The Importance of Interdisciplinary Research and Teaching -- The Needs of Interdisciplinary Research -- The Nature of KOSs to Serve Interdisciplinarity -- Phenomenon versus Discipline-Based Classifications -- The Feasibility of Developing Such a KOS -- Domain-Oriented Interdisciplinarity -- How to Develop a KOS to Serve Interdisciplinarity -- Benefits of a Comprehensive Phenomenon-based Classification -- Responding to Potential Theoretical Critiques -- Concluding Remarks and the Next Steps.

This book will investigate the possibility that a new approach to knowledge organization is better suited to a contemporary academy characterized by an increased emphasis on interdisciplinarity. The knowledge organization systems (KOSs) that are most widely used in the world were developed when a discipline-based view of the universe of knowledge was common within both information science and the wider academy (see Miksa 1992). To set the stage for our analysis, it is first necessary that we define interdisciplinarity (and disciplines) and discuss the increased importance of interdisciplinarity within both the academy and the world at large. The first several sections of this chapter address definitional matters. The next several sections detail the increased importance of interdisciplinary scholarship, its value for scholarly discovery, and the place of interdisciplinarity within the academy and society. The chapter closes by outlining how we can explore in the rest of the book the ways in which knowledge organization should best facilitate interdisciplinarity.