Organization of Complex Topics in Comprehensive Classification Schemes: Case Studies of Disaster and Security

This research investigates how comprehensive classifications and home-grown classifications organize complex topics. Two comprehensive classifications and two home-grown taxonomies are used to examine two complex topics: disaster and security. The two comprehensive classifications are the Library of Congress Classification and the Classification Scheme for Chinese Libraries. The two home-grown taxonomies are AIRS 211 LA County Taxonomy of Human Services – Disaster Services, and the Human Security Taxonomy. It is found that a comprehensive classification may provide many subclasses of a complex topic, which are scattered in various classes. Occasionally the classification scheme may provide several small taxonomies that organize the terms of a subclass of the complex topic that are pulled from multiple classes. However, the comprehensive classification provides no organization of the major subclasses of the complex topic. The lack of organization of the major subclasses of the complex topic may prevent users from understanding the complex topic systematically, and so preventing them from selecting an appropriate classification term for the complex topic. Ideally a comprehensive classification should provide a high-level conceptual framework for the complex topic, or at least organize the major subclasses in a way that help users understand the complex topic systematically.