Classification studies – approaches to

information and knowledge

organization
Classification Studies / Fall 2020
Martin Thellefsen
COMM/KU
What does it mean to say “To classify is
Human?”
Getting started: Assignment
What is your understanding of Knowledge Organization
- discuss with your classmate next to your, your understanding of the field
Knowledge organization

Where do we see classification?

- Discuss different examples of own choice

Think about classification both generally and specifically

- discuss different examples of classification in regards to perspective,
focus, usefulness
Classification and purpose
Classification and purpose
Classification and purpose

•15b-2-15
•002.001 Cr
•978-87-593-1619-1
Classification and purpose

Search engines
Social media platforms
Mobile media
Classification and purpose

Texts
Communities
Genre
Summary

• Ubiquity of classification
• Materiality of classification
• Language in classification
• Reality in classification
Classification in LIS
• Traditional approach (DDC, UDC)
• Main purpose – shelving of books – library management based on general
subjects (10 main categories – and subdevision) – good for book management
(Cutter catelogue rules) – no overarching theoretical framework (developed
from common sense or pragmatic) (ennumerative)
• The facet-analytical approach
• Main purpose – classifying knowledge – rational system based on universals
(e.g. Ranganathan: Personality, Matter, Energy, Space, Time) – great flexibility
in relation to subject description – analytical approach based in logic – is
relatet to ontology (in principle open to scientific discoveries)
8 short comments concerning information*

• The motivation for the paper:

• The wide variety of use of the term 'information' in LIS
• Many different incommensurable definitions within LIS
• Complex relation to other 'vaguely defined' concepts in LIS e.g.'knowledge', 'document',
'subject', 'representation’, ’classification/categorization’.

• *Thellefsen, T., Thellefsen, M., & Sørensen, B. (2015). The concept of information in library and information
science. A field in search of its boundaries; 8 short comments concerning information. Cybernetics & Human
Knowing, 22(1), 57-80.
Contributers
• Luciano Floridi
• Søren Brier
• Torkild Thellefsen, Martin Thellefsen, Bent Sørensen (eds)
• Birger Hjørland
• Brenda Dervin
• Ken Herold
• Per Hasle
• Michael Buckland
The paradox of information and knowledge
• It takes information to find information!

• According to practice theory, problem discovery (finding something

problematic) is not caused by a lack of knowledge but on the contrary
subsumes a great deal of knowledge (Talja and Nyce 2015)

• ”We conclude that we are unable to say confidently of anything that it

could not be information” (Buckland 1991, p. 50)
Buckland’s four aspects of information

Buckland 1991, p. 6
Buckland’s definition (1991)

• Information as thing  information as object! (phenomenon)

• Information as process  information as cognition! (being informed)

• Knowledge  information as object + information as cognition?

3 conceptions of information in LIS
1) The systems-oriented view
• Objective information
• Nomothetic perspective
• The information processing paradigm (AI and the cognitive view)
• Close to a datalogical framework
• Positivist epistemology
• Lab experiments (controlled environment) known variables
• Related to Shannon & Weavers information model

• In principle – information as thing

• Relevance judgement – objective query & match
3 conceptions of information in LIS
2) The user-oriented view

Information seeking behavior

Information needs / tasks
Information systems interaction

Sender Receiver
• purpuseful, meaningful and new • Information bust be requested or desired
• Human communication • Have an effect on the information seekers state
• Requested and desired of knowledge (relevance judgement)
• Effect on recipient • Relevance judgment – information is objective
• Be general but relevance is subjective
Information is only information
insofar as a generator is capaple of
• In principle – information as process
communicating the information in a
purposeful and meaningful way
(Belkin, 1978, p. 62)
The domain-oriented view
• Information cannot be reduced to objective data structures, or
subjective or personal information needs
• Information must be defined pragmatically and paradigmatically
• Neither information nor relevance judgement is objective
• The concept of information should be replaced with the concept of
documentation (Hjørland)

• In principle – information as knowledge

Other approaches
Floridi
• Information is a multifaceted and polyvalent concept
• ”What is information?” is a misleadingly simple question!

• Critical towards unified theory of information (UTS)

• Ur-concept based in math
• Information is hierarchical, linear and inclusive
• Basen in Claude Shannon information theory (entrophy and probability) often refered to as uncertainty in LIS
• Critical toward anti-reductionsit theory of information
• Network of equally valid concepts - no key concept of information
• In principle epistemological relativism
• Information is constructed in interpretation, power relations, media, conversations, a commodity etc.
• Information is not about reality, but related to a self-referencial socially construted network of meanings
• In favor of non-reductionist theory of information
• Core notion with theoretial priority (hermeneutical devise that gants access to other notions)
• ”In order to understand what information is, the best thing to do is to start by analyzing it in terms of the knowledge it can yeld about its
reference”
• The task of philosophy of information is to show how knowledge is formed and based on epistemological presuppositions of information
Brier
• ”If we want to define a universal
concept of information covering
subjective experiental and meaningful
cognition – as well as intersubjective
meaningful communication in nature,
technology, society and life worlds –
then the main problem is to deside
which epistemological and ontological
framework the concept of information
should be based on and integrated in”
• Experiental, embodied pragmatic semantics
• Meaning of sign games of living systems
• Life world
• A universal information concept must include:
• Experiential World of Life
• Perception
• Signification / Signs and Significance
• Sign(in)formation!

Brier expresses what a universal information concept must include, and does not see information
as something which relies exclusively on human cognition.
Thellefsen, Thellefsen & Sørensen
• Intricate relation between information and knowledge

”Information always causes

emotions when percieved.
Information is what we use to
create knowledge. And
knowledge is true interpreted
information. Knowledge has to
be true or believed to be true by
a community or else it is not
knowledge”
A peircean inspired concept of information
The emotional sign
The emotional sign is made up
from qualisign, sinsign and
legisign
The emotional sign is real and
internal
The emotional sign is what it is
in itself and by itself – it is a sign
qua sign
Emotion
Ego
The informational sign
The informational sign is made
up from icon, index and symbol
The information sign is real and
external
The information sign is a
relation between two, namely a
dynamic object and a
representamen
Information
Non-ego
The cognitional sign
The cognitional sign is made up
from rheme, dicent sign and
argument
The cognitional sign is real and
makes the the relation between
the internal world and the
external ditto intelligible
The cognitional sign is a relation
between three elements:
representamen, object and
interpretant
Cognition
Mediation

(Thellefsen, Thellefsen, Sørensen, 2013)

Realistic information concept - Information is non-ego and observer-independent

Royal School of Information and Library Science

Hjørland
• Is critical to the term 'Information Science' and prefers the term 'Documentation
Science’
• Instead of discussing definitions of what information is and is not, Hjørland points
out that knowledge-based systems must be considered about systems that
document knowledge. Documents contain statements of evidence.
• Is critical towards objective understandings of the term information, and argues for
intersubjective understandings.

• The term information must be understood in relation to 'informing' – e.g.

• That information informs someone about something,
• That information is a difference that makes a difference to someone.
• That information relates to both rhetorical and social practice.
Dervin
• Critically towards defining the term 'information' as a noun (see
Floridi - what is information?)
• According to Dervin, information can only be considered in terms of
interpretation. Information is also always in relation to something
else.
• Prefer to define information as a verb, thereby emphasizing the
process - to inform (’informationing’)
• Sense-making methodology – meaning of experience
Ken Herold
• Intuiting information – similarities between information and
computation

• Information experience is sui generis experiences

• Should not be identified with beliefs or inclinations to believe
• Information is non-ego – and is what it is – mode of being independent of belief
• Information experience possess presentational phenomenology
• Perciving q as p – in principle a process of categorization
• Information experiences fit into your stream of consciousness
• In Peircean terms ‘universe of discourse’ and ‘collateral experience’
Hasle
• Information as representation or rhetoric
• Systems are neither transparent nor objektive
• Langage does not objectively represent reality (refusal of tractatus) and representationalism
• Information is a representation of a possible state-of-affairs – each representation (as language) rests om some adequate system of
representation (the system is part of the meaning). The system lays out the rules for correctly building representations (grammar). The
rules conversely lays out the rules of interpretation
• Any person who is competent within a specific system can within this context produce (encode) and decode information (the system is
key)

• ”Since … knowledge is embodied in books and books are fundamentally composed from sentences, that is, language,
this would seem to move the study of language right into the core of LIS.”
• The rhetorical perspective puts the focus on communication, and intentionality in this communication
• In rhetoric there is a crucial emphasis on intentionality (or persuation)
• Information and knowledge include Doxa / endoxa - general / expert knowledge.
• Knowledge arises as a result of the encounter with phenomena / objects / sensations (expositions)
• Information is perspective-dependent and will always include uncertainty (uncertainty)
• In the context of information science – information systems and knowledge organization systems should be considered as intentional
parts in a dialog – rather than neutal or objective systems of transmission.
Afrunding
• ”What is important is not the definitional question about what
information is, but the epistemic concern about when information
appears as information”
Skouvig, L., & Andersen, J. (2015), p. 2061

• Thus, not a question of a categorical definition but a question of what

under given (historical) circumstances can be perceived as
information
Referencer
• Belkin, N. J. (1978). Information Concepts for Information-Science. Journal of Documentation, 34(1), 55-85.
doi:Doi 10.1108/Eb026653
• Buckland, M. (1991). Information and information systems. New York: Praeger.
• Skouvig, L., & Andersen, J. (2015). Understanding information history from a genre‐theoretical perspective.
Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. doi:10.1002/asi.23313
• Talja, S., & Nyce, J. M. (2015). The problem with problematic situations: Differences between practices, tasks,
and situations as units of analysis. Library & Information Science Research, 37(1), 61-67. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2014.06.005
• Thellefsen, T., Thellefsen, M., & Sørensen, B. (2013). Emotion, information, and cognition, and some possible
consequences for library and information science. Journal of the American Society for Information Science
and Technology, 64(8), 1735-1750. doi:DOI: 10.1002/asi.22858
• Thellefsen, T., Thellefsen, M., & Sørensen, B. (2015). The concept of information in library and information
science. A field in search of its boundaries; 8 short comments concerning information. Cybernetics & Human
Knowing, 22(1), 57-80.
•