Knowledge Organization (KO) According to Dahlberg - Essay Sample

Knowledge organization (KO) according to Dahlberg (2006) comprises of the objects and activities of concept theory, knowledge presentation and classification and indexing. Knowledge representation according to the scholar comprises of not only the logical structure of conceptual representation but also the use of fittest terms in the naming concepts (Dahlberg, 2006). KO is concerned with the quality as well as the nature of the processes involved in knowledge organizing. These include; ontology, taxonomy as well as Knowledge Organizing Systems (KOS). Knowledge on the other hand according to Dahlberg (2006) is subjective, i.e., it can be transferred in space and time. Knowledge is also objective in nature.

Firstly, knowledge organization comprises the concept-theoretical approach which analyses the contents of concepts. It also determines the various characteristics of the concept as well as distinguishes the different types of concepts and concept systems. In the article titled Further Progress towards Theory in Knowledge organization by Smiragila (2001), the author discusses the concept of theory. Theory in knowledge organization according to Smiragila (2001), has moved from an epistemic stance of pragmatism which is mainly based on observation of the construction of retrieval tools. On the contrary theory in KO is more centered to empiricism (Smiraglia, 2001).

Secondly, Knowledge organization includes the correlation and the mapping of concept systems with objects of reality. This is supported in the discussion by Birger Hjorland (2008) I the article titled What is Knowledge Organization. The author argues that KO involved activities such as computer algorithms, indexing, archives, etc. the author goes ahead to discuss the various approaches which can be classified in knowledge organization. These include; the traditional approach-which comprises systems used in libraries, the facet-analytical approach, the information retrieval tradition, user-oriented views, bibliometric approaches, the domain analytical approach as well as other minority approaches such as; semiotic and genre-based approaches (Hjorland, 2008).

In conclusion, Knowledge organization comprises of activities such as classification, indexing, document description, databases, archives, etc. KO is a new science whereby the subjective field consists of a sizeable conceptual framework. Knowledge organization can also be classified into the environment of information sciences.

References

Dahlberg, I. (2006). Knowledge organization: a new science?. Knowledge organization, 33(1), 11-19.

Hjorland, B. (2008). What is knowledge organization (KO)?. Knowledge organization. International journal devoted to concept theory, classification, indexing and knowledge representation.

Smiraglia, R. P. (2001). Further Progress toward Theory in Knowledge Organization. Canadian journal of information and library science, 26, 31-50.