Prompted by an enquiry from the Leisure Management Special Interest Group of the World Leisure Organization, I have burrowed into the PaRC dungeons and have found the document dated 2020 that explains the 14 categories that PaRC adopted to structure its material. The document explains the categories by example rather than by definition. The categories arose from a roundtable session with the then Librarian Ann Huthwaite and Coordinator John Rush. After more than four years’ experience of assigning categories to posts/articles, it’s worth reviewing the categorisation which might well be adopted by practitioners for other policy and research purposes. I’ll make five observations.
1. Any attempt to classify material faces three broad options: to erect a predetermined structure and fit materials into those categories; or to avoid assigning categories and to rely upon keywords to find material; or to lodge items in chronological order (date) to find material. PaRC adopts both predetermined categories and keywords but not date. (Date is a separate descriptor). A disadvantage of a system based upon predetermined categories is that once established, they are difficult to amend. If a new category is added, for example, then all previous entries need to be searched to see if they belong in the new category rather than the previously assigned one.
2. Number of categories is a significant determinant of the system. PaRC has adopted only 14 categories – PaRC avoided having dozens of detailed categories, as that would have made the assignment of categories more difficult. However, as the number of items lodged rises, the value of broad categories fades somewhat because there are now hundreds of documents in some of the categories. PaRC contributors should minimise the number of categories that they tick. In practice, keywords has become the main method of finding material, in both the Document Library and Narratives websites. Still, the categorisation will be useful for some purposes and in my view is sufficiently robust to commend it.
3. An issue with categorisation is that if several different contributors are applying the categorisation independently, they can interpret some a little differently and therefore their categorisations can drift apart. Some terms such as “planning” are ambiguous anyway. Probably the best remedy for that is for the contributors to go back from time to time and read the description to recalibrate their understanding.
Reading the examples in the attached document indicates that a document entitled “Swamp Gully Park Management Plan” needs to be assigned to only one category, which is ” Open space and recreation areas”. The category of “Management” is really about the principles of management practice, and the category of “Planning” for the procedural meanings of the term and materials about the planning regime for that locality.
4. Many documents will lie in several categories. There is no easy solution to that; it’s inherent in any filing system, and modern search engines should be able to cope so long as adequate keywords are applied to the metadata.
5. From an internationalist perspective, the geographical focus for PaRC is quite circumscribed, being Australia, New Zealand and the Western Pacific Islands. PaRC policy is to include very little material from international sources, perhaps a benchmark document here and there. But place is important and so there is a separate categorisation for geographic location – Australia as a whole, the Australian states individually, New Zealand and the Western Pacific Islands. This is a second classification system assigned in parallel to (or superimposed upon) the main subject categories.
Now here is an exercise for readers who have followed this far: Has this post been assigned to the most appropriate category? Feedback via the LinkedIn account!
Geoff Edwards
5 February 2025
