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The set of subject descriptors used in the
By Subject area
was originally based on the list of
academic departments at the
University of Waterloo, and supplemented by a
few obvious additions.
By 2001 it was clear that that some of the files (especially in the
areas
of science, technology and medicine) were too large to be of real
use as a way of classifying material. At the time this effort was begun
(November 2001), there were 6 subject files that had more than 300 entries
in them; and for one of these, there were more than 600.
The
TUGWEB Ejournals Group of the
Tri-Universities Group of Libraries (TUG) (University of
Waterloo, University of Guelph and Wilfird Laurier University, all in
Southwestern Ontario) had recently revised their classification scheme,
after much effort, to include slightly more than 60 subject headings.
The Editor then suspended all normal maintenance of the Project for a
period of about 5 months in order to bring the Project into line with this
new classification scheme.
At the beginning (Nov.2001), there were a total of 46 subject files, with
6 of them having more than 300 entries. At the conclusion of this phase
(March 2002) there were a total of 61 subjects descriptors, for an average
subject file size of 2542/61 = 41.7. At this time, there were only a
couple of subject files that contained more than 300 entries; both
contained fewer than 350 entries.
At the conclusion of the five-month reclassification period, it was
decided that it would be best if no subject file were much bigger than 200
entries. Consequently, further subdivision of the larger files was
undertaken.
As of 2004, February 6, there are 82 subject descriptors in the
By Subject area,
including
several not in the TUG scheme.
This effort is still in progress; problem areas still exist.
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