The pyschology of classification #opengov #taxonomy #EIM

A few years after hearing him speak in Toronto, I finally got around to reading David Weinberger’s Everything is Miscellaneous. The book is partly a history of classification and library science, and partly an investigation into how the web enables new approaches to organizing information. I enjoyed his writing very much, especially his accessible summaries of research. Today’s blog post focuses on how human perceptions of categories can shape how we develop and deploy classifications at the City of Toronto.

Stinky keywords at 311 Toronto

This Toronto Star article on the spring stench of Toronto came one database away from referencing some of my work here at the City of Toronto.  Curious to see if the City experienced a sudden upsurge in calls related to the mystery stink, a reporter called 311 management.  Neil Evans, the 311 director, reportedly typed the keywords “manure. smell. odour.” into the database of public calls to 311.  So close!  I worked on the development and implementation of a subject controlled vocabulary to describe content in 311’s knowledge base, which contains information about almost anything the public might want to know.

The subject controlled vocabulary, or subject thesaurus, brings together technical language that staff may use and terms commonly used by the public.  Regardless of which term you search on, you’ll get the same result.  So, if Neil was looking for possible sources of the smell, he could search the knowledge base by typing in “smell” or “sewer gas” (both synonyms) or “odour” (a preferred term).   Because these terms are linked together, he could search on any one and find the same information.

(the gritty details: the research analysts responsible for tagging content search on either synonyms or the preferred term.  All terms are then tagged as keywords in the metadata of each question and answer.  The full text of the question and answer as well as the keywords are then searchable by customer service representatives answering calls from the public.)

why classification matters in government #opengov #eim

David Brooks explores the complexity of translating government policy into action in this thoughtful NYT article, What government does.  As he notes, too often the complexity of government is not acknowledged when factions get caught up arguing purely ideological positions.  It is good to see someone as thoughtful as Brooks write on the challenges of meeting policy goals.

The government employees he observes recognize, as much as any company, that numbers matter.  Brooks praises a joint meeting between government agencies, noting with respect that “they had achieved a herculean task of getting two government agencies to agree on a single data set, a single methodology and a single progress report.”

But what exactly are the numbers measuring? To measure performance, it is necessary to define and disambiguate services.  As I described recently, defining, measuring and delivering government services is no easy project.  And it becomes increasingly complex as more departments and jurisdictions become involved.  Anyone practicing or studying classification, cataloging or information organization knows that describing the subject of something is deceptively complicated.  Yet agreeing on a common descriptive language is important for sharing knowledge, measurement and providing access to services.

Brooks touches on the complexity of classification and service modelling when he asks “how do you set up services for a homeless female veteran who has a drug addiction, psychiatric problems and is a victim of domestic violence?”  It’s clear there are multiple facets and attributes that can be broken down in any number of ways.  In the language of the Municipal Reference Model, this person would be called a “client” or “target audience” of multiple services.  In the language of library and information science, we would say this sentence is filled with impressively pre-coordinated subject headings or terms.

If anyone studying library and information science is worried that technology will somehow make their skills obsolete, don’t.  Technology for managing information in organizations is only as good as the conceptual models that are used to make sense of that information.

The father of taxonomies, part 1

Classifications and taxonomies help you anticipate where to find a particular kind of information. Imagine yourself browsing a website or looking for a particular kind of record- you should know where to look based on the name of the category or record series.

For instance, if you are browsing the City of Toronto’s website for information about city council, you would probably expect to find it in the accessing City Hall tab. However, new information is constantly being produced, potentially forcing changes in a classification. Today, it is widely recognized that classification systems need to strike a balance between organizing information as it exists at present, and being flexible enough to incorporate new information.

Carl Linnaeus is often considered the father of taxonomies, for his work developing biological classification systems. New research suggests that Linnaeus pioneered the index card, a seemingly simple tool that was in fact revolutionary advance for organizing information:

“Linnaeus had to manage a conflict between the need to bring information into a fixed order for purposes of later retrieval, and the need to permanently integrate new information into that order, says Mueller-Wille. “His solution to this dilemma was to keep information on particular subjects on separate sheets, which could be complemented and reshuffled.”

Read how Carl Linnaeus invented the index card on Science Daily.