[Sigia-l] Faceted Classification

[tessa]

> From: "Christopher Fahey [askrom]" <askROM at graphpaper.com>
> It has always seemed to me that "faceted classification" is just a fancy
> way of saying "put your content into a database and use lots of metadata
> fields".

> In fact, I can't
> think of too many large online searchable datasets that are not faceted.

This is a broad definition, and there is an idea that has been left out and
that is that the facets are visible to the user and never go away even when
the user navigates through the various facets. Think of it as you would a
jewel; all the facets are there and clearly visible, yet you can look into
the jewel through any of them. If the facets disappear, I don't believe it
is true faceted classification. There is a user side to this, not just the
dB. Hence, true faceted classification shows the user all possible aspects
and the interface should allow for this.

Tess