Classificationist as Author The Case of the

Within information science, neutrality and objectivity have been standard design goals for knowledge organization schemes; designers have seen themselves as compilers, rather than as authors or creators. The organization of resources in the Prelinger Library in San Francisco, however, shows a distinct authorial voice, or unique sense of expression and vision. This voice, in turn, works as a persuasive mechanism, facilitating a rhetorical purpose for the collection. Introduction According to standard methods, the task of designing an organizational system, be it a classification, controlled vocabulary, or metadata schema, should be approached with detachment and objectivity. Even as classification researchers acknowledge, as does Clare Beghtol (2001), that “every classification is a theoretical construct imposed on ‘reality,’” the classificationist is still seen as someone who compiles, or documents, the perspective of a defined group or groups (perhaps that of a particular discourse community, organization, or other set of users). This standpoint is sensible when considering professionally developed classifications created to facilitate the retrieval of documents for some defined public. It would not be useful, in such a scenario, for a classification to exhibit the original perspective of its creator. The Prelinger Library in San Francisco provides a counter-example to the idea of classification as documentation. While the Prelinger Library provides public access to its materials, it does not operate under a standard retrieval orientation. (Megan Shaw Prelinger describes the library as being “browsing-based” rather than “query-based,” to “[open] wide the possibility of discovery.”) In this paper, I explore how, in violating standard classification design goals of neutrality and predictability, the Prelinger Library’s classification system shows an authorial voice, or vision. This voice, in turn, facilitates a rhetorical purpose for the classification. For the Prelinger Library, authorial voice as represented in the classification system is tightly integrated with the content of the collection. This again goes against professional practice, as selection of resources is often regarded as a separate task from their representation. While the Prelinger Library comprises a discrete set of physical resources housed in a particular location, this design strategy is also apparent in a common feature of social classification systems: the sharing of personal resource collections. The paper concludes by suggesting that authorial voice, as expressed through the combination of selection, description, and arrangement, might be a useful construct in both understanding and designing such shared collections. Classificationist as careful compiler: the traditional view Neutrality has been a persistent goal in classification design. The necessity of neutrality in nomenclature is Sayers’s tenth “canon,” or postulate, for classification design (Sayers, 1915). “The introduction of any name which exhibits a critical view of the subject it connotes is a violation of one of the first principles of classification,” Sayers admonishes (Sayers, 1915, 32). While scholars have debated at length the scope of what