Publications

Publication details [#1604]

Hansson, Joacim. 2013. The Materiality of Knowledge Organization: Epistemology, Metaphors and Society. Knowledge Organization 40 (6) : 384–391. 8 pp.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English

Abstract

According to Machlup (1982), knowledge can fall into five different categories: practical knowledge, intellectual knowledge, spiritual knowledge, small-talk and pastime knowledge and unwanted knowledge. Throughout history knowledge organization systems have been exclusively concerned with the first two structures. The present paper is divided into three main parts: the first one deals with the representation of knowledge in 18th century French and English encyclopedias, the second one discusses the implementation of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) in Swedish libraries and the third one examines the organization of knowledge in the digital era. Bacon envisioned world knowledge as metaphorically structured into two trees: one encompassing ‘human learning’ and the other one including ‘divine learning’. Another metaphor for knowledge organization is the circle metaphor which was more comprehensive than the tree metaphor containing mutually exclusive categories. Finally, the complexity of digital information is represented in terms of the ‘rhizome’ metaphor.