RE: Nested facets

Travis,
In my opinion nested facets are rather broad facets (based on some
general criterion of division) containing their subfacets (further specific
criteria of division).
For instance, take a broad facet of Place which may have nested 'subfacets'
- place and space in general: localisation, orientation (East, West..)
- physiogeographical place (rivers, mountains...)
- geopolitical place (countries of the world: ancient and contemporary)

Subfacets are meant to be combined in faceted classifications e.g. in
Universal Decimal Classification you would
have the following in the broad facet of PLACE

(1-17) North. Northern
(23) Mountains. Mountain chains
(738.2) Nebraska

(23)(738) 	Mountains of the Western USA
(23)(738.2) Mountains of Nebraska
(23)(738.2-17) Mountain chain of Northern Nebraska

Now, in the examples given by Claudio we are not talking about 'nesting' of
facets or synthesis between nested subfacets but rather about
synthesis from from entirely different broad facets.

Normally all analytico-synthetic/faceted classification have three
very important mechanismes to help with such combinations
a) facet/subfacet indicators  b) citation order rules c) relation symbols

(one cannot demonstrate this using Dewey, as Claudio mentioned so I will be
using here Universal Decimal Classification)

a) facet indicators (classification numbers coming from different
facets/hierarchies has
different initial symbols) - so you can combine as many of them as you want
and you will always know when symbol representing one concept stops and when
the next concept begins. The example from Universal Decimal Classification
(UDC) may be more
clear: e.g. everything that starts with (1 ..) is place everyting that
starts with (0..) is document
form and everything that starts with simple number is subject...
consistently throughout the
system

(05)            Serials
(738.2)            Nebraska
91            Geography [simple number]
91(05)            Serials on geography
91(738.2)           Geography of Nebraska
91(738.2)(05)      Serials on geography of Nebraska

Hence you can search for (738.2) and you will get
all the documents on Nebraska no matter the subject.
You search for (05) and you gather all the serials
no matter the subject. You search for 91 and you get
all geography no matter the country or document form.
Finally you use Booleans to combine your search expression

b) citation order.... is the rule of order between facets that
enables compound and complex concept building. This is purely
intellectual and arbitrary for each system in-spite strong similarities

For UDC, e.g. this order is prescribed as follows
subject-time-place-form-language
[I am adding two more facets to make a point ".." time
and =... language]

91	geography [subject]
"18"	19th century [time]
(738.2) Nebraska [place]
(05)	Serials (document in form of serials)
=111 document in English language

91"18"(738.2)(05)=111

c) But one can also have to subjects that are related one to another...
and not only subject qualified by time,place,form, langauge

>"And is order significant? -- would there be a distinction
>between these two things:
>Elementary education about (English language in Nebraska)
>and
>(Elementary education about English language) in Nebraska "

The distinction in UDC is provided by relation using colon : and
subordiantion using [] bracket
symbols

373.3 Elementary education
811.111  English language [as a subject]
(738.2) Nebraska

373.3 : 811.111(738.2)	Elementary education about English language in
Nebraska
[373.3 : 811.111](738.2)	Elementary education about English language) in
Nebraska

But Claudio is right here, mentioning the  problem of 'phase relations'
between
subjects in the analytico-synthetic classification. The solution exisists
(Perrault)
and is well documented but was never widely implemented being too
sophisticated
for information retrieval requirements expressed by libraries.
Popularity of dumbed-down and simple systems such as Dewey Decimal
Classification shows
that libraries have always had very little aspirations (or money?) when
using
classification in IR. Not to mention that even Dewey is often not
implemented or used to
 its full potentials.


aida







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