Concept of facet of Ranganathan and Vickery from the viewpoint of structure–expression style theory

Abstract

Purpose: This study discusses three research questions from the viewpoint of structure-expression style: (1) what is the concept of “facet” proposed by Ranganathan, (2) how did Ranganathan and Vickery consider the relationship between analytic-synthetic classification and faceted classification, and (3) how did Ranganathan and Vickery consider the relationship between facet and fundamental category (or common facet). Method: In a previous paper, the present author investigated each work of Ranganathan in chronological order. This paper reanalyzes the results obtained in the previous paper based on the theory of structure-expression style. This theory distinguishes two kinds of categorization methods of classification systems: one is by structure, either hierarchical or multi-dimensional, and the other is by expression style, either enumerative or synthetic. The writings of Vickery are also investigated and compared with those of Ranganathan based on the same theory. Results: The concept of Ranganathan’s facet is “totality of the classes.” Although this concept itself is simple, a current misunderstanding is that facet may be used in combination with “notation consisting of plural independent elements,” because both of these are adopted in the Colon Classification. Notation consisting of plural independent elements has also been confused with “composition of class numbers.” These three concepts should be distinguished definitively based on the theory of structure-expression style. These confusions influenced the later works of Ranganathan as well as the entire body of work of Vickery.