Models for Classifying Internet Resources

摘要

Designing systematic access to Internet resources is a major item on the agenda of researchers and practitioners in the field of information science, and is the focus of this study. A critical analysis of classification schemes used in major portals and Web classified directories exposes inconsistencies in the way they classify Internet resources. The inconsistencies indicate that the developers fail to differentiate the various classificatory models, and are unaware of their different rationales. The study establishes eight classificatory models for resources available to Internet users. Internet resources can be classified by subjects, objects, applications, users, locations, reference sources, media, and languages. The first five models are content-related; namely they characterize the content of the resource. The other three models are format-related; namely they characterize the format of the resource or its technological infrastructure. The study identifies and formulates the eight classificatory models, analyzes their rationales, and discusses alternative ways to combine them in a faceted integrated classification scheme.