In this presentation, I argue for focusing the attention of classification theorists on the implications of what I argue to be the principal affordance of publishing texts online, in contrast to their publication on paper, and that is the capability for an author or creator to update an online text without the text having to be republished as a new physical edition. This affordance is a result of the possibilities provided for by a shift in the materiality of textual carrier from physical to digital. I examine the implications of this capability for the WEMI model and argue that its starting point in terms of online “things” in the bibliographic universe should be modeled more granularly.

1. The Principal Affordance of
Publishing Texts Online
possible implications for the bibliographic
universe model and classification
Steven L. MacCall, PhD
University of Alabama
Classification Research Workshop
ASIS&T 2012

2. Ongoing Research Program
• Large-scale cooperative organizing online
– Theory and history
– Leverage existing network of libraries and librarians
– Exploring alternatives to cataloging/metadata
approaches
• Central problem at hand concerns dealing with the
evolution of the book as textual carrier
– Librarians organize in reaction to changes in publishing
– Important to understand the affordances of publishing
especially as evolves into online environments
– Affordances as “those object properties that allow
particular uses” – Janet Murray: Inventing the Medium

3. Book Publishing Affordances
• “Book a concept” defined as textual carrier:
Tablet => scroll => codex (manuscript then
print)
• With the current availability of an online
publishing option, an important question for
today is its impact on the “book as concept”
• My perspective is on investigating affordances
of online publishing as they pertain to
organizing cooperatively

4. Prior Affordances of Textual Carriers
• Tablet to scroll:
– Better (and less expensive) text multiplication
– More mobile
• Scroll to codex:
– Random access to passage-level textual content
• Affordances weren’t static, but themselves
improved over time

5. Post 1876 Cooperative Organizing
• In the print book era, libraries developed various
methods for organizing them as textual carriers
• By 1876, libraries had launched the present era of
large-scale cooperative organizing
• Let’s call it the “Cutter/Dewey/Print Book (C/D/PB)
Model” that included the following aspects
– Cutter => cooperative cataloging
– Dewey => shared classification for relative shelf
arrangement in directly accessible open library stacks
– Print book => intertitles and other paratextual elements

6. WEMI and the Ontological Perspective
• Cutter’s cataloging portion of C/D/PB model has
been sharpened by Tillett and others through
development of WEMI model and its
incorporation within FRBR into RDA
• WEMI is referred to as an ontological model as it
identifies what exists in the bibliographic
universe; thus it is a “thing” ontology
• I would argue that from a textual transmission
perspective, WEMI could also be considered as a
process ontology best exemplified by 

8. WEMI as Process Ontology
• WEMI provides a conceptual basis for tracking
history of works as the process of textual
transmission occurs over time
• In this view, textual transmission is a process that
the WEMI ontology can capture as a basis for
recordkeeping as new “things” are published in
print (i.e., new equivalents & derivatives) based
on economic warrant
• But at what are the “things” in an online
publishing environment? What warrants the
process of textual transmission online?

9. Print Publishing & Economic Warrant

10. Online Publishing & Knowledge Warrant
• Textual transmission at a more granular level
– Updates to work based on knowledge warrant (1000s of
“editions” for Principles of Internal Medicine not just 18
editions based on economic warrant
– Classification of a work is extended to its granular parts
– Example
• With extended classification approaches, we can
align process and thing ontologies within a more
granular WEMI ontology
– Items are granular as they are made up of updateable
parts (i.e. chapters and chapter sections in this example)
labeled with intertitles (Genette) suitable for display
– What I call “WEMI south”

11. Principal Affordance of Publishing Online
• I have briefly presented an argument that WEMI
can be considered as a process ontology
– For recording textual transmission in print based on
economic warrant
– This is an affordance of print publishing
• I have suggested that publishing online affords a
more granular approach to textual transmission
– For recording textual transmission online based on
knowledge warrant
– This is an affordance of publishing online

12. Limitations and Implications
• Limitations
– Example presented based on a non-fiction work of
medicine
– Fiction would be more complicated (fluid text theory –
future paper)
• Implications for classification
– Offers a theoretical basis for classification of
manifestations “properly” published online
(i.e., updates based on knowledge warrant)
– Immediate updates of works online based on
knowledge warrant rather than economic warrant and
no need for re-cataloging such updates