ABSTRACT
Underlying any indexing project lie certain assumptions regarding the philosophy of language and communication. The process of indexing, searching and finding information is only possible if language is considered to be a shared, social, communicative process. Semiotics provides a philosophical and analytical framework which allows us to think about language and other communicative practices as signs. This in turn allows us to think about meaning in a range of signifying practices, for example, pictures, film, text and library classification schemes. This chapter provides a basic introduction to some of the issues of semiotics and the politics of interpretation. The language of semiotics is used elsewhere in the book to discuss issues relating to determining meaning in and through a range of multimedia information objects.
