Paul
I used to work in the Old Bailey and your question about
classification
reminds me of those lawyers that insisted a witness replied
either Yes or
No to a question that could not be answered so simply. I
therefore do not
think my response will win your
lollipop.
Classification is simply grouping things systematically.
The latter
element is the bit that is usually missing in records
management
classifications I have seen. Aristotle talked about classes or
categories:
“…a category was like [a] container with things either inside or
outside
the container…the properties the things inside the container had in
common
were what defined the category” (Taylor. ‘The organisation
of
information’). Bowker & Starr talking about classification in
its
broadest sense described it as “…a set of boxes (metaphorical or
literal)
into which things can be put to do some kind of work – bureaucratic
or
knowledge production…”.
Various people of the past twenty years
have suggested that records
managers have misunderstood and misused the term
classification and I
think that was right and is still in part right. Much
older US and UK
literature seems to have used the word to describe
filing order.
Two of the classic principles of classification are firstly
that each
scheme (or at least each level in a hierarchical scheme) should be
based
on a single classificatory principle, such as classification by size,
and
secondly that the classes should be mutually exclusive. These elements
are
frequently missing and the schemes fail to add value.
Stuart
Orr