Introduction

The catalogue and index give a structure to the asset repository. The index is the primary means to retrieve assets from the repository. Without the index, the repository is just another file server. Scientists have always wanted to catalogue as part of their understanding of the natural world. This desire reached a peak during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as collectors scoured the world for new plants, butterflies, and rocks. Anything that could be packaged and returned home was carefully classified and mounted in glass and mahogany display cases. Museums were no longer just collections of fine art, paintings, and sculpture, but encompassed the breadth of human understanding. The science of classifying this myriad of newly discovered species was called taxonomy. To aid the classification hierarchies were developed.

Meanwhile libraries of the written word had long accepted the need for a classification and indexing. The libraries of the religious communities and the lawmakers had well-established systems for cataloguing. If a researcher were looking for information, then the appropriate book could be identified using the catalogue. Once the book was found and retrieved from the shelves, then the relevant section or chapter could be located by a search of the table of contents or the index.

The table of contents provides a logically ordered outline of a book. It has a hierarchical structure based on sections, chapters, and headings. To provide random access to topics or concepts, the index is more useful. The index is a subjectively selected list of...