From Library Classification to Knowledge Management : Developments in Knowledge Organization

Abstract

Knowledge organization’ is a branch of library and information science (LIS) / Information Studies concerned with activities such as document description, indexing and classification performed in libraries, databases, archives, etc. The term ‘knowledge organization systems’ (KOS) encompasses all types of schemes for organizing information and promoting knowledge management. Thus, in its broadest sense it includes taxonomies, library  classification schemes, clustering and categorization schemes that organize  materials at a general level, subject headings, authority files that control variant forms of names such as place names, highly structured vocabularies, including thesauri, ontologies, and coding schemes, and less traditional tools, such as semantic networks and word nets. Viewed as a discipline, knowledge organization is the domain in which the heuristics of ordering knowledge are studied.