A Library in New Zealand Replaces Dewey with System Rooted in Māori Tradition | Hacker News Reader

A Library in New Zealand Replaces Dewey with System Rooted in Māori Tradition

magazine.1000libraries.com

20 pointsGeekette35 comments

Non-paywall link: https://archive.is/PWMJS

I believe this is cut from whole cloth and has no historical basis in matauranga Māori. It's worth noting that Māori did not have writing, and that whatever this classification system is, it's not Māori per se, it's just Māori-themed.

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.

>> It's worth noting that Māori did not have writing

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.

I think the thrust of the point is that it's not 'traditional'.

How is it not traditional?

Except Mātauranga by definition refers to “TRADITIONAL” knowledge.

And as OP points out this isnt it.

I too feel gaslit respectfully, reading your reply and the article.

> They did have forms of record keeping aids like rakau whakapapa / genealogy sticks, but no meaningful information classification system in the absence of writing.

They had oral tradition, and it is extremely meaningful.

(To clarify, an information classification system can be implemented through oral communication.)

The poster explicitly said "information classification system". What you said is correct, but does not contradict the parent post.

If you're really objecting to new information systems being created from an existing historical/cultural corpus' as a means of making cultural treasures more accessible to a literate audience, are you really a hacker?

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.."

The librarian and the article cited don’t claim that the book classification system is the traditional book classification system of Māori. You are reacting to a claim of your own creation.

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.

This seems like a good way to ensure that Māori literature doesn’t ever get discovered unless someone is specifically only looking for Māori literature. Ironically using such a system in a library may contribute to its extinction.

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.

Recall the classic essay, Ontology is Overrated - https://web.archive.org/web/20191117161738/http://shirky.com...

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

and the Religion classification in the Dewey Decimal System:

    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

See the issue? Christianity has 220, 221, 222, 223 ... up to 289. Judaism has 296 alone. Islam has to share 297 with Bábism and the Baháʼí Faith. Buddhism doesn't even get a fucking category.

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.

You make a very good point, and provide an excellent reference.

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.

[flagged]

They’re using it to classify Māori literature, rather than books on physics. Seems reasonable?

The whole library should stick to one system, splitting the collection in two and using two separate organizational schemes is going to make a mess. What even qualifies as "Māori literature" anyway? That wouldn't be an important question if not for the split system, but now books have to be discretely classified as one or the other. Is the classification based on the ancestry of the author, and if so, how are mixed ancestries handled? If it's based on subject, then how do you classify a book which is about the history of New Zealand generally with some percentage of it covering Māori history? What percentage is the cutoff? If all the books are organized under one scheme then these shades of gray aren't a real problem, but now they have to pick which system to put a book under, and people looking for those books have to guess how they were classified.

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.

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

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.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'm not being snarky, I just think this kind of thing fetishises indigenous groups as having some kind of deep wisdom on the basis of their ethnicity.

Sure, but we need you, like everyone here, to observe the guidelines, and take care to express your thoughts with kindness and sensitivity. We know sometimes it's hard to know how your words end up coming across to others, but in this case the comment crossed into the kind of territory we're trying to avoid on HN.

Really disappointingly sour responses from HN ITT

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?

For context: There are three root comments and six comments in total right now. All seem reasonable.

“ This stuff is such Noble Savage nonsense.” is not reasonable

EDIT do the down voters wish to explain themselves?

They feel threatened by a non-western ontology that prioritizes different methods of information storage and transmission, ones that seem incompatible with their own tradition of the computer database.

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.

Huh? These are documents written (not a Maori technology), printed (not a Maori technology), bound into a book (not a Maori technology), placed in a library (not a Maori idea/concept). A Computer database is irrelent here, you seem to be picking out arbitrary words to try and sound smart?

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.

Calling this "noble savage" and stereotyping is very reasonable (also known as true).

Its hilarious that the most succinct and useful summary gets flagged and hidden. Thats the smoothness of HN some times.

Honestly, many New Zealand’ers (especially the inner city Wellington/Auckland public service class) have a major problem with native cultural relations (bordering on obsequiousness) that is increasingly out of step with developed global practices.

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.

> What gives you the right to boo and hiss at something across the world to you?

You can't be serious. Commenting on anything is a basic human right.

What makes you think that?

It’s a figure of speech.

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 being an asshole

You're the one name calling.

Just meeting them on their own turf.

I didn't call you any names, nor the librarians, nor anybody else in this conversation. You are the one who stooped to that.

I agree with you completely and will happily join you into the grey zone by stating simply, anyone who objects to new information systems being created on the basis of heritage/historical/cultural grounds, is just a wannabe hacker, and thats just not news.

> Bridget hopes it will be adopted permanently, not just at Te Awe, but right across Wellington.

Is it really tiny and temporary, then?

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