Threesology Research Journal
Library Science

~ The Study of Threes ~
http://threesology.org

Library Science
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Cataloguing a list of "threes", or more specifically but remaining nonetheless in a general sense... a list of perceptions which are denoted with the value of "three", has been begun by Michael Eck in his wonderful addition to threes research; entitled the "Triclopedia." However, he has had to rephrase his efforts as The Book of Threes because the word "Triclopedia" is either misunderstood or is overlooked because it is a unfamiliar word for most people's vocabulary. Nonetheless, the point is that Mike has used one type of approaching the need for developing a coherent means not only of listing, but of recalling different types of three-patterned examples. We of the "Threes Community" are entirely grateful for his sustained creative and genius level of effort.

Let me not forget to give some account of the many authors who have come across the threes phenomena in their research and commented about some recurring three-patterned structure such as that identified by Georeges Dumezil in his Trifunctional Hypothesis perspective dealing with Indo-European culture. There are others of course whose names do not readily come to mind during this moment of recall, but one example sticks out because it occurred early in my life when I was making my own collection of threes examples. The recognition of such took place during a lecture given by a professor from Mexico who mentioned "threes" about which I queried him after the lecture. He pointed me in the direction of Alan Dundez's book entitled "Every man His way", which is a collection of Anthropological readings. On page 411, if memory serves me, is a chapter he wrote entitled The Number Three in the American culture. What a wonderful collection of threes examples was fully noted as I read it, but came away from it a little dismayed upon reading: "Trichotomy exists but it is not the nature of nature. It is part of the nature of culture." Needless to say, I wholly disagreed. Particularly when his list of examples did not give many threes examples from Natural history. If three is not a part of nature, then we wouldn't be on the third planet, DNA wouldn't have a triplet code and atomic physics wouldn't have three generations nor multiple other patterns-of-three. You can read the chapter here: The Number Three in the American Culture part A. It provides numerous references for those interested in this orientation of study.

Another approach is the usage of a single subject indexing such as that used by Dr. McNulty at his Threes in Human Anatomy. His efforts as well as his associates has been well recieved by thousands of people not only those interested in "threes" but those with an interest in anatomy.

We also have the approach used by those in the Numerology community where patterns-of-three are joined by a list of other number orientations. No doubt many people, including myself, are very grateful for their efforts, since so many of us pass through this phase of interest; though our personal career itineray may not be explicitly focused on continuing in such a traditional perspective of knowledge gathering.

Some researchers are interested in Natural events or those tied in someway to an established referenced in one field of scientific research or another. For example, one might be interested in cataloguing all "threes" examples from physics or biology.

And there are those who have a preferance for seeking out three-patterned occurrences in one or another or even all religious philosophies. Indeed, when speaking of philosophies we find that it too is a genre of interest where patterns-of-three have not only been listed but contrasted with other patterns.

There are those I have encountered who have a collection of threes but do not acknowledge that they are engaged in the usage thereof; where their frequent usage of such actually constitutes a type of unacknowledged listing effort. However, this can also occur with other patterns which can be subjected to an enumeration.

I have also encountered those whose personal lists actually defer to the lists established by others, and those lists typically represent only a handful of examples. Their personal inventory of a given number pattern has reached a cognitive point where such words as "Many", Lots of, a Whole bunch, etc., come into play as a means of supporting their interest in having established the recognition of a quantity suitable for convincing themselves that what they think is true, with respect to the recurring occasion of a given pattern.

The cataloguing of threes or any enumerated pattern can be an exercised played as a simple game of one-up-man-ship, to the extent a person may be more interested in the quantity of examples than the quality. For the more serious collectors, the game can become equated with chess, poker, or even Russian Roulette. For example, one person prefers to claim that existing on the Third planet is a card or chess piece which beats a three-of-a-kind like the existence of three college degrees. In other words, one example is perceived as being more important than another, regardless of where they may settle when placed into an alphabetical arrangement.

Without some method of cataloguing more and more examples, finding a particular example can be such a chore that a person must resort to finding another example instead of one they already have... or think they have, because the filing system one uses does not lend itself to an easy manner for locating a specific item, particularly... for example, if a folder or image is named in such a way as not to permit the contents to be easily identified. This is one reason a person can end up with several different representations of the same idea. Whereas if you are dealing with only a handful of items, it is easy to place them into a single folder. Yet if you have thousands of items which span several decades, a major cataloguing effort needs to be undertaken. Yet such an effort is appreciably difficult if one's research efforts are directed towards more research. As one gets older, energy levels and digressions of thought must be taken into account.

If one's research is focused on several topics at once, "priortization" due to creative impulses can make one's cataloguing appear to be chaotic maddness, even if there is a method to one's own madness.

Because there has been no formal attempt to catalogue ideas subjected to an enumeration as an underlying pattern, one finds themselves faced with the problem that Melvil Dewey was faced with when he set up his classification system that we of today honor him by calling it the Dewey Decimal Classification, which uses a three-digit attribution for main classes, with fractional decimals allowing for expansion. However, whereas this classification system is useful for information that is static, it may not be suitable for dynamical situations. The same problem takes place in mathematics. While it is helpful for identifying and locating items which remain relatively stable (relative to time, place and content), information that is dynamical or moving presents us with the need for a different system. How does one subject creative and perhaps original ideas to a cataloguing index which might show where such an item will be before it even exists?

For example, if all ideas are indexible, then ideas to be generated in the future will occur in a given indexed position, and thus enable us to view them before they even become created... at least in some imagined futuristic library science. While current library indexing systems allow for inserting additional items, how does one index a subject that is an amalgamation of multiple subjects, and none of the integrated subjects appears as a dominant theme and the overall pattern is fludic... governed by intermittent applications of creativity and even originality? The dynamics of a given collections of subjects requires a mathematics... per se, that can deal with a dynamical situation other than simply claiming itself to be in motion relative to that which is in motion. It is like needing a type of observation platform which permits one to understand that if the Uncertainty Principle is a Certainty, then there can be no Undertainty Principle because the indexing platform is just as dynamic as that being sought for, and tethered to some static model of indexing for those who get dizzy when subjected to a flight of ideas.

Whereas we can use the three-based pattern of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system as a guide, it must be attended with by other models such as for example, the Nomenclature used in Biology, the ranking system of the elements, and order of opperations found in Mathematics. With respect to unconvential research efforts, the use of a conventional Dewey Decimal System is just as static as Mathematics, irrespective of how it may be currently applied to dynamical problems such as fluid mechanics or quantum relativities. The DDC is an accountant's tool which has multiple applications in diverse fields, but should not be confused with a self-starting, self-guiding, and self-replicating instrument. While it is versatile, the creative application and usage of its basic structure rests in the hands of individual Library Scientists whose own research programs may be far removed from that initiated by Melvil Dewey.

Library sicence programs link

Initial efforts in pursuing a threes research project so many decades ago, resulted in the usage of a notebook when an accumulation of data exceeded a mental capacity to sustain an adequate representation for the purposes of recall and further collection interests. Such a dilemma is encountered by all of us who eventually focus in on a single or multiple topics. Each of us has our own method for cataloguing perceptions and associated compilations, some of which we may refer to as a second nature, muscle memory, prodigious memory or other culturally driven phrase. In cataloging diverse subjects such as different items we need from the store for our house, car, garage, storage shed, etc., we may use an itemized method of shopping for each particular item according to where it will be placed, such as items on a list which are meant for the kitchen, or garden shed, or ornamentations to be placed into an attic or basement awaiting the appropriate time of year to be displayed. Some people use day planners or diaries or journals meant for personal use, while others like the Threesology Research Journal, are meant for public consumption such as minutes of a meeting conducted by public officials. Each of us in our own way has a library. Indeed, many of us have a collection of multiple libraries such as a library of tools, a library of books on auto mechanics or clothes making, or cooking, sewing, hobbies, etc... We put items into certain spots and keep a running memory of where such items are likely to be found. If we lose our household and vehicle keys because we fail to use a recurring spot for later locating and identifying them, some of us may use a back-tracking method in which we trace over the steps we think we had traversed when we last saw our keys. The same goes for our phone, a book, or some other item we set down in an unconventional or non-usual place which causes some consternation when we later try to find them.

Each of us practices some measure of a library science and may come to disagree with another's methodology for arranging thought processes when discussing a given topic. Some of us are so creatively divergent that we jump from one subject to another from hour-to-hour or day-to-day, making it difficult for others to follow our train of thought and the correlations being made between diverse materials. While some make think such meanderings are a linguistically-driven psychologically-based cling/clang, bow/wow, ding-dong, pooh/pooh, or other dichotomously arranged assemblage, there is some underlying method to our madness, even if only a few come to appreciate the associations. Instead of one picture being worth a thousand words, a single word comes to be interpreted as a thousand pictures. It is a phrase flipped over to produce yet another dichotomy bringing to mind the controversy between a two- and three- (etc.) formatted frame of thinking. Working in a library is not as simple as making sure materials are assigned a Dewey Decimal number or placing them in some Author- Title- Subject order.

Those with Library Science Degrees are those who can be assigned to positions of trust and management, even if you were to go to their home and see that a child of theirs has a rather disorganized looking method for sorting and aligning their toys and clothes. Sometimes a toy box and closet are not viewed (by the child) as the best shelves upon which a child's collection of goods is to be stored... not to mention how they arrange their food while eating. Ask any infant sitting in a highchair, the best place for food is not always a bowl or their mouth. Infants and children have their own system of organization. No less, a person with a Library Science degree who gets a job as a Librarian, must also deal with a public and employees whose own ideas of collecting, sorting and ordering may well be happenstance, destructive, carelessly simplistic, or even purposefully undermining the established order to make finding materials more difficult for whomever seeks out a given book, magazine, newspaper, or other item of interest. While a library is intentionally meant to be user-friendly, how and where shelves within a library may require a learning curve. Yet, the presence of a Librarian and assistants is essential for helping the public navigate the large terrain of diverse materials... if only the public could be trained to ask for help and not be afraid to ask what they might view as a "dumb question". There are no dumb questions, and no self-respecting library attendant would view any question with ridicule or an indication of a person's ignorance. All questions can be viewed as an innocence with the potential to develop into a genius. While there exists the idea that there is a thin line between madness and genius is widely acknowledged, it is less widely known that intelligent people often have a child-like innocence of perception which they explore and use as a genesis for that which may well become a truly insightful idea.

Someone with a library science degree can be quite helpful to those who need to make some conventionally recognized sense out of an otherwise disarrayed appearing assortment of activities and ideas. While helpful in the standards being taught for items which are more commonly thought to be static, such as books on a shelf, magazines on a rack, etc... flexibility in thinking with those with a Library Science Degree is helpful, if not in some cases quite essential in such a project as the Threes Research Journal. However, I don't want to imply that those pursuing a Library Science Degree are not creative thinkers. If you have ever worked in any type of cataloguing situation, you know all too well that there is a substantial level of organizational talent required, even if others think such activities are just as routine as putting books back on a shelf, as if one were working in a factory next to a conveyor belt. All jobs have routine maintenance requirements The talents of a person with such a degree could not only help organize the growing mass of material into a presentable scenario for a larger readership, but help to align content on pages which have already been produced after the initial creative exercise has been permitted to illustrate their divergent portrayals. Emphasizing standards of a Library Science Degree to be the sole arbitrator during the development of a creative impulse may or may not be an impediment in some cases, since originality of thought and activity have their own "libraryishnessificationology" during its stages of development.

A Library Science degree has application in many different fields so long as those pursing such a degree appreciate they are acquiring an organizational expertise which frequently requires flexibility, and a personal interest as well a aptitude outside of the conventional library setting. Such a degree has a marketable value so long as the individual can sell themselves as being a profitable advantage to a given company or organization with a leadership who may not even realize their interests and gains can be improved by investing in an appropriate model of cataloguing for the purposes of being able to better manage their inventory of goods, ideas, resources, etc. A Library Science degree requires someone to have a significant means of tracking multiple products which may be organized in different settings such as the shelves in warehouses, lines on a graph, or vehicles on different lots. While most of us have minor cataloguing skills, it is seldom considered that a person's life can be turned around, or uplifted, or put into order by the application of someone skilled with some type of organizational ability, be they a counselor, psychiatrist, police officer, coach, dentist, gardener, chemist, office manager, Clergy, Librarian, etc., all of whom have different, yet basically similar frames of mind for organizing one or another type of materials. Some organizational skills are better than others for given tasks, while some, like a person with a Library Science degree, can provide others an insight into how they may alternatively arrange their interests to gain a more fulfilling perspective. In my opinion a "Library Science degree" should be called an "Organizational Science degree", because a diverse student body has the capacity to apply organization to different subjects on an individual basis, and not simply a collective one.



Page Originated and Posted: Monday, October 11th, 2021... 6:11 PM
Updated Posting: Saturday, June 14th, 2025... 7:51 PM