Historic overview and contexts of facet notion in information science

Abstract

Qu’est-ce qu’une facette? Comment la définition de la notion de facette a-t-elle évolué depuis sa création par Ranganathan en 1924 jusqu’à son application dans l’environnement numérique d’aujourd’hui? Pour tenter de répondre à cette question, l’évolution chronologique de la définition de la notion de facettes en sciences de l’information est d’abord présentée, puis les principales définitions des facettes mises en contexte utilisées depuis les 25 dernières années en sciences de l’information.

Full text

Simon Côté-Lapointe
École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l’information de l’Université de
Montréal, EBSI
EBSI-SIS Symposium, January 29, 2016, McGill University.
Historique et contextes de l'utilisation
de la notion de facette en sciences de
l'information / Historic overview and
contexts of facet notion in information
science
NOTE aux lecteurs : Tout au long du document, cliquez
sur l'icône qui se trouve dans le coin gauche supérieur
pour accéder au texte lu lors de la présentation.

Presentation plan
2
1. History of the notion of facet
2. Contexts of the notion of facet
3.Facet analysis, faceted structure and faceted search
interface
4. Conclusion
Introduction
Historic overview and contexts of facet notion in information science–January 2016S. Côté-Lapointe –

1.History of the facet notion

Intellectual period
4
Antiquity
•Aristotle’s logical division
•Top-down analysis
Late 19th, beginning 20th : precursors
•Sayers, Otlet, Julius Otto Kaiser
1924 : Ranganathan
• Paradigm shift : 1st bottom-up classification system
• 5 fundamental categoriesto analyse subjects or objects
1.History of the facet notion
Historic overview and contexts of facet notion in information science–January 2016S. Côté-Lapointe –

Institutional & technical period
5
Institutional
1) 1950-1968 : First experiments with information retrieval
systems
2) 1969-1979 : Thesaural developments and classificatory
extensions
3) 1980-1989 : Revision, criticism, and automation
Technical : computing environment
4) 1990-1999 : Databases, Interfaces, and Retrieval Systems
5) 2000 + : Facet theory applied on the web
Source : La Barre, 2010, p.255-266).
1.History of the facet notion
Historic overview and contexts of facet notion in information science–January 2016S. Côté-Lapointe –

Problem of definition
6
•Term in everyday language
•Ambiguity of the notion :
•Faceted classification (process or structure?), faceted search,
facet analysis, etc.
•Application in various environments
•Several fields : information science, linguistics,
computer science, social science
1.History of the facet notion
Historic overview and contexts of facet notion in information science–January 2016S. Côté-Lapointe –

2. Contexts of the facet notion

Information science
8
Ranganathan
•1952 : 1
st
use of the term “facet”
•designate a set of characteristics
Fundamental categories
•General rule of division
•Basis for facet analysis.
•Example of fundamental categories :
•PMEST (Ranganathan) Personality, Matter, Energy, Space, Time.
•CRG : 13 categories
Citation & notation order
2.Contexts of the facet notion
Historic overview and contexts of facet notion in information science–January 2016S. Côté-Lapointe –

Social science & linguistics
9
Social science
•Guttman (1960)
•Similar conceptualization with IS
Linguistics
•Filmore Case grammar for linguistics analysis
•Similar notions with IS (semantics & semiotics to analyze
facets of subjects)
•Links with IS (Maniez, Gnoli, etc.)
2. Contexts of the facet notion
Historic overview and contexts of facet notion in information science–January 2016S. Côté-Lapointe –

Computer science
10
Broader meaning of the facet notion:
Harter (1986)
Tunkelang (2009)
Dumais (2009)
Rapprochements between IS and computer science
Spiteri (1998)
Vickery (2008)
Frické (2013)
2.Contexts of the facet notion
Historic overview and contexts of facet notion in information science–January 2016S. Côté-Lapointe –

Multiple definitions
11
Broughton (2006):
1)bibliographic fields & metadata
2)list of object based on their properties
3)fundamental categories and facet theory
La Barre (2010) :
1)subject component
2)general manifestation of a subject
3) groups of terms derived by taking each term
and defining it, per genus et differentiam, with respect for its
parent class
2.Contexts of the facet notion
Historic overview and contexts of facet notion in information science–January 2016S. Côté-Lapointe –

Information science
12
British school
(Traditional view)
Inseparable from the facet analysis as seen by Ranganathanet
le CRG
Twomeanings :
1)Designate foundamental classes extracted from
fundamentalcategories;
2)Set of terms associated with a fundamental class.
North American
school
Definition derived from the traditional view, but
1)looser, general,practical meaning inspired by the
computer science view
2)do not necessarily taken into account fundamental
categories, citation order or notation.
Two schools of thought
2. Contexts of the facet notion
Historic overview and contexts of facet notion in information science–January 2016S. Côté-Lapointe –

3. Facet analysis, faceted structure and
faceted search interface

Modalities of facets
14
3.Facet analysis, faceted structure
and faceted search interface
Historic overview and contexts of facet notion in information science–January 2016S. Côté-Lapointe –

Facet analysis
15
Analytico-synthesis process in compound subjects :
deconstruction (analysis) + reconstruction
(synthesis)
Facet definition at this modality
•Facets are the result of the analysis of the domain based
on fundamental categories.
Historic overview and contexts of facet notion in information science–January 2016S. Côté-Lapointe –
3. Facet analysis, faceted structure
and faceted search interface

Faceted structures
16
Characteristics
•Standardized terms schema (Vickery, 1960)
•Express semantic & syntactic relationships
•Post coordinated structure
•Many forms
Facet definition at this modality
•« denote any component of a compound subject — be it a basic
subject or an isolate—and also its ranked forms, terms, and
numbers » (La Barre, 2010, p.270)
Historic overview and contexts of facet notion in information science–January 2016S. Côté-Lapointe –
3. Facet analysis, faceted structure
and faceted search interface

Faceted search interface
17
Adaptation of the classification structure to an interface
Ersatz facets (Frické, 2013)
•Focus on objets properties rather than aspects
•Boolean relation between terms (order have no
impact on search result)
Attention : facets are more than filters
Historic overview and contexts of facet notion in information science–January 2016S. Côté-Lapointe –
3.Facet analysis, faceted structure
and faceted search interface

18
Ersatz facets example
Geographic
subdivisions
Archives types
Languages
Faceted search interface
Historic overview and contexts of facet notion in information science–January 2016S. Côté-Lapointe –
3.Facet analysis, faceted structure
and faceted search interface

4. Conclusion

Definitions summary
20
Contexts
•General meaning of facets
•Modalities :
•Facet analysis (IS & linguistics)
•Faceted classification (IS)
•Faceted search interface (IS et computer science)
Definition still to clarify...
4. Conclusion
Historic overview and contexts of facet notion in information science–January 2016S. Côté-Lapointe –

Questions ?

Sources analyzed
22
•Beghtol, C. (2008). From the Universe of Knowledge to the
Universe of Concepts: The Structural Revolution in
Classification for Information Retrieval. Axiomathes, 18(2),
131-144. doi: 10.1007/s10516-007-9021-0
•Broughton, V. (2006). The need for a faceted classification as
the basis of all methods of information retrieval.
Aslib
Proceedings: New Information Perspectives, 58(1/2), 49-72.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/00012530610648671
•
Dumais, S. Faceted Search. (2009). Dans L. Liu et M. T. Özsu
(dir.), Encyclopedia of Database Systems (p. 1103-1109).
Springer.
•Foskett, D. J. (2009). Facet Analysis Dans Encyclopedia of
Library and Information Sciences, Third Edition(p. 1818-
1822). New York : Taylor & Francis.
Historic overview and contexts of facet notion in information science–January 2016S. Côté-Lapointe –

Sources analyzed
23
•Frické, M. (2013). Facets: ersatz, resource and tag. Information
Research, 18(3).
•Gnoli, C. (2008a). Facets: A Fruitful Notion in Many Domains.
Axiomathes, 18(2), 127-130. doi: 10.1007/s10516-008-9032-5
•Godert, W. (1991). Facet classification in online retrieval.
International classification, 18(2), 98-109.
•Hjørland, B. (2013). Facet analysis: The logical approach to
knowledge organization. Information Processing &
Management, 49(2), 545-557. doi: 10.1016/j.ipm.2012.10.001
•La Barre, K. (2010). Facet analysis. Annual Review of
Information Science and Technology, 44, 243–284.
•Maniez, J. (1999). Des classifications aux thésaurus: du bon
usage des facettes. Documentaliste, 36(4-5), 249-260.
•Mills, J. (2004). Faceted classification and logical division in
information retrieval.Library Trends 52(3), 541-570
Historic overview and contexts of facet notion in information science–January 2016S. Côté-Lapointe –

Sources analyzed
24
•Spiteri, L. (1998). A simplified model for facet analysis.
Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science, 23, 1-30.
•Tunkelang, D. (2009). Introduction: What are Facets? Dans
Faceted search(p.3-9). San Rafael, Californie : Morgan &
Claypool Publishers.
•Vickery, B. (2008). Faceted Classification for the Web.
Axiomathes, 18(2), 145-160. doi: 10.1007/s10516-007-9025-9
Historic overview and contexts of facet notion in information science–January 2016S. Côté-Lapointe –