IGNOU CLIS - BLII-012 UNIT 1 BASICS OF CLASSIFICATION

IGNOU CLIS - BLII-012 UNIT 1 BASICS OF CLASSIFICATION #ignou #library #classification
Classification is something that we all do intuitively in our daily life and see around us lots of examples that illustrate classification. We classify animals, plants, birds, languages and many other entities into groups based on what is common in them. For example, in a grocery store frozen foods and canned foods are found in separate areas; in a mall electrical goods and cooking goods are kept in separate areas. We group like things make yet another class, or Keralite Roman Catholics may make yet another class. A
family is a class. There seems to be no end to making classes and subclasses of people and various other entities.
Ordering (Arranging Items)
After grouping of items comes the process of ordering. Suppose you have six members in your family. If you arrange their names alphabetically that will be ordering, that means you have put them in a particular order. Ordering is very vital, we arrange all books, periodicals, etc. in a library in a particular order. Classification discovers relation between entities. All the members of a group are related to one another by some common characteristic. When we admit a member into a group it is because he has something in common with the group. For example, a book on microchemistry is admitted into the broader group ‘chemistry’. Here, the common factor
is chemistry.
Classification removes chaos and brings in order. Imagine what will happen if students
of a school gather in a field for physical exercise without any order. There will be a total
chaos. Finding a particular student will be extremely difficult. The moment they are
asked to stand in lines according to their classes, immediately, there will be order, and
it will be easy to locate any student.