This is a preprint of an article published in Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 57 (5):601-613, 2006. The aggregated citation relations among journals included in the Science Citation Index provide us with a huge matrix which can be analyzed in various ways. Using principal component analysis or factor analysis, the factor scores can be used as indicators of the position of the cited journals in the citing dimensions of the database. Unrotated factor scores are exact, and the extraction of principal components can be made stepwise since the principal components are independent. Rotation may be needed for the designation, but in the rotated solution a model is assumed. This assumption can be legitimated on pragmatic or theoretical grounds. Since the resulting outcomes remain sensitive to the assumptions in the model, an unambiguous classification is no longer possible in this case. However, the factor-analytic solutions allow us to test classifications against the structures contained in the database. This will be demonstrated for the delineation of a set of biochemistry journals.

The article has been reviewed and accepted for publication in the Journal of Documentation / This is a preprint to be published in Journal of Documentation. Purpose - A general overview with up-to-date information on UDC use worldwide. Design/methodology/approach - The research combined e-mail interviews with LIS professionals in 208 countries, literature research and information obtained from UDC distributors/publishers (AENOR, BSI, UDC Consortium). The following categorization of UDC use was offered: A - dominant system; B - used in some kind of libraries only; or C - rarely used. Findings - Of the 208 countries contacted and researched through the literature in 2004-2006, the UDC was found to be used in 124 (60%) of the countries. In 34 (28%) of the countries researched (in Europe, Asia and Africa), UDC is the main classification system used across national information networks. In 45 (36%) of the countries it is used in certain kinds of libraries. In the remaining 45 (36%) of the countries it is used rarely, in only a few libraries or information centres. Research limitations/implications - It was beyond the scope of this research to provide any information regarding the actual number of institutions using UDC in a given country or to give an estimate of the size and number of document collections organized by it. Although a decline in UDC use since the 1980s was reported from a number of countries, it was not possible to measure this accurately. Practical implications: The interest shown for using UDC in the organization of digital collections, information exchange and cross domain and cross collection resource discovery depends on accurate knowledge of its actual usage worldwide. This gives a measure of its global importance and verifies its credentials as an indexing standard. This research, which attempted wider and more systematic coverage than previous surveys, should help clarify the status of UDC and its potential use in the networked environment. Originality/value - Up-to-date information on the presence of the UDC system across countries and languages. Paper type: Research paper

Political cartoons are not meant to record visual evidence of an event as a photo might, neither are they created to act as icons for the events that they speak to. Rather, they treat the events of their day with an acknowledged slant in the point-of-view, draw correlations between events when such correlations might exist only in the mind of the artist, or deride (or, rarely, admire) individuals or organizations. In all cases, political cartoons fall far more on Fidelâ s Object pole than they do on her Data pole (1997). Indexing political cartoons offers a unique challenge in the larger realm of indexing images. But while subject access has been the focus of image indexing research in recent years, and is a robust and active topic of discussion and debate, it has rarely been turned to the realm of indexing opinion, visual or otherwise. Will Armitage and Enserâ s Panofsky-Shatford mode/facet matrix (1997) be more useful in such work than Jorgensenâ s 12 classes (1994), or will an entirely new measure of subject need to be developed? This paper asks questions within this realm of image indexing as it pertains to political cartoons. Do the subject indexing needs of political cartoons change if the focus is a social or historical issue rather than a political one? There are times when a political cartoonist will choose to address an issue that has less to do with political action or intrigue and more to do with a social ill or trend (such as teen pregnancy), or a historical event of a limited nature (such as the death of a statesman). Does this focus change the needs and requirements of providing subject access to cartoons from that needed for images of a more political nature? Is this a part of the â biographyâ of an image (Roberts, 2001)? Is the event (or events) that inspired a cartoon the de facto subject(s) of it? Proceeding from the proposition that some sort of newsworthy events are the progenitors of political cartoons, do those events serve as the subject elements in cartoon indexing schemes? Is Svenoniousâ subject/predicate model (1994) complete enough? Is the subject of a cartoon determined by what must be known to â get itâ ? Can a cartoon have more than two subjects? Some cartoons make their point though the juxtaposition of disparate items. If a cartoon uses two disparate news items to make a point, are there two subjects? If so, is there a hierarchical relationship â superordinate/subordinate, major/minor, primary/secondary â between them? Is Mai (2005) correct in saying that the meaning of a document changes, depending on the question being asked of it? On the opposite end of the spectrum, can a cartoon refer to something that is not useful as a subject descriptor?

This paper explores the theory and practice of education in schools and further education as two levels of the Information Society in Hungary. LIS education is considered the third level over previous ones. The curriculum and content of different subjects in schools and their relationship to libraries is summarized, as well as the training programmes for librarians, especially concerning knowledge organization. The long history of UDC usage in Hungary is surveyed, highlighting principal milestones and people. The paper provides a brief overview of recent developments, the situation after the new Hungarian edition, and current UDC usage and research directions.

The evolution of bibliographic classification schemes, from the end of the 19th century to our time, shows a trend of increasing possibilities to combine concepts in a classmark. While the early schemes, like DDC and LCC, were largely enumerative, more and more synthetic devices have appeared with common auxiliaries, facets, and phase relationships. The last editions of UDC and the UDC-derived FATKS project follow this evolution, by introducing more specific phase relationships and more common auxiliaries, like those for general properties and processes. This agrees with Farradane's principle that each concept should have a place of unique definition, instead of being re-notated in each context where it occurs. This evolution appears to be unfinished, as even in most synthetic schemes many concepts have a different notation according to the disciplinary main classes where they occur. To overcome this limitation, main classes should be defined in terms of phenomena rather than disciplines: the Integrative Level Classification (ILC) research project is currently exploring this possibility. Examples with UDC, FATKS, and ILC notations are discussed.

This paper explores the use of UDC in libraries and information centers of Delhi. The information presented here is part of the larger data set collected by the author while compiling the Delhi libraries web directory. The survey, conducted through library visits and questionnaires, shows that in Delhi there are sixty four libraries using various editions of UDC. These include libraries of Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), as well as libraries of the Judiciary system situated in Delhi such as Supreme Courts of India, High Courts of Delhi and Districts courts of Delhi. Some libraries of national importance such as Indian Institute of Technology, National Agricultural Library, National Medical Library, National Science Library, are also using the UDC.

Prior to government regulations issued in OMB Circular A-16 in 1990, the organization and dissemination of geospatial data collected by the United States' governments were unregulated and informal. Circular A-16 called for the creation of the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) and charged the FGDC with creating and implementing metadata standards for geospatial data. The importance of geospatial interoperability and metadata standardization between agencies was amplified in 1994 with EO 12906. EO 12906 called for the creation of a National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). A Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) is the coordination of the creation, collection, dissemination, and storage of spatial data between stakeholders in a spatial data community (Williamson, Rajabifard, and Binns 2005). This study explores the choices made by the FGDC on how to classify geospatial data across agencies and attempts to assess compliance among federal, state, and local governments to metadata standards in the creation of the NSDI.

The UDC is attractive to different stakeholders across the information sector because of its wide-spread application, large vocabulary and availability in an electronic format. Modern information retrieval systems have the need but also the capacity to support flexible and interactive retrieval systems. The role of classification in such systems is to serve as an underlying knowledge structure that provides systematic subject organisation and thus complements the search using natural language terms. There are, however, specific requirements that must be satisfied in order to make efficient use of classification and these are not well known outside the library domain and are poorly implemented in library systems. This is especially the case for synthetic classifications, such as UDC, because its elements are meant to be manipulated by the system to fulfill different functions (a flexible systematic display, browsing or search purposes). This report summarizes the most important functionalities of the UDC that need to be taken into account during the implementation process. Important issues about the relation between the UDC schedules in electronic form - UDC Master Reference File and a classification tool (an authority file) that may be built on it, are highlighted. A better understanding of the UDC system's functionality may improve or facilitate its implementation and lower the costs of system maintenance which may be relevant for both prospective users and legacy systems.

Historically, the notational system of the Dewey Decimal Classification provided for non-institution-specific, relative location shelf arrangements, thus substantially reducing bibliographic classification effort. Today its decimal notation continues to provide the classification scheme with flexible granularity, is hospitable to expansion, expresses relationships, interfaces well with modern retrieval systems, and is internationally understood.

With a growing movement toward patient-centric health care and patient empowerment, consumers are encouraged to take an active role in their health care. In fact, nearly 80% of Americans are taking to the Internet to search for health information (Fox, 2006). In addition to the Internet, consumers have access to a growing number of health search engines and professional biomedical databases via health science libraries. However, the consumer’s ability to efficiently retrieve information that is understandable and pertinent to their query is hindered (Volk, 2007) for reasons that include inexperience with “technical terminology,” (Zeng & Tse, 2006) and poor database usability (Smith, 2007). Several organizations are engaged in efforts to refine capabilities to match consumer health queries with accurate information (Smith, 2007; Zeng & Tse, 2006; Zeng et al., 2006). However, as more consumers seek health information in this growing empowered climate and more information is made available, there is an increasing danger that the consumer will become more confused and less able to find pertinent information. This paper explores three areas: it examines the current biomedical ontologies that are used for consumer health searches; it looks at the current means for health information retrieval (IR); and it explores ongoing projects that serve to improve consumer search capabilities. To evaluate the effects of multiple ontologies and search methods, a consumer’s health query was posed using several health search methods.