The International Society for Knowledge Organization, or ISKO, is the principal professional association for scholars of knowledge organization, knowledge structures, classification studies, and information organization and structure. Founded in 1989, ISKO's mission is "to advance conceptual work in knowledge organization in all kinds of forms, and for all kinds of purposes, such as databases, libraries, dictionaries and the Internet." An interdisciplinary association, ISKO's worldwide membership draws from fields such as information science, philosophy, linguistics, library science, archive studies, science studies, and computer science. ISKO "promotes research, development and applications of knowledge organization systems that advance the philosophical, psychological and semantic approaches for ordering knowledge; provides the means of communication and networking on knowledge organization for its members; and functions as a connecting link between all institutions and national societies, working with problems related to the conceptual organization and processing of knowledge."
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Publications
The Society publishes the academic journal Knowledge Organization as the official bi-monthly journal of ISKO. Founded in 1973 by Dr. Ingetraut Dahlberg, the first President of ISKO, it began publication the following year under the banner International Classification. In 1993 the title was changed to its present form. The journal publishes original research articles relating to general ordering theory, philosophical foundations of knowledge and its artifacts, theoretical bases of classification, data analysis and reduction. It also describes practical operations associated with indexing and classification. In addition to being a technical resource, the journal traces the history of knowledge organization and discusses questions of education and training in classification.
The organization also holds biennial international conferences.
Chapters
ISKO officially recognizes national chapters in Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Poland, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. ISKO cooperates with international and national organizations such as UNESCO, the European Commission, the International Organization for Standardization, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, the Association for Information Science and Technology, the Networked Knowledge Organization Systems/Services, and the International Information Centre for Terminology.
Other reading
Dahlberg, Ingetraut (2010) International Society for Knowledge Organization (ISKO), Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, Third Edition, 1: 1, 2941 — 2949.