The dual roles of primary subject and secondary/qualifying subject are
widespread beyond space and time. "Research", "education", "training",
"analysis", "ecology", etc. can all be primary topics or qualify other
primary topics. I vaguely recall that these are generally treated as Energy
facet concepts by Ranganathan - it's all a bit hazy.
Cheers
Gordon
On 27 February 2012 at 20:42 Karen Coyle <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> On 2/27/12 10:53 AM, [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
> Is it because the Space and Time facets
> > in many library KOSs (reflected in Ranganathan's PMEST facet citation
> > pattern) occupy a special place; i.e. can refine/qualify most other
primary
> > topics?
>
> I think it's more complex than that, but it is true that space and time
> are common facets in subjects. The complexity comes about, IMO, because
> places (and perhaps very rarely, times) can be subjects in themselves as
> well as qualifiers on other subjects. Without specific structure (a' la
> Ranganathan) it's hard to interpret whether a place name is a topic in
> itself or essentially an adjective on the topic:
> e.g. are these equivalent:
> dc:subject "France"
> dc:subject "Cooking"
>
> dc:subject "French cooking"
>
> This is a problem with other combinations of terms ("Dogs" "Cooking"),
> but the geographic "case" tends to get singled out because it is so
common.
