Grounded Classification: Grounded Theory and Faceted Classification

Library Trends, Fall, 1998 by Susan Leigh Star

ABSTRACT

This article compares the qualitative method of grounded theory (GT) with Ranganathan's construction of faceted classifications (FC) in library and information science. Both struggle with a core problem--i.e., the representation of vernacular words and processes, empirically discovered, which will, although ethnographically faithful, be powerful beyond the single instance or case study. The article compares Glaser and Strauss's (1967) work with that of Ranganathan (1950).

INTRODUCTION

   There are some striking similarities ... between field work and library
   research. When someone stands in the library stacks, he is, metaphorically,
   surrounded by voices begging to be heard. (Glaser & Strauss, 1967, p. 163)

   Classification is an uncovering of the thought-content of a written or
   expressed unit of thought.... The reference librarian ... applies the
   classification scheme in the ultimate stage of library service which is
   effecting contact between the right reader and the right unit of thought in
   a personal way. (Ranganathan, 1951, p. 116)

The landscape of information retrieval is shifting rapidly (with networked distributed computing, large-scale digital libraries, and enormously powerful search engines). As the introduction to this issue notes, formerly firm boundaries between library and office, catalog and desktop are transmogrifying. The change means that a wider range of human activities come under the purview of library and information science. When the library and the desktop become seamless, then practices of work organization become part of the cataloging and indexing process. This merger calls for methodological creativity and cross fertilization between previously disparate methodological domains.

One fruitful direction for this creativity is in blending the methods of library and information science (LIS) with those of sociology and anthropology. LIS brings the strengths of order and sensitivity to domains and documents and a long tradition of struggling to find representations that are both useful and elegant. Sociology and anthropology bring strengths based in the empirical chaotic process of analyzing work, perspectives, conflict, and representations that are themselves the site of struggles.

Some of the tough challenges faced by classification in environments such as the World Wide Web or large digital libraries include: how work settings and the flow of real-life tasks give rise to information needs and strategies; how different vernaculars and representational schemes may work together heterogeneously; and how informal and formal classifications interact in information retrieval and use (Cochrane, 1993; Svenonius, 1986). In parallel fashion, some of the cutting edge challenges faced by grounded theorists include: assessing the quality and completeness of analysis; managing large amounts of unstructured textual data; and accounting for a basis for theoretical sampling. The two endeavors offer each other some aid in meeting their respective challenges.

Both faceted classification (FC) and grounded theory (GT) began as reform movements against powerfully entrenched a priori schemes with claims on universality. Grounded theory offers a way to include processes and actions in the analysis of vernacular representations (a question introduced as a core theoretical problem by Ranganathan). It is at the same time a source of theoretical richness for the understanding of intermingled types of work. Faceted classification offers a way to assess the structural integrity and architecture of a particular theory via facet analysis and other analytical tools used in thesaurus construction and assessment; with automated thesauri tools, FC is an aid for managing large bodies of text that will augment current qualitative methods software.

After writing the first draft of this article, a colleague brought Clare Beghtol's (1995) superb paper, "`Facets' as Interdisciplinary Undiscovered Public Knowledge: S.R. Ranganathan in India and L. Guttman in Israel," to my attention. Recursively, of course, our papers are an example of undiscovered public knowledge converging. Beghtol draws parallels between the work of Ranganathan and that of Louis Guttman, a sociologist who developed a faceted theory for the analysis of qualitative data, principally as an aide to the analysis of survey research data.

Though Beghtol (1995) notes that we will never know if proximate or remote contact transpired between Guttman and Ranganathan, she maps out ways in which the two systems might profitably cooperate. They are, she notes, solving analogous problems of data analysis and management (p. 237). For all the structural reasons noted in the introduction above, there are now unique opportunities to exploit these previously unlinked bodies of research.

CLASSIFICATION AU NATUREL

The notion that classification schemes are neither innocent nor arbitrary is core to several disciplines. Anthropologists map the complex taxonomic schemes of a culture as a way of understanding worldview and norms. Library researchers, going back to Ranganathan's original foundational work, see classification as core to mapping, in Ranganathan's words, "the universe of knowledge." Social critics of classification systems argue that the choice of categories reflects political choice and (the often silent) wielding of bureaucratic exercises of power (Berman, 1984; Kirk & Kutchins, 1992; Bowker & Star, 1994, In press; Bowker, Timmermans, & Star, 1995). Others have argued for the historical specificity of schemes of classification (Hacking, 1995; Young, 1995).