Stagnation or Dynamism? Challenges of Updating and Implementing Knowledge Organization in Iran

Rapid advances in digital technologies, the Semantic Web, and artificial intelligence have placed knowledge organization at the center of major conceptual, technological, and institutional transformations worldwide. In Iran, despite a valuable intellectual legacy and a growing community of professionals, knowledge organization faces a state of relative stagnation in responding to these changes. This editorial adopts a critical and reflective perspective to discuss the major challenges of updating and implementing knowledge organization practices in the country. These challenges include insufficient continuous professional development, resistance to emerging digital technologies, shortcomings in the implementation of earlier standards, the absence of coherent national policies and strategic frameworks, inadequate semantic and cultural localization, a reductive view of knowledge organization as a merely technical activity, and weak technological and software infrastructures. The central argument of this editorial is that maintaining the current situation will further marginalize the strategic role of knowledge organization in data governance, policy-making, and the development of the national data ecosystem. The editorial calls for a shift in perspective, recognizing knowledge organization as a national strategic concern, strengthening institutional commitment, promoting policy coherence, fostering informed localization of standards, and encouraging active engagement of the professional community as essential steps toward moving from stagnation to dynamism in this field. Strengthening the theoretical dimension of this field through educational and research activities, alongside the acquisition of practical skills and applied knowledge for the implementation and updating of knowledge organization systems, will be instrumental. Achieving this goal requires national commitment and the synergy of individual and institutional efforts through the establishment of specialised committees and working groups involving researchers and practitioners in the field. It is hoped that, in the near future, this will lead to integrated, profound, sustained, and practice-oriented transformations in knowledge organization.