Quotes from Geoffrey C. Bowker

The two basic problems for any overarching classification scheme in it rapidly changing and complex field call be described as follows. First, any classificatory decision made now might by its nature block off valuable future developments.

Second, different designers of the classification system have different needs, and the shifting ecology of relationships among the disciplines using the classification will necessarily be reflected in the scheme itself.

In general, classificatory work practices involve politics, kinds of both prototypical and Aristotelian classifications, and deletion of the practices in the production of' the final formal record.

The ICU's life cycle for humans is as follows: a spurt of intense activity at birth; timeless adulthood, when one is afflicted with a range of woes that carry their own temporalities; and an inglorious, ill-defined end. The effect of this is, paradoxically, to make the individual an tin-defined, tabula rasa onto which various diseases are inscribed.

When faced with too many alternatives and too much information, they satisfice (March and Simon 1958).

The only good classification is a living classification.