School of
Information Management & Systems
Previously School of Library & Information Studies
Michael Buckland,
The Anatomy of Selection Systems
Summary:
Analysis of the tasks performed in information selection systems
-- filtering and retrieval systems -- leads to the identification of 13
components. Eight are necessarily present in all such
systems whether mechanized or not; the others need not be present.
All selection systems can be represented in terms of
combinations of these components.
The components are of only two types: Representations of
data types and functions that operate upon them. Further,
the functional components, or rules, reduce to two types:
1. Tranformations, making or modifying the
members of a set of representations; and
2. Partitioning (or sorting) operations.
The representational transformations may be in the form of copies,
excerpts, descriptions, abstractions, or merely identifying references.
By partitioning, we mean dividing a set of objects by using matching,
sorting, ranking, selecting, and other logically equivalent operations.
The typical multiplicity of knowledgesources and of system vocabularies
is noted. Some of the implications for the study,use, and design of
information storage systems are discussed.
See Michael Buckland & Christian Plaunt.
On
the construction of selection systems. Library Hi Tech
12, no. 4 (1994): 15-28.
Go to
OASIS research program
or to Michael Buckland's
home-page.
Revised July 17, 1997.