Kunskapens konstellationer
om ämnesanalys och tvärvetenskaplighet
The aim of this study has been to discuss ideas of knowledge within classification theory and subject analysis in the light of theories of fundamental changes in the production of scientific knowledge. Guiding questions have been: How have the conditions of knowledge production changed? How has interdisciplinarity as part of this development evolved? What assumptions lie behind theories of classification and subject analysis? How do these stand in relation to the alleged changes in the production and understanding of science? Three works about the changing conditions for knowledge production and the growth of crossdisciplinarity have been presented and discussed. These works stress the loosening up of boundaries between traditional knowledge domains and open up for discussions about how to organize knowledge production in the light of these changes. In the study it is argued that their works also could open up for discussions about the way knowledge is organized for retrieval purposes. Crossdisciplinarity seems to change the conditions for a subject analysis which is founded on traditional disciplinary boundaries. The views of knowledge expressed by two researchers in library and information science, Jennifer Rowley and D.W Langridge, have been analysed and related to the theories about the changing production of knowledge. Both Langridge and Rowley show how different and contradictory views of knowledge coexist in theories about subject analysis and classification. Ideas of the stability of knowledge categories appear to exist beside pragmatic efforts to let the categories reflect the evolution of knowledge; a tension which appears even stronger in the light of a knowledge structure whose boundaries are in flux. The study argues that a critical and selfreflective classification has to relate actively to discussions about knowledge production. By emphasizing the historical character of the present disciplinary structure and the priorities involved in classifying documents according to their subject, a clearer understanding of the difficulties of subject analysis is possible as well as a subject analysis which to a higher extent reflects the evolution of knowledge.