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College and Research Libraries
March 2005, Vol. 66, No. 2

Book Review

Knowledge Organization and Classification in International Information Retrieval. Ed. Nancy J. Williamson and Clare Beghtol. Binghamton, N.Y.: Haworth, 2003. 244p. alk. paper, paper $22.46 (ISBN 0789023555); cloth $37.46 (ISBN 0789023547). LC 2003-27498.

This book is a collection of fourteen articles simultaneously copublished as Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, vol. 37, no. 1/2 (2003). These articles address various issues related to the linking of the world to information resources via the Internet, multinational intranets, and domain portals and gateways.

Editors Nancy J. Williamson and Clare Beghtol, two prominent authors in the field, have compiled an excellent set of papers addressing knowledge organization. Presented in four sections by nineteen authors from six countries, Knowledge Organization covers a broad range of issues from general classification schemes to the organization of knowledge, resource management, knowledge discovery, the linguistic and mathematical foundations of the architecture of knowledge to issues related to cross-cultural and cross-language system applications. A common theme throughout the book addresses the problem of information retrieval for specific linguistic and cultural communities.

The authors of the papers in section I discuss the adaptation of general bibliographic classification to specific subject contexts, and they compare and suggest modification of classificatory schemes as they are applied to the specificity of concepts expressed in different languages. In "The Future of General Classification," Jens-Erik Mai addresses the goal of being able to access multiple collections with a single retrieval language. Libraries and information organizations could save more money and better facilitate the exchange of knowledge "if documents in different collections were organized and represented with a common classification system, the access to the material would be enhanced since the documents on the same subject matter would be classified under the same entry across all collections." According to the author, "the future task for classification research is to explore the theoretical foundation and principles for the construction and use of general classification systems that serve a worldwide audience for the purpose of organizing knowledge and the sciences." Additional articles in this section focus on the process of adapting a classification to a particular culture or context, the difficulties of translating classification from a source language to another language, and the impact of classification specificity on information retrieval.

The articles of section II examine organization of information resources. In "Knowledge Organization from Libraries to the Web: Strong Demands on the Weakest Side of International Librarianship," Maria Inês Cordeiro outlines some major themes concerning the use of library subject access systems in the area of networked information. Michèle Hudon, author of "Expanding Audiences for Education-related Information and Resources: Classificatory Structures on the World Wide Web," looks at the organization of education-related resources by addressing two major questions: (1) in a context of global exchange, are education-related resources on the Web organized in such a way as to maximize efficiency in identification and retrieval? and (2) in virtual libraries with specialized collections on education, do classification schemes and terminology reflect anything other than local perspectives and systems? Findings show that education-related resources on the Web appear to be equally accessible (or inaccessible) to international as to local audiences. In "Text Mining and Data Mining in Knowledge Organization and Discovery: The Making of Knowledge-based Products," L. J. Haravu and A. Neelameghan present two important approaches to the creation of information products. The approaches are: (1) the planning, designing, and development of a composite multilingual, multimedia CD product, with the potential international, intercultural end users in view; and (2) the application of natural language processing software in text mining. The authors use text-mining software to link concept terms from a processed text to a related thesaurus, glossary, classification schedule, and facet classification. They believe that "the products of text mining and data mining could be made more useful if the features of a faceted scheme for subject classification are incorporated into text mining techniques and products."

Section III is focused on the role of human language technologies in the information society, the potential of lexical patterns to help terminologists retrieve knowledge-rich contexts, and the determination of the potential usefulness of common language terminology.

Section IV addresses the ontological foundation of knowledge organization, points of view on knowledge in organization, and the impact of bibliographic and statistical studies on knowledge organization and classification systems. In "The IFF Foundation for Ontological Knowledge Organization," Robert E. Kent explains how ontologies and the process of semantic integration are represented with the concepts and terminology of the Information Flow Framework (IFF). Comparing knowledge management models, Chu Wei Choo, in "Global Perspectives on Managing Knowledge in Organizations," uses the Social Science Citation Index database to identify influential works on knowledge management. Choo implores researchers to explore "the influence of cultures in different countries on the organizational process of knowledge creation and transfer." D. Grant Campbell’s study compares the classification of national and international economic data in the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) with that of Library of Congress Classification (LCC).

This book highlights recent contributions to knowledge organization and classification at the international level and offers its readers recommendations concerning the application of various systems and software. Knowledge Organization and Classification in International Information Retrieval is a first-class collection for system developers, researchers, practitioners, and people having an interest in theories of knowledge.—Kaba Abdoulaye, International Islamic University, Malaysia.