| Integrative Levels Classification | project | scheme | how it works | León Manifesto | references |
Unlike most library classification schemes, ILC classes do not represent disciplines and their subdivisions, but phenomena of the real world.
Phenomena are listed in order of integrative levels. As classes are basically represented by letters, this means that simpler phenomena, like atoms or molecules, are represented by low letters like c, d, e, f, while more complex and integrated phenomena, like societies and cultures, are represented by higher letters such as s, t, u, v:
... d particles e atoms f molecules g bodies h celestial objects j lands k genes l bacteria m organisms n populations ...
Further letters, written in low cases, mean subclasses, namely kinds of their main classes:
m organisms mf mushrooms ml algae mm mosses mp vascular plants mq animals mqm mollusca mqr arthropoda mqrh crustaceans mqri insects mqv chordata, vertebrata mqvh bony fish mqvl reptiles mqvo birds mqvt mammals
In this way, a longer string means a more specific phenomenon (as in traditional library classifications). At each degree of specificity, whenever possible, phenomena are listed in an evolutionary sequence, or increasing logical depth.
In some (not common) cases, more than 26 subclasses of the same class are needed. Zoology teaches us that mqvh bony fish has more than 26 subclasses. To cope with this, some less relevant subclasses can be expressed with the "empty digit" z, giving them the same specificity as the adjacent classes, despite having a different number of digits:
mqvhx tetraodontiformes mqvhxzf pleuronectiformes mqvhxzs scorpaeniformes mqvhy perciformes
When several phenomena occur together and are considered in generic relationship between each other ("generic phase relationship" or "free relationship"), they can be simply listed together, separated by a blank space (free classification in Gardin's terms). It is usually preferable that they be written starting from the highest integrative level (namely the highest first letter) and going on with more and more low levels, in the reversed order of the schedules:
mqvt mf hU mammals : mushrooms : the Earth n mqvt populations : mammals
Facets are more specific relationships, representing typical aspects of a phenomenon in connection with other phenomena. Facets of organisms are growth stage (embryo, larva, adult), organs (heart, lungs, kidneys), and sex (female, male); facets of music are players (persons, groups), instruments (drums, guitars, trumpets), and genre (root, jazz, rock).
As these examples show, facets change according to the different phenomena. However, they roughly belong to a limited number of general categories, according to their syntactical relation to the phenomenon (sometimes also described as their role or, in linguistics, their case or complement). General categories, and the corrisponding facets, are represented by numerals (where needed, two or more digits can be used to define a more specific facet):
0 considered under aspect, modality 1 at time, in sequence 2 in location, context 3 through change, transformation 4 of material, constituents 5 with organs, parts 6 from origin, source 7 for function, to destination 8 having pattern, about topic 9 of kind, quality
In music, composers are origins, hence they are facet 6:
xm music xm6 music composed by ... xm6Ybach music composed by Bach(As composers are individual humans identified by a name, the name itself can be used as a subclass, preceded by the deictic
Y meaning "proper name".)
In animals, geographical distribution is a location, hence it is facet 2:
m animals m2 animals in areal m2e animals in Europe m2o animals in Oceania
while sex is one possible form of the organism, hence it is facet 9:
m organisms m9 sex m9f female organisms m9m male organisms
Facets of a given class also hold for all its subclasses:
mqm9f female mollusca mqri9f female insects mqvl9f female reptiles
(unless another facet of the same category is defined at a subclass, hence they can be described as cascading facets each holding at a different degree of specifity).
When more than one facet are expressed for the same phenomenon, they should be cited in the reversed order of numerals, according to the inversion principle: as 9 is greater than 2,
mqvl9f2e female reptiles in Europe
Only when a subject is discussed focusing especially on one aspect, the corresponding facet can be moved before another despite the standard citation order:
mqvl2e9f European reptiles, female
The value of a facet can sometimes be left unexpressed. This can be done by a capital X after the facet indicator:
mqvl2X reptiles in some region
X is a deictic meaning "something".
Reversed relations, i.e. passive facets, can be obtained by prefixing 9 to the facet digit:
xm6bach music composed by Bach (xm96bachin ILC2) pY96xm persons being composer of music (pY996xmin ILC2)
They can be used to put the central topic of a document first:
n9qvtniok populations of killer whales o9vtniok behaviour of killer whales mqvtniok99n99o killer whales: their populations and behaviour
as in "Ross sea killer whale distribution, behavior, color pattern, and vocalizations", a 1981 book by JA Thomas et al. classified in BARD.
The meaning of some facets can be applied in any main class: geographical location can be a facet of any phenomenon, as can origin. Such common facets are defined at the most general degree, and keep their meaning in all subclasses, except where a more specific meaning is defined (respecting the principle of cascading facets). In order to apply them, one does not need to find them in the schedule of a specific class, as they can be applied throughout the whole scheme. (In other general classifications they are called "common subdivisions" or "common auxiliaries".)
The most general facets are expressed by one digit, while more specific meanings can be represented by a combination of category digits: 16 means "originated/born at time", as 1 means "at time" and 6 means "from origin". Multi-digit facets beginning with 9 are used to express passive facets.
The list of common facets can be seen by browsing the coloured categories on the right of the schedules main page.
In classes where specific facets are defined for the same category, in order to avoid ambiguity, common facets have to be preceded by V, a deictic meaning "general class":
xm6 [pY] music by composer (xm96in ILC2) xm6wu music composed by Wu (xm96wuin ILC2) 6 [V] from origin (common facet) xmV6wu music originated by automata (xm6wuin ILC2)
To introduce facets defined at intermediate degrees, deictics
VA, VB, VC... can be used. The meaning of facet 6 in each of the following cases is that defined at the class on the right:
abcde6 abcde6 (abcde96in ILC2) abcdeV6 6 (abcde6in ILC2) abcdeVA6 a6 (abcde900006in ILC2) abcdeVB6 ab6 (abcde90006in ILC2) abcdeVC6 abc6 (abcde9006in ILC2) abcdeVD6 abcd6 (abcde906in ILC2)
[:] is found in the schedules:
m organisms m9 [:] sex m9f female organisms m9m male organisms
In other cases, however, the values of facets are taken from a different level of phenomena. Music composers are usually humans, they cannot be atoms or rocks. So the facet of composers in music is defined outside the class of music. Let's take another example: breeding always use as its material some animal: there are no breeded rocks or breeded trumpets, only breeded animals. Hence facet 6 (natural resource) of vo "husbandry" always is some animal mq, and in the schedules can be found
vo husbandry vo6 [mq] of livestock
This means that subclasses of facet vo6 are the same as subclasses of mq, and their notation must be taken from mq (technically, they can be called extra-defined foci, instead of context-defined foci as in the previous example):
m organisms mq animals mqv vertebrates mqvo birds vo husbandry vo6 [mq] of livestock vo6v husbandry of vertebrates vo6vo husbandry of birds
In case the related class is unusually not a subclass of the foreseen class, its notaton will be preceded by a V after the facet indicator:
vo6Vl breeding bacteria
Finally, some facets provide for relation with any other possible phenomenon in the schedules. Take knowledge. It has an object, which can be expressed by facet 8:
y knowledge y8 [V] knowledge about object
Actually, knowledge can have any object, so its notation can be built by combination with any other part of the schedules. This fact is expressed by the symbol [V].
y8e knowledge about atoms y8mqvo knowledge about birds y8xm knowledge about music y8y knowledge about knowledge
y also has other facets, including
y6 [pY] knowledge by thinker...
Now, suppose that we have to build the classmark for "knowledge about music composed by Bach". Component notation is
xm6bach music composed by Bach y8 [*] knowledge about object
but if we simply put them together, we get
y8xm6bach
which can be interpreted as "knowledge about music, by thinker Bach" as facet 6 of y means author of knowledge, not of music. What we want to express, instead, is that knowledge is about an object consisting of "music composed by Bach". To avoid this ambiguity, we must express that 6 is a subfacet of facet 8, not a facet of y; subfacets are written in round brackets:
y8xm(6bach) knowledge about music composed by Bach
When indexing deeply specialized documents, the nesting of subfacets can become very complicated: a document entitled "Guidelines on the applications of the environment protection and biodiversity conservation act to interactions between offshore operations and larger cetaceans" would be
t8(ve6qvtn(82y68v(3)25c))6X
To make notation less awful and easier to parse by both humans and computers, it can be "flattened" by writing some facets as separate terms introduced by free relationship:
t6X8Z ve6Z mqvtn82y68v(3)25c
Facet Z is a deictic referring to the whole subsequent phase, thus avoiding most brackets.
To summarize it, two classes aaa and bbb can stay in these relationships [Gnoli 2007d]:
aaa bbb free relationship (free classification sensu Gardin) aaaV6bbb common facet (freely-faceted classification sensu Austin) aaa6bbb special facet of a class (faceted classification sensu Ranganathan)
Two or more classes sharing the same syntactical role can be listed in the same order of schedules and glued by the symbols WA, WB, WC... (or &):
iWAm rocks and organisms
This can also happen within a facet:
y8j knowledge about lands y8jWAm knowledge about both lands and organisms
The upper case following W means the number of letters shared with the previous class, starting to count from the beginning of the classmark:
abcdWAx = abcd together with x abcdWBx = abcd together with ax abcdWCx = abcd together with abx abcdWDx = abcd together with abcx
In case the focus is a shortened (extra-defined) one, the count starts from the first letter of the original class, not of the shortened focus: in
ef5 [ab] ef5cdWCx
x stands for abx.
A consecutive series of classes can be expressed by connecting the notation of the first and the last of them by the symbol W (or %):
jWm = jWAkWAlWAm rocks and genes and cells and organisms
When used in subclasses, by default it introduces a sister class, like in the case of conjunctions:
mlWp = mlWAmWAnWAoWAp algae and mosses (and ...) and vascular plants
In the rare cases where non-syster classes are involved, they have to be listed all by conjunctions, rather than as a span.
Some phenomena are of particular interest to human knowledge. Among all organisms, Man is obviously the most interesting and studied in human knowledge. As an anthropoid primate mammal, its complete notation would be something like mqvtgq; but it is helpful that this long notation be shortened, and Man is listed first among organisms as the one most frequently discussed. To this purpose, the class U "the typical" is used as a differentia, meaning "that which we all have in mind":
h celestial objects hU the Earth hk stars hkU the Sun j lands jU = j2U1gh lands of the Earth in Holocene (contemporary era) mU = mqvtgq humans
Some concepts change their meaning according to the context. Examples are the concepts of "next", "tomorrow", "here", "you"... The meaning of "tomorrow" depends on which day is it today; the meaning of "you" depends on whom am I speaking together. These concepts are called deictics and in ILC are represented by upper-case letters (previously Aa, 98, @). Thus:
b time baU present time p consciousness pYA I, we pYC you
A to T are the favoured host classes or the domain of discourse. They represent the focus phenomena of concern in the present context. This is useful when most expressed knowledge is about a specific domain, so that a special classification scheme can be used instead of the general one. All classes beginning with A ... T are subclasses of the favoured class, either taken from the general schedules (lower case letters, e.g. Abcd), or in turn locally defined (capital letters, e.g. ABCD).
For example, the Dandelion bibliography of facet analysis mostly concerns subject indexing, its subclasses and its facets. In the general ILC schedule there is
y49xs subject index y49xs(4) [:] with element y49xs(4n) controlled terms y49xs(4s) subject strings y49xs(4t) notation y49xse keyword index y49xsef folksonomy, tags y49xsh controlled term index from a thesaurus y49xsj subject headings y49xsl systematic index, taxonomy, classification y49xso ontology, semantic network
Hence most references in the bibliography should be classified by subclasses and facets of yis. To get a shorter notation, and to get the preferred topics at the beginning of lists, yis is stated to be the preferred class A:
A subject index A4 [:] with element A4n controlled terms A4s subject strings A4t notation Ae keyword index Aef folksonomy, tags Ah controlled term index from a thesaurus Aj subject headings Al systematic index, taxonomy, classification Ao ontology, semantic network
Deictics can also be used in combination: AWD "A to D", YX "what individual". The precedence order of their meaning is reversed: Z prevails on Y, X, W, V, U, A-T.
The scheme of phenomena in ILC is intended to be as objective and neutral as contemporary knowledge allows. Of course, one could always claim that this is only one among many possible views of the world, as it happens in any classification; anyway, the scheme is being developed with an effort towards neutrality.
Sometimes, however, there is a need to reflect different and particular viewpoints in classification -- that is, of viewpoint warrant, as Begthol terms it. Examples are the alternative orderings in knowledge of indigenous people, of non-Western traditions, of adepts of some faith or theory, of children, or schemes for special purposes. In the general scheme of ILC, they will usually fall under classes v "cultures" and y "knowledge":
mq animals y knowledge y8 [V] knowledge about object y8mq knowledge about animals y9c popular knowledge y9c8mq popular knowledge about animals y9m magic y9m8mq magic about animals ys sciences ys8mq science about animals, zoology
A most classical example reported by Borges and Foucault is the weird classification of animals in a Chinese encyclopedia entitled "Celestial emporium of benevolent knowledge". It will fall under something like
y9c29r1e popular knowledge in China in the Middle Age y9c8mq29r1e popular knowledge about animals in China in the Middle Age
Now, subclasses of ydxx8mq do not follow contemporary standard classification such as
y8mqb knowledge about poriphera y8mqc knowledge about cnidaria y8mqd knowledge about ctenofora [etc.]
but a very idiosyncratic system, which can be expressed after a colon as it is a subclass of this particular combination of facets:
y9c8mq29r1e:a animals that belong to the Emperor y9c8mq29r1e:b embalmed animals y9c8mq29r1e:c animals that are trained y9c8mq29r1e:d suckling pigs y9c8mq29r1e:e mermaids y9c8mq29r1e:f fabulous animals y9c8mq29r1e:g stray dogs y9c8mq29r1e:h animals included in the present classification y9c8mq29r1e:i animals that tremble as if they were mad y9c8mq29r1e:j innumerable animals y9c8mq29r1e:k animals drayd with a very fine camelhair brush y9c8mq29r1e:l other animals y9c8mq29r1e:m animals that have just broken a flower vase y9c8mq29r1e:n aninals that from a long way off look like flies
A knowledge base organized according to this system could be indexed by these classmarks. As the initial sequence y9c8mq29r1e: occurs in the majoirity or totality of cases, it can be shortened by upper-case letters, giving
A animals that belong to the Emperor B embalmed animals C animals that are trained D suckling pigs [etc.]
In cases where the studied phenomenon is more relevant than the viewpoint, notation can be reversed to give priority to the phenomenon:
mq98y(9c29r1e) animals according to popular knowledge in China in the Middle Age
The sequence 98y, meaning "being topic of knowledge", can be substituted by the common facet 06:
mq06(9c29r1e) animals according to popular knowledge in China in the Middle Age
A similar device can be used also to express the method of study (y3) in Szostak's favoured sequence of phenomenon, theory, and method:
mq03b animals studied through observation mq04y03b animals according to theory Y studied through observation
and for Vickery's activities:
mp07sh plants studied for health applications mp07vq plants studied for cuisine applications
One particular viewpoint which is often adopted is that of academic disciplines studying phenomena. Although ILC classes represent phenomena instead of disciplines, the latter can be represented as a kind of phenomena, at the integrative level of knowledge:
y knowledge y8 of object ys sciences ysd physics ysf chemistry ysh geology ysl biology ysl8nyr biology of forests ysq linguistics ysr sociology ysu economics ysu8nyr economics of forests
If now we set ys as the favoured class A, we obtain a discipline-based scheme similar to those of traditional bibliographic classifications:
Ad physics Af chemistry Ah geology Al biology Al8nyr biology of forests Aq linguistics Ar sociology Au economics Au8nyr economics of forests
While works about literature, cinema, etc. must be classified in xl, xs etc., works of literature and cinema must not; indeed, they are not about arts, but are in form of art [Kyle 1959]. So, what are they about?
In most cases, literary works are about topics related with people and society, in a more or less fictional set. Thus, they can be classified as pY08f "fictional personalities", or s08f "fictional communities", etc., depending on what level is the focus one. 08f will not apply to e.g. documentary films.
For example, Maigret novels mainly deal with murders t70d, and the emotions and personalities p of people involved in them, in 20th century
t1j France tnUc; thus, they can be classified as tnUc70d68p1j08f. If author is relevant, it can be expressed: tnUc70d68p1j08i006simenon. If one wants to account for the document being a video adaptation of Simenon novels, the 00v carrier suffix can be added. Wim Wender's film "The American friend" deals with friendship p3ew by a fictional story set in Germany 0829b in form of moving images 00v; thus, it can be classified as p3ew08f0829b00v.
On the other hands, if the form is more relevant than the contents, like in a
collection of poems on very disparate subjects, the classmark can consist only of formal facets: 009h003UF "poems in French". The same can be true for abstract paintings or symphonies (although such cases as Smetana's "Moldau" also have a phenomenic dimension: jswr2ei009a "rivers, in Elbe basin, in form of art work").
How ILC works — ISKO Italia <http://www.iskoi.org/ilc/how.php> : 2005.08.04 - 2016.11.24 - [how.htm until 2011.07.19]