People classify everything.
Historically, we've done it for a long time. Certainly in the modern world, the matter of classification and knowledge is a complicated one. In Sorting Things Out , Bowker and Star explore the role of categories and standards in shaping the modern world. They investigate a variety of classification systems, including the International Classification of Diseases, the Nursing Interventions Classification, race classification under apartheid in South Africa, and the classification of viruses and of tuberculosis. The authors emphasize the role of invisibility in the process by which classification orders human interaction.