They did have forms of record keeping aids like rakau whakapapa / genealogy sticks, but no meaningful information classification system in the absence of writing.
I feel like I'm being lied to or gaslit or something when this is claimed to be traditional.
Each god has a bunch of different associations/responsibilities in traditional Māori culture. Applying those to book classification is the novelty, which they claim as novel and are proud of having created.
The fact of the use of Maori to organize Maori literature, is of immense interest, whether it suits a foreign, supposed culture more, or otherwise.
This is a new method of organizing an important corpus of cultural knowledge, granting new insight to an intended audience.
Why not applaud its utility, rather than immediately disregard the results to be attained?
Or have you, indeed, found it wanting as a means of searching for specific details in the Maori collection?
>gaslighting
I think the standard issue, if you feel like this, is to check oneself, before one wrecks oneself. Here, let me show you the gaslight: "has no historical basis", "just Maori-themed", "forms of record keeping", "no meaningful information classification system", "I feel.."
Note the past tense. They did not have writing. They now do read and write in multiple languages. Native/aboriginal groups are not locked into what they once were. I see no reason why "maori-themed" can refer to more recent developments within that culture.
And as OP points out this isnt it.
I too feel gaslit respectfully, reading your reply and the article.
They had oral tradition, and it is extremely meaningful.
(To clarify, an information classification system can be implemented through oral communication.)
Libraries are not just repositories of knowledge; they are discovery mechanisms. Putting a tiny fraction of your knowledge under a different discovery mechanism makes it only worthwhile for people and tools already targeting that specific niche, to put in the effort to figuring out how to discover new content there.
Book classification systems take on the the shape of the books being collected, and the books collected have the shape of the curator, who typically has the shape of the society they live in.
It's quite conciveable that any one classification system, designed for one person's idea of "all knowledge", massively biased to knowledge they and their society hold dear, is terrible for cataloguing another society's or sub-group's knowledge. The classic examples given in the essay include the first top-level category in the Soviet library system:
A: Marxism-Leninism
A1: Classic works of Marxism-Leninism
A3: Life and work of C.Marx, F.Engels, V.I.Lenin
A5: Marxism-Leninism Philosophy
A6: Marxist-Leninist Political Economics
A7/8: Scientific Communism
200 Religion
210 Natural theology
220 Bible
230 Christian theology
240 Christian moral & devotional theology
250 Christian orders & local church
260 Christian social theology
270 Christian church history
280 Christian sects & denominations
290 Other religions
GUESS THE PREDOMINANT FAITH IN THE SOCIETY WHERE THE DEWEY DECIMAL SYSTEM WAS INVENTED.
Ultimately, the essay rejects singular classification altogether. The only reason it exists is because bookshelves are linear, and you want to put like books with like. That's it, that's all. And you have to squint a lot, because many books don't kindly stick to a single topic.
So, whatever classification system these Kiwi libraries make up, don't worry about it, it'll be just as bullshit as the Dewey Decimal System, but it'll be better-shaped for the books it's classifying, and it'll be useful as an overview of the collection, and a way to discover and explore it. A more helpful index would use tagging, and an even more helpful index would be a full-text search engine.
It is in human nature to classify, and that is doubly true for an academic. Simply put, without a classification system we can’t point at a thing and say it is different to another thing. Neither can we say that one of those things is greater than the other.
I use libraries a lot and I have been reasonably satisfied with how the Dewey system seems to support common sense differences between ‘things’. Every now and then this common sense fails, but that is the nature of any hermetic system.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
Please don't fulminate.
Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.
Please don't post shallow dismissals...
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
At least the whole system is probably digitized so there is that at least. But insofar as that solves the lookup problem, so also should it make the entire exercise of splitting the collection in two a useless waste of time anyway.
This is a tiny and temporary library in Wellington set up while the main library gets upgraded to deal with the city’s risk of earthquakes
It’s about the size of a house, with only ~20,000 books.
What gives you the right to boo and hiss at something across the world to you? In a culture you’re unfamiliar with. This is a tiny, community focused library, modifying a single section’s ordering and labelling of books.
Why does that offend you?
EDIT do the down voters wish to explain themselves?
Its hilarious that the most succinct and useful summary gets flagged and hidden. Thats the smoothness of HN some times.
To the poster below: The knowledge and system of connections inside that knowledge, is traditional, and that tradition is carried forward into modern domain. Does that make sense?
You should examine why you feel so quick to dismiss something as nonsense, especially when it seems to have been implemented successfully to the benefit of its users who do understand the system.
You seem to be imagining something (the burning of libraries as the entire nation is forced to throw out Dewey?) that has no basis in reality.
You clearly don’t understand what’s been implemented here, or library science in general, as your assertions are nonsense.
People arent threatend by this specific activity, less so the nonsense behind it. The threat is the corruption of useful and working systems to virtue signal for no benefit, whilst espousing their apparent (but on close examination lack of benefits). It is the social and intellectual degredation which is alarming.
Creating a custom filing system is busy work simply put, changing to a propritory system lowers discoverability of information to an overwhelming majority of people initmately unfamiliar with "Maori gods" (99.9%), the same activity could be accomplished under standard tooling (Dewey), at lower cost, greater compatability and therefore benefit. It would be discoverable by default.
Is it really tiny and temporary, then?
You can't be serious. Commenting on anything is a basic human right.
Edit, since apparently that was confusing: it’s an idiom which implies not that you lack the legal right to comment, but that you’re being an asshole by commenting in this manner.
You're the one name calling.
It gives rise to the utter nonsense exemplified in this Article, which is pure virtue signalling.
I am a New Zealander, I have been lucky enough to spend a huge amount of time working overseas (in many different countries, settings and regions) as well as having attended foreign and (domestic NZ) universities. I have seen it all. Screeching about “booing and hissing” says more about you than the person you are replying to. Put up a coherent response rather than saying because someone isn't in a tiny community they cant have an opinion. That is just braindead behaviour.