms of the fundamental constituent terms andideas belonging to that level. We can only speakin analogies here. Take the letters of the alpha-bet. To express all the words, we can have analphabet of 10 letters, 360 letters, 1,000letters or even a million letters. But there isan optimum number. The Roman alphabetcomes near it. But it is not as good as we wishit to be. Equally difficult is the problem offinding the optimum semantic level. It has forthe time being to be got only by trial and error.This amounts to saying that the number offacets which could be seen in a subject and thenumber of arrays needed in a facet to accom-modate a particular isolate are left to flair.Can any objective principles be found to re-place flair? If so, classification ad well asmachine language will be helped. There isalso the idea of a basic class and main class.This too needs to be put on objective basis.Perhaps one way to decide whether a subjectis a basic class is to examine if it can be de-rived from the already postulated basic classeseither by the addition of facets germane to itor by the addition of phases.

72 Touching the Seminal Level

Though a higher semantic level is needed tomake the schedule easily intelligible in theverbal plane, it will be possible to touch thedeeper seminal level in the idea plane and thenotational plane. If it is done, it will be possi-ble to establish a very small number of shortserni.na I schedules. This can form the masterscheme. It will carry in a potential form everypossible schedule at the conventional semanticlevel. The function of the brief schedule inthe seminal level will be comparable to thefunction of the ultra-microscopic gene in gene-tics. The construction of the conventionalschedule at a higher semantic level, in term sof the jargon appropriate to each basic class,with the aid of the seminal schedule, will givefar better consistent results. This will makecoding for machine much easier than at present.

V 6 N 2 Jun 1959 43