The present state of classification, and its evaluation from the viewpoint of scientific information

Abstract

Both classification as a process and the development of classification schemes have now come to a critical and paradoxical stage; the state and assessment of classification are controversial or even contradictory. Its evaluation – both in itself and from the angle of scientific information – requires the contradictions, explored by criticism, to be analyzed and interpreted.
The analysis points to the contradiction which exists between the thematic richness of investigations in the theory of classification, often taken up with particulars, and the meagre results given to the practice to improve and extend classification. It also shows the contradictions and critical phases of the development of classification schemes. Concerning the universal classification systems, the study distinguishes quantitative and qualitative critical phases, and considers their currently one-sided development as a negative phenomenon, as a “pseudo-reform”. It also separates the initial positive phase of the development of special classifications from the present-day negative phase of their chaotic and unsystematical “proliferation”.
The double crisis in classification work and classification schemes has resulted in a general crisis in classification. The present state of classification is now characterized on the one hand by a superabundance of classification schemes, and on the other by an anarchy in classification, a contradiction arising from an essential unsystematicalness. The lack of a really general and universal classification scheme has proved to be a vital issue, and the unification of special schemes interrelated by specialized fields and special aspects has become an urgent need. At the same time, the general crisis in classification – by its own development and extension in depth – has given rise to the objective need for and the subjective demand on real reforms: i.e. on laying the foundations of the theory of classification. The start of this really reform-oriented work gives us some hope that the clarification of conceptual differences between general and special classification, which are complementary to each other, will meet with success and will facilitate a functional division or labour and a future balance.
From the aspect of scientific information, the present ambiguous state of classification may be qualified as clearly unsatisfactory. The chaotic development and anarchic state of classification have clashed with the progress of science, which tends to be unified through a process of specialization, and also with the similar needs of scientific information. Classification today is unable to carry out its central controlling function in the system of information: it fails to select and close the circuit of information in a proper manner, nor can it drain the pertinent information from the sea of documents. Obsolate universal classification schemes, working defectively with their unco-ordinated parallelisms, cannot meet the actual needs of scientific research and information, while their “pseudo-reforms” do nothing but intensify their crisis. In the age of special systems, with a permanent flow of information and a large-scale and planified information supply, such classification schemes are only the low-capacity tools of autarchy-minded information work.
The present crisis in classification forms only one factor of the actual crisis in information. A necessary but not satisfactory condition for solving the latter is to solve the interdisciplinary and international problems of classification. The solution can only be supra-national and supra-disciplinary in nature.
The creation of a unified, co-ordinated scientific information system and its central control unit – classification – has become imperative. This depends on intellectual and social rather than technical and scientific preconditions. The implementation of a solution is deemed possible in theory, but some scepticism may be expressed as to the date of its realization. It can be hoped only that the realization of the solution will be forced by increasing pressures concerning the objective need for information.