Douglas John Foskett vs. Ludwig von Bertalanffy
Side-by-side comparison of two thinkers
Douglas John Foskett
1918 – 2004
Douglas John Foskett OBE was a British librarian and library and information scientist, and author of several special faceted classification systems.
"The aim of an information service is to organise the literature on a systematic basis in order to save the time of research workers."
Ludwig von Bertalanffy
1901 – 1972
Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy was an Austrian biologist known as one of the founders of general systems theory (GST). This is an interdisciplinary practice that describes systems with interacting components, applicable to biology, cybernetics and other fields. Bertalanffy proposed that the classical laws of thermodynamics might be applied to closed systems, but not necessarily to "open systems" such as living things.
"We find systems which by their very nature and definition are not closed systems. Every living organism is essentially an open system. It maintains itself in a …"