ABSTRACT

The citation order is the same as the schedule order shown above so that sample classification numbers would be:

Chromium plated brass square head bolts of 2 BA thread = 2342

Unfinished steel flat headed bolts of 1 BA thread = 3221 A brief introduction would be required in order to explain that the citation order is the same as the schedule order. As this is such a simple scheme, however, no index is required; classification can be done by scanning the schedules. It will also be apparent that little attention has been paid to order in array, except in the thread size facet where an ascending order has been used. Example 4.2 Brisch Building Classification (E. G. Brisch, n.d.) The building industry has been a major user of faceted classification for many years and various faceted schemes have been developed to cater for information handling in that industry. Probably the first such scheme was the Brisch Building Classification, which was devised by E.G. Brisch & Partners, in consultation with other appropriate bodies such as the British Standards Institution. According to Barbara Kyle (1956), Edward Brisch was able to apply facet-analysis with ‘unaccustomary simplicity and economy’ and his classification systems were ‘put to a practical use in a number of technical fields’. Kyle provides an example of how the Brisch Building Classification works. Each concept in the scheme is represented by a notation consisting of a pair of digits and a subject can be classified by from one to nine pairs. For example, ‘Modular design’ = 01, ‘Steel’ = 35 and ‘Framework’ = 63. Therefore: Modular design of steel framework =

01 35 63

Each notation is entered in its appropriate place in one of the nine boxes at the head of a ‘data sheet’ (a pair beginning with 0 in the first box, with 1 in the second box, 2 in the third box, and so on), leaving empty any boxes that do not apply. The user could organise his collection of sheets under whichever concept interested him most, with cross-references from whichever of the other concepts were considered important enough. An index is not required as there are only ninety concepts in total. Although faceted in the sense that it lists individual concepts, this is a very simple scheme and, because of its nature, citation order is irrelevant (see also pages 91 and 113-4). A further development was taken to three digits but the two digit system was considered sufficient for many purposes.