Describing engineering documents with faceted approaches: Observations and reflections

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to highlight the difficulty of applying faceted classification outside of library contexts and also to indicate that faceted approaches are poorly expressed to non-experts. Design/methodology/approach – The faceted approach is being applied outside of its “home” community, with mixed results. The approach is based in part on examination of a broad base of literature and in part on results and reflections on a case study applying faceted notions to “real world” engineering documentation. Findings – The paper comes across a number of pragmatic and theoretical issues namely: differing interpretations of the facet notion; confusion between faceted analysis and faceted classification; lack of methodological guidance; the use of simplistic domains as exemplars; description verses analysis; facet recognition is unproblematic; and is the process purely top-down or bottom-up. Research limitations/implications – That facet analysis is not inherently associated with a particular epistemology; that greater guidance about the derivation is needed, that greater realism is needed when teaching faceted approaches. Practical implications – Experiences of applying faceted classifications are presented that can be drawn upon to guide future work in the area. Originality/value – No previous work has reflected on the actual empirical experience used to create a faceted description, especially with reference to engineering documents.