Purpose – The aim of this article is to estimate the impact of faceted classification and the faceted analytical method on the development of various information retrieval tools over the latter part of the twentieth and early twenty‐first centuries. Design/methodology/approach – The...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to find a relationship between traditional faceted classification schemes and semantic web document annotators, particularly in the linked data environment. Design/methodology/approach – A consideration of the conceptual ideas behind faceted...

This paper documents the continuing relevance of facet analysis as a technique for searching and organising World Wide Web based materials. The two approaches underlying WWW searching and indexing – word and concept based indexing – are outlined. It is argued that facet analysis as an a...

Reviews the approaches to the organisation of knowledge in Web‐based environments. The control and structure helps searchers to locate information and services, but only provided that searchers understand and relate to the terms and information structure designed into the system. The other...

Purpose – To suggest that a theory of classification for information retrieval (IR), asked for by Spärck Jones in a 1970 paper, presupposes a full implementation of a pragmatic understanding. Part of the Journal of Documentation celebration, “60 years of the best in information research”....

Purpose – This paper forms part of the series “60 years of the best in information research”, marking the 60th anniversary of the Journal of Documentation . It aims to review the influence of Brian Vickery's 1971 paper, “Structure and function in retrieval languages”. The paper is not...

Purpose – This paper aims to respond to the 2005 paper by Hjørland and Nissen Pedersen by suggesting that an exhaustive and universal classification of the phenomena that scholars study, and the methods and theories they apply, is feasible. It seeks to argue that such a classification is...

Purpose – This paper seeks to address the question: do university web sites publish the same kind of information and use the same kind of hyperlinks year on year or do these change over time? Design/methodology/approach – A link classification exercise is used to identify temporal changes in...

Purpose – The paper aims to explain the character and causes of obsolescence in assigned subject descriptors. Design/methodology/approach – The paper takes the form of a conceptual analysis with examples and reference to existing literature. Findings – Subject description comes in two...