The relationship between classification research and information retrieval research, 1952 to 1970
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-02-2017-0025 |
| Date | 09 October 2017 |
| Published date | 09 October 2017 |
| Pages | 1343-1379 |
| Author | Shawne D. Miksa |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
The relationship between
classification research and
information retrieval research,
1952 to 1970
Shawne D. Miksa
University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, USA
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to present the initial relationship between the Classification Research
Group (CRG) and the Center for Documentation and Communication Research (CDCR) and how this
relationship changed between 1952 and 1970. The theory of normative behavior and its concepts of
worldviews, social norms, social types, and information behavior are used to characterize the relationship
between the small worlds of the two groups with the intent of understanding the gap between early
classification research and information retrieval (IR) research.
Design/methodology/approach –This is a mixed method analysis of two groups as evidenced in
published artifacts by and about their work. A thorough review of historical literature about the groups as
well as their own published works was employed and an author co-citation analysis was used to characterize
the conceptual similarities and differences of the two groups of researchers.
Findings –The CRG focused on fundamental principles to aid classification and retrieval of information.
The CDCR were more inclined to develop practical methods of retrieval without benefit of good theoretical
foundations. The CRG began it work under the contention that the general classification schemes at the time
were inadequate for the developing IR mechanisms. The CDCR rejected the classification schemes of the
times and focused on developing punch card mechanisms and processes that were generously funded by both
government and corporate funding.
Originality/value –This paper provides a unique historical analysis of two groups of influential
researchers in the field of library and information science.
Keywords Information retrieval, History, Classification, Citation analysis,
Center for Documentation and Communication Research, Classification Research Group
Paper type Research paper
Part I context and conceptual framework
Part I of this paper presents an analysis of the historical literature produced by and written
about the two groups being examined. Part II presents the findings and analysis of an
author co-citation of a number of select members of both groups.
Introduction
C.P. Snow (1959), novelist and professor of physical chemistry, gave his famous Rede lecture
on the “two cultures”with the intent of bringing to light the gulf that existed between two
different “polar groups”–literary intellectuals at one pole and physical scientists at the
other (p. 3). His examination was of separate disciplines, each with its own separate goals
and methodologies that “[…] had almost ceased to communicate [with each other] at all”
( p. 2). While the delineation between these two groupsis extreme and easy to distinguish –
hard science vs literary studies –it is not as easy to distinguish between specialties within
one discipline, especially when considering the intersection and direction of ideas and
research within the specialties themselves and their overall scholarly communication.
This paper examines two subfields of library and information science (LIS): classification
research (CR) and information retrieval (IR) research during the 18-year period from 1952 to
1970. Most scholars consider these subfields as separate without much in the way of
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 73 No. 6, 2017
pp. 1343-1379
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-02-2017-0025
Received 23 February 2017
Revised 25 August 2017
Accepted 31 August 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
1343
Relationship
between CR
and IR
research
interrelationship. There has been no systematic analysis of either how or why this
perception developed. This study characterizes and analyzes the relationship between these
two subfields through the use of author co-citation analysis (ACA) and content analysis of a
well-known group of researchers from each sub-field.
In the summer of 1997, I had the opportunity to attend the Sixth International Study
Conference on Classification Research in London, at the University College London library
school. It was during this conference that many members of the Classification Research
Group (CRG) met for “Dorking Revisited,”a commemoration of the original International
Study Conference on Classification for Information Retrieval, held at Beatrice Webb House,
Dorking, England, in 1957. At the time of the 1997 conference, I had no clue of who or what
the CRG was and absolutely no knowledge of the significance of the 1957 conference.
Professor Ia McIlwaine graciously allowed me to attend at a reduced rate if I helped behind
the scenes, especially during breaks between presentations. So I served somewhat
questionable instant coffee and sandwiches to some of the most influential people in
CR –Jack Mills, Brian Vickery, Eric Coates, D.J. Foskett –blissfully ignorant of who they
were or what they had accomplished since coming together some 50 years prior.
At the 1999 American Society of Information Science and Technology (ASIST)
conference, I was intrigued by the attitude that many IR researchers had toward traditional
library classification (LC). It was one of casual ignorance or open disdain in viewing CR as
being beneficial to their work. Matt Koll (1999) gave a report on the IR track papers at the
end of the conference by describing himself as “[…] a search guy, a full-text guy. I’ve never
been a classification person.”He defined classification as information losing and went
on to say that:
[…] when you put something into a category you tend to not maintain all the other pieces of
informationthat ever wentthere. You tendto put it somewhere andsort of erase, or minimize,the other
traces of information and I just think we needto be really, really, careful about that,particularly one
ofthetrends[…] is the growing integration of classificationsand full-text searchand the emergenceof
ontologies and taxonomies as the buzzwords of 1999 and 2000. We reallydo have an opportunity to
make classification information producing which, when done well, it is (Koll, 1999)[1] (emphasis added).
The categorization of knowledge does lose information because the act of categorization
involves selecting some attributesof an information object and ignoring others–hence, some
information will be lost. However, Koll’s comments reflected the steadfast opinion that the
only point of LC is its functionalprocess –that of placement, or pigeonholing, of knowledge –
and not the deliberateconceptual structuring of knowledge. This perception of traditionalLC
can be traced back as early as the 1950s and 1960s when work in IR began in earnest.
Second, I became intensely aware of the CRG and their work, as well as the Center for
Documentation and Communication Research (CDCR) at Case Western Reserve University.
Both groups represent the most recognized and organized groups within each of the two
areas of CR and IR research from 1952 to approximately 1970. I investigated the two groups’
perceptions of general LC schemes such as the Library of Congress Classification (LCC),
Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), and the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC),
in an effort to illustrate the use of practical vs theoretical IR classificatory mechanisms.
The CRG wanted to change these schemes from within –to modify them for better use in IR.
IR researchers of the time, like those at the CDCR, equated library CR with these systems
and not the underlying theories and techniques that were used to develop them. As such,
they chose to move away from these general systems altogether and devote more energy to
machine-based document retrieval techniques.
The first thing I needed to do was understand the initial relationship between the CRG
and the CDCR and how this relationship changed between 1952 and 1970. Second, I would
use citation analysis to identify the conceptual similarities and differences of the two groups
as evidenced by their published artifacts from that same time period. Finally, how could the
1344
JD
73,6
theory of normative behavior and its concepts of worldviews, social norms, social types,
and information behavior be used to characterize the relationship between the small worlds
of the two groups?
Background
The late 1950s were highly active where publication and consumption of scientific
information was concerned. Farkas-Conn (1990) described how “The momentum of wartime
research and development activities led to a continuing exploration of new concepts in
science and technology”(p. 123). The Sputnik satellite was launched in 1957, spurring the
USA to improve upon and surpass the Soviet’s technical and scientific achievements.
For the established field of library science and the growing field of information science
(then called “documentation”), the challenge was to develop systems and methods for
keeping up with the pace of the publications. Helen Brownson, then Program Director at the
National Science Foundation’s Office of Scientific Information and later a co-founder of
Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, wrote of this time during which the
Soviets were demonstrating technical achievements:
[…] 1958 became the busiest year in my recollection. The President and his Science Advisory
Committee, headed by Dr James R. Killian, took an interest in the science information problem,
The Committee named a special subcommittee, headed by Dr W.O. Baker, Vice-President for
Research of Bell Telephone Laboratories, to look at the problem of improving access to scientific
literature (Brownson, 2017).
Within this environment, there was not only the issue of the growing division between
librarians and documentalists, but also a difference between American efforts and European
efforts, despite the air of global cooperation as evidence by the 1958 International
Conferences on Scientific Information (ICSI) and explored in DeGrolier’s (1962)
comprehensive survey of classification and codi ng efforts in the USA, the UK,
and Europe. Jack Mills speculated that differences in classification and IR research might
have been rooted in the “cultural differences between Europe and America in their attitudes
to the connections between conceptual analysis and unruly language as instruments in IR”
(Mills, personal communication, May 21, 2001). Similarly, Eric Coates suggested that the
USA and the CDCR were “decidedly more oriented towards the mechanization issue than
was CRG at the time […] CRG was set-up to investigate the subject retrieval process in
the ( for UK) pre-mechanization environment”(Coates, personal communication, June 3, 2001).
It was a time of leaps in IR as well as classification. DeGrolier (1962) noted “the rapid
development of information retrieval methods since the last war –together with the
development of systems using mechanical or electromechnical means (punched cards) for
such purposes followed later by electronic retrieval (computers) have led to transformations
in the structure of classification or coding systems for books and documents”( p. 9).
The focus of CR just prior to the mid to late 1950s and early 1960s focused on large universal
systems –such as the LCC, DDC, Colon Classification (CC), Bibliographic Classification (BC),
and the UDC. The work of that period did not emphasize everyday use of the schemes,
although such use is an integral part of librarianship. Nevertheless, behind such schemes –
both specialized and universal –is a commitment to seeing knowledge as structured.
IR research began in earnest in the 1950s and was well on its way to sophisticated
developments in the 1960s. Although IR research had used classificatory methods to group
both information resources and their contents, it has not traditionally extended the use of
classificatory techniques to create the type of schemes used in traditional LC systems.
Therefore, while these two research areas shared the common goal of improving methods
for the retrieval of resources, the approaches taken by the two research areas grew
increasingly distinct in the mid to late 1950s and early 1960s. Throughout the 1980s and
1345
Relationship
between CR
and IR
research
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