Ambiguity in Knowledge Organization: Four Proposed Types

Classification and categorization order by creating or seeking certainty. Yet inevitably we encounter things that defy ready placement, which we may label other or miscellaneous, or force into another category. The literature of knowledge organization recognizes the consequences of classification and misrepresentation, but has not systematically outlined what circumstances or conditions render a thing ambiguous to those who would seek to describe it. This paper proposes four major sources or type of ambiguity in classification. While examples of these types may be found in many disciplines and settings, they have in common similar requirements for accurate or improved representation. Multiplicity is a source of ambiguity when a resource or object requires more terms to describe than the system allows. Emergence is ambiguity that arises when phenomena, from medical observation to literary genre, is at an early stage of description and thus unstable. Privacy-related ambiguity is that which stems from a gap of understanding or trust between those classifying and what is being classified, particularly in human communities. Conditional ambiguity arises when something requires narrative due to conditional contexts such as temporality or geography. This term also describes things that have dichotomous or fragmentary identities that are not easily represented by most systems. These types of ambiguity may arise in formal and informal organization systems. While observing these types of ambiguity may not offer immediate or feasible solutions, it may allow us to discuss their unique challenges and to better understand their manifestations across disciplines

Disambiguating ambiguity Or, Looking beyond uncertainty as the source of ambiguity in description systems

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2023Representation both signals presence and advocates for resources; how we approach this work is informed by the context in which it takes place. In cultural heritage institutions (CHIs), items are represented through catalog records, which are shaped by a variety of infrastructures from standards to software. These structured descriptions, which inventory and facilitate access to items while marking their role as members of a collection, must signal the unique identity of each item, disambiguating each from similar others. In knowledge organization, and classification theory particularly, disambiguation is treated primarily as a process of moving from uncertainty to certainty. By mapping the terrain in which these surrogates are made and inviting practitioners in the field to share challenges encountered in their work, this dissertation asks what it means for something to be ambiguous in structured description. Examples of friction and ambiguity from the field extend beyond experiences of temporary uncertainty. Working through technical and ethical issues, often with inadequate resources to attend to challenging cases, practitioners explore a variety of interventions for addressing the limitations of description systems. This dissertation contributes a framework for investigating the frictions of representation in CHIs and beyond. Doing so may help us to imagine alternative approaches to this work and to advocate for a variety of resources that can support items, collections, institutions, and the practitioners on whose labor this work relies