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Case: 0002

Sector: Legal (and other professional services)

An esoteric classification

An information centre adopts an esoteric classification scheme for its specialised library. Does this restrict users’ access to information when searching under more familiar indexing terms?

Summary: A library contained a highly specialised collection of insurance-related reports. Standard classification schemes (e.g. UDC, LC, DD, London Business) were not sufficiently detailed to isolate material in such a narrow subject. The Information Manager developed a unique classification scheme using subjects taken from established schemes and his own knowledge of the subject.

NOTE: This Case Study is fictitious. It is informed by experience in the information world, but it does not claim to represent a scenario of actual events or relate to individual people or organisations.

Case Study: In order to avoid inadvertently restricting the terms under which users would search for information, the Information Manager incorporated a variety of broader, narrower and related terms, and issued draft schedules to internal practitioners for their comment. Only when a good number of practitioners had commented and indicated their preferred terms was the schedule applied to library stock. This also avoided the possibility of the Information Manager’s limited subject knowledge influencing the choice of classes.

Several issues are noted in this case. First, the adoption of a unique classification scheme which is neither widely used nor necessarily approved by the employer.

It may be accepted that in this specialised library there is some need to create and use a customised classification scheme. After all, by adopting one of the more popular schemes (UDC, LC, etc.) the Information Manager would probably hinder users’ ability to find specific documents because the specificity (i.e. granularity) of the classification scheme would not be sufficiently detailed. However, the expected improvement of the customised classification scheme has to be considered within the context of wider business benefits: what is the cost or lost opportunity to the employer if the Information Manager and other staff spend time creating a bespoke classification? How sustainable is the new classification? How interoperable is it with other systems, or with other organisations?

Secondly, by creating a classification scheme in-house the Information Manager is limiting the opportunity to consider the breadth of subject expertise which often goes into creating internationally recognised schemes. The Information Manager does submit the draft scheme to internal consultation, but is this enough? Do the practitioners in this organisation realise the limitation of a classification scheme developed in this way? The Information Manager’s responsibility here is to inform and educate the practitioners, and to ensure that the widest possible consultation is carried out.

It is gratifying to note that the Information Manager realised that his own subject knowledge is limited and therefore insufficient on which to build this esoteric classification scheme without wider consultation. However, one wonders whether professional pride at his ability, as an information professional, to develop single-handedly a customised classification scheme is not too great and that he ought to consider the objective limitation of his ability and to revert at some stage to a much wider forum of subject experts both within and outside the organisation. It is possible, for example, that a practitioner colleague (who may not be an information professional) ought to manage this project and provide substantial guidance to the Information Manager.

	Primary	Secondary
Principles	7	3 – 11 - 12
Code	B1 – B2	A1 – A2 – A3 – B3 – B7 – E1
Related cases	0022 – a case in which a librarian is required to allocate a single subject to books, thus influencing users’ serendipitous discovery when browsing shelves. 0023 – a situation in which the compilers of this database of case studies had to choose which of several subjects could be considered the primary subject(s) of a case.

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