Classification Made Simple (2nd ed.)

Citation

Trickey, K.V. (2003), "Classification Made Simple (2nd ed.)", New Library World, Vol. 104 No. 4/5, pp. 182-183. https://doi.org/10.1108/03074800310476007

The first edition of this work appeared in 1988 and was a very welcome brief introduction to this topic. The quality of brevity or simplicity was expertly handled for a new audience, both within and beyond traditional information work, who lacked the assumed basic skills or understandings from the discipline of cataloguing and classification. This work was an excellent jumping‐off point for LIS students who were new to this area, serving as an introductory text and also as a practical introduction for people with no library or information background as a “how to” primer to enable them to navigate their path more securely in this assumed “dark art” of classification.

The second edition has been revised and updated with the content being more helpfully displayed by placing the examples that relate to faceted, enumerative and synthesis into separate chapters, following the chapter that deals with the topic. A new chapter – “Classification and the Internet” – has been added. The layout of the work has been improved and the use of pictures in the opening chapter has increased clarity while usefully demonstrating that the work is to classify actual “things” rather than just concepts.

The book opens with a series of progressively more complex examples of classification using illustrations in the first two examples which help the reader to appreciate how they carry out the process of classification unconsciously/intuitively; in other words it is not an alien activity foisted on us by librarians who are trying to justify their professional existence. The tone of this chapter is conversational, which will encourage the conceptually timid reader to continue! Chapter two looks at classification in the context of an information system using a useful example (wood finishing) to demonstrate how the subject area could be represented both as a hierarchy (enumerative) and as a faceted scheme. This sets the scene for the chapters that follow where faceted and enumerative approaches are described in detail. The two faceted examples, beer and an estate agency, allow the author to gently take the reader through the advantages of the faceted approach by talking through two practical cases.

Hunter then proceeds to move the reader through areas of greater complexity that build usefully from earlier concepts. Certain information appears in more than one place in the book. This actually strengthens the structure as Hunter tells you what you need to know at the point you are at (for example, the brief explanation of notation on p. 41 – in the chapter on “Hierarchical classification”), then at a later point, when you have more information and understanding, returns to the topic to enrich your understanding (chapter ten – “More on notation”). Where this approach is taken, the meticulous use of cross‐referencing in the text keeps the reader fully informed of their options.

The chapter “Classification as a search tool” has almost doubled in size to include Library of Congress subject headings and the mysteries of Boolean searching – which are very clearly detailed with supporting diagrams. I think the author could have usefully spent more time on the effectiveness of classification notation as a search language – however, I appreciate this could start to compromise the “made simple” element in the title to which Hunter keeps admirably.

Hunter is to be congratulated for risking a chapter on the Internet – that ever‐shifting quicksand, which happily swallows up any information structure that attempts to build structure on its ever‐changing content and management. Unlike the rest of the book, this chapter will age rapidly; however, the analysis given remains useful.

The continuity of much of the material between editions indicates how fundamentally sound Hunter’s original work was. He is to be thanked for updating this vital introductory work. If you have a copy of the previous edition, then you will need this new edition to usefully update it. If you have not got a copy of the previous edition, what kind of information service are you providing? Just rush out and acquire this new edition to save your professional credibility.

This work deserves a far wider circulation than the cosy little world of libraries and information services; it is to be hoped that the publishers realise what a little gem this book is and start promoting it to the computing/data‐processing/accounting /HRM communities so that the good work that Hunter has done producing this excellent book can be disseminated into some of those dens of data chaos that really need it.