title: Organization of knowledge and the complex identity of history of science.
abstract: History of science as a formal and autonomous field of research crosses over disciplinary boundaries. For this reason, both its production and its working materials are difficult to classify and catalog according to discipline-based systems of organization of knowledge. Three main problems might be pointed out in this regard: the disciplines themselves are subject to a historical process of transformation; some objects of scientific inquiry resist constraint within rigid disciplinary grids but, rather, extend across several disciplinary boundaries; and the so-called digital revolution has replaced spatial with temporal display sequences and shifted the traditional emphasis on knowledge to user-oriented approaches. The first part of this essay is devoted to a conceptual analysis of the various approaches to the organization of knowledge formulated over time, whereas the second considers the new possibilities afforded by a faceted model of knowledge organization compatible with user-oriented relational databases to the research materials and production of history of science.
authors.affiliation: Center Simão Mathias for Studies in History of Science (CESIMA), Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, Rua Caio Prado 102, Salas 46-49, Consolação, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, 01303-000.
authors.forename: Ana M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Alfonso-Goldfarb
authors.affiliation: Center Simão Mathias for Studies in History of Science (CESIMA), Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, Rua Caio Prado 102, Salas 46-49, Consolação, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, 01303-000.
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Waisse
authors.affiliation: Center Simão Mathias for Studies in History of Science (CESIMA), Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, Rua Caio Prado 102, Salas 46-49, Consolação, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, 01303-000.
authors.forename: Márcia H M
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Ferraz
mesh_terms: D002376:Cataloging / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D019359:Knowledge; D012586:Science / Q000145:classification / Q000266:history*