Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences (Inside Technology) - Hardcover

Bowker, Geoffrey C.; Star, Susan Leigh

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262024616 ISBN 13: 9780262024617

Publisher: Mit Pr, 1999

Synopsis

Classification systems and their role in shaping philosophy and social interactions are explored in this unique analysis of human infrastructures.

About this title

About the Author

Geoffrey C. Bowker is Regis and Dianne McKenna Professor and Executive Director of the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Santa Clara University.

Reviews

Classification theory is tough reading, but this is an important book that expounds the basics in a new fashion. Bowker and Star, both professors in the department of communication at the University of California, San Diego, emphasize (and show how) classification becomes invisible as it gains acceptance and exerts ever greater influence over our daily lives. They explore three issues: the role of classification in large infrastructures; classification and biography; and classification and work practice. The authors analyze the International Classification of Diseases, the Nursing Interventions Classification, the South African race classification under apartheid, and other working systems to illustrate their points about the inevitable social, political, and economic impacts of classification on people, mainly because we take them for granted, assume they represent the "natural" way of the world, and therefore that we must conform to them. The closing chapter, "Why Classifications Matter," should be required reading for every librarian. It sums up what has gone before and sensitizes us to the power of classificationAa power we wield as organizers of information. Highly recommended for library and information science educators, students, and practicing classifiers; this book is a must for all professional bookshelves, not just for those of library schools and research institutions.ASheila S. Intner, GSLIS, Simmons Coll., Boston
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Mit Pr
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262024616
• ISBN 13: 9780262024617
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 389