The term knowledge organization (KO) (or "organization of knowledge", "organization of information" or "information organization") designates a field of study related to Library and Information Science (LIS). In this meaning, KO is about activities such as document description, indexing and classification performed in libraries, databases, archives etc. These activities are done by librarians, archivists, subject specialists as well as by computer algorithms. KO as a field of study is concerned with the nature and quality of such knowledge organizing processes (KOP) as well as the knowledge organizing systems (KOS) used to organize documents, document representations and concepts.
There exist different historical and theoretical approaches to and theories about organizing knowledge, which are related to different views of knowledge, cognition, language, and social organization. Each of these approaches tends to answer the question: “What is knowledge organization?” differently. Library Information Service professionals have often concentrated on applying new technology and standards, and may not have seen their work as involving interpretation and analysis of meaning. That is why library classification has been criticized for a lack of substantive intellectual content.
Traditional human-based activities are increasingly challenged by computer-based retrieval techniques. It is appropriate to investigate the relative contributions of different approaches; the current challenges make it imperative to reconsider this understanding.
The leading journal in this field is Knowledge Organization published by the International Society for Knowledge Organization (ISKO). See also "Lifeboat for Knowledge Organization".
A broad introduction to knowledge organization can be found in Hoetzlein (2007).
Famous quotes containing the words knowledge and/or organization:
“The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)
“Politics, as a practise, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)