Article Summary for Lecure #11- Barite

The Notion of “Category:” Its Implications in Subject Analysis and in the Construction and Evaluation of Indexing Language

Simply put, categories are defined as a broad term given to a group to describe what all of the elements in that group have in common or what makes them go together. Philosophers have been redefining “categories” since the times of Aristotle. Most people are able to tell you what a category is or seem to understand the concept of categories, but it turns out that they are much more complex and abstract than one might think. Categories are patterns and groups found by our brains to make better sense of the world around us. Our brains automatically put information into boxes or categories to better understand new things. For example, this summer I was at a doctor’s office telling him my symptoms and as I was listing my symptoms, he told me that he was trying to see if they fit into the “boxes” in his head of all the different ailments I could be dealing with. My symptoms were put into categories to try to make sense of what was happening with me. If my doctor wasn’t thinking of my symptoms in this manner and just took each one individually instead of grouping them, he may have never figured out what was really wrong with me and instead would have treated each symptom individually, like my previous doctor, and I would still be suffering today. Categories make is easier for us to both process and recall information. Thinking of this in the world of libraries… a patron tells you they want a book on pigs, horses, and cows. You would probably search for the category all of those terms fall under, which would be “farm animals” rather than searching for each animal individually. Categories can also be used to organize information and objects outside of our brains as well. We group non-fiction with non-fiction and fiction with fiction. We may even group all of the books that fall under the “romance” category together or “mysteries” or “sci-fi”. This makes it easier for users to find other works that they may like base on their interest in a particular category, or in this case, genre. Catalogers use categories as tools when planning and designing indexing languages.

Categories give catalogers a way to organize subject headings and keep everything in order. Categories also need to have elements that fall within that category. Categories cannot exist without a group of entities that the term holds together. Categories can therefore be analyzed and analyzed in many different ways. The article uses the French Revolution as an example. If you put a string of facts under “French Revolution”, you can study this facts as chronological events, you can look at how these facts influenced other countries or how they affected the population of France. You can use the information under this category to answer many different questions that you may be looking for during your study.

Reference

Barite, M. (2000). The notion of "category:" Its implications in subject analysis and in the

construction and evaluation of indexing languages. Knowledge Organization 27:4-10.