Notation

Notations are systems of symbols that can be combined according to syntactical rules to represent meanings in a specialized domain. In knowledge organization, they are systems of numerals, letters and punctuation marks associated to a concept that mechanically produce helpful sequences of them for arranging books on shelves, browsing subjects in directories and displaying items in catalogues. Most bibliographic classification systems, like Dewey Decimal Classification, use a positional notation allowing for expression of increasingly specific subjects by additional digits. However, some notations like that of Bliss Bibliographic Classification are purely ordinal and do not reflect the hierarchical degree of a subject. Notations can also be expressive of the syntactical structure of compound subjects (common auxiliaries, facets etc.) in various ways. In the digital media, notation can be recorded and managed in databases and exploited to provide appropriate search and display functionalities.