Compare methods

	Facet Analysis	Domain Analysis	Faceted Classification Design
Field	Library Information Science	Library Information Science	Library Information Science
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1967	1995	1960
Originator	S. R. Ranganathan; Brian C. Vickery	Birger Hjørland & Hanne Albrechtsen	Brian C. Vickery (Classification Research Group); S. R. Ranganathan
Type	Analytico-synthetic pipeline for decomposing a subject into facets	Socio-cognitive pipeline for studying knowledge domains	Constructive pipeline for building a faceted classification scheme
Seminal source	Ranganathan, S. R. (1967). Prolegomena to Library Classification (3rd ed.). Bombay: Asia Publishing House. ISBN: 9788170004707	Hjørland, B., & Albrechtsen, H. (1995). Toward a new horizon in information science: Domain-analysis. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 46(6), 400-425.	Vickery, B. C. (1960). Faceted Classification: A Guide to Construction and Use of Special Schemes. London: Aslib. ISBN: 9780851420103
Aliases	Analytico-Synthetic Analysis, Categorial Analysis, Facet Decomposition, PMEST Facet Analysis	Knowledge-Domain Analysis, Hjørland Domain Analysis, Discourse-Community Analysis, Subject-Domain Analysis	Faceted Scheme Construction, Special Faceted Classification Design, Analytico-Synthetic Scheme Design, Facet Scheme Engineering
Related	3	3	3
Summary	Facet analysis is the analytico-synthetic technique, pioneered by S. R. Ranganathan and systematized for special schemes by Brian Vickery, for decomposing a subject into its fundamental conceptual components. Instead of trying to enumerate every compound topic in advance, the analyst breaks a subject down into elementary concepts (isolates), sorts those isolates into a small number of fundamental categories — in Ranganathan's canonical scheme Personality, Matter, Energy, Space, and Time (PMEST) — and arranges each resulting facet as an ordered array. A defined citation order then prescribes how facets recombine, so any compound subject can be synthesized from its parts. Facet analysis is the conceptual engine beneath faceted classification, thesaurus structure, and much modern metadata, taxonomy, and interface design.	Domain analysis is the socio-cognitive research programme proposed by Birger Hjørland and Hanne Albrechtsen in 1995, which holds that the most fruitful object of study for information science is the knowledge domain understood as a discourse or thought community within society's division of labour. Rather than grounding information organization in the isolated mental processes of an individual user, domain analysis grounds it in the shared literature, paradigms, terminology, and social practices of a subject field. Hjørland and Albrechtsen set out eleven complementary approaches — from producing literature guides and special classifications to bibliometric, historical, and epistemological study — and Clare Beghtol's work on literary warrant and consensus showed how a domain's own published discourse supplies the empirical basis for its categories. The method turns the design of classifications, thesauri, and retrieval systems into an evidence-based study of how a community actually thinks and writes.	Faceted classification design is the constructive engineering of a complete analytico-synthetic scheme for a subject field, turning the conceptual technique of facet analysis into a working classification with facets, ordered arrays, a citation order, and notation. The methodology was codified by Brian Vickery for the British Classification Research Group in his 1960 guide to constructing special schemes, building on S. R. Ranganathan's theory of analytico-synthetic classification. Where facet analysis decomposes subjects into fundamental dimensions, faceted classification design assembles those dimensions into a usable, hospitable, and notation-bearing system, and then tests it against real documents. The result is a scheme that classifies compound subjects by synthesis, grows gracefully as a field expands, and underpins both shelf classification and modern faceted navigation.