Studying Subject Ontogeny at Scale in a Polyhierarchical Indexing Language

摘要

Subject ontogeny, the study of how subjects change or do not change during revisions of indexing languages, has added to our understanding of indexing languages through case studies. However, subject ontogeny research to date has been unable to examine key functionality of indexing languages at scale. For example, how do large-scale changes to social and literary warrant affect the utility of indexing languages over time? This paper discusses concrete progress made towards studying subject ontogeny at scale and the challenges presented by studying a large-scale polyhierarchical indexing language, Wikipedia Categories. The paper presents early findings, argues for continued research on subject ontogeny at scale, and suggests possible paths forward for this research.