3 - Knowledge organization: its role within the unfathomed space

Abstract

Knowledge organization for the sake of knowledge organization is a myth; the basic units of knowledge organization are semantic relations between concepts. To the librarian and information professional, knowledge organization has always been, and will continue to be, a specific purpose-oriented activity. The purpose of organizing the documents/information or their surrogates in a collection has always been to assist users in browsing, to formulate search expressions, and to present information services and products to the target user. There are different approaches which are not explicit theories but which represent different views of knowledge, language, understanding, and social organization. A comprehensive understanding of the fundamental and time-tested principles of knowledge organization will help in developing new tools and technologies for the Semantic Web, and for ontologies in particular.