habitually probing generalist

The I-School Movement (SIG/ED)

This panel was, from my point of view, pretty darn boring. It was composed of deans (or close) of several I-schools and one non-I-school dean. The questions were a bit more lively, but by then I was fully engrossed in uploading pictures to flickr, checking email, etc.

I ended up not going to the next session, which actually sounded very interesting, Forgetting and (Not) Forgotten in the Digital Future (SIG/HFIS). Instead, I sat outside and got to know my new friend, Jenn. Was a far better use of my time, methinks.

I had lunch with Sandy Roe (ISU) at the wonderful cafe, Las Manitas, on Congress Ave. After lunch, I went to what was supposed to be the Education Committee meeting to see if I could get involved. Only four people showed up, and none were honchos of any sort, so there was no meeting in the end.

Next up was, Philosophy and Information Science: The Basics (SIG/HFIS) with Don Fallis (U of AZ), Jonathan Furner (UCLA), Kay Mathiesen (U of AZ), and Allen Renear (UIUC).

Fallis‘ presentation was on “Applying Epistemology to Information Policy Decisions.” Info is available here.

Next up was Jonathan Furner on “The ontology of works.”

Mathiesen spoke about Information Ethics. She views freedom of expression as senseless without access to the expression. Her claim is that, “Information itself is not valuable, access to information can be valuable.” That value can be positive or negative, and it can be either inherently or instrumentally valuable, or disvaluable. Agreed.

Allen spoke next about “Ontology and Information Science” and was arguing for a naive ontology. Check.

These were all very interesting talks. One way to tell is due to the lack of notes taken. It is called listening and processing or, at least, trying to listen and process.

I tried going to Toward a General Approach to Information Organization (SIG/CR) but I was completely wiped at this point and couldn’t much concentrate so I went out to the poster sessions instead.

I am glad that I did as I was able to witness the event that led to the founding of SIG-TAG, “So, let’s talk about tagging” by June Abbas and Jennifer Graham of University of Buffalo, SUNY. This poster was interactive in that people were asked to participate by tagging either the poster, or tagging some photos they had that could then be added around the perimeter of the poster. Here is my other tagging efforts; footnoting as tagging. I even got tagged! And I even caught Allen Renear tagging a bit later in the day.

After this I went to the Standards Committee meeting. This meeting was also sparsely attended, but both the outgoing (Gail Thornburg, OCLC) and incoming (Marcia Zeng, Kent State) chairs were present. I’m not positive but I think I got myself on this committee, which was the point after all.

In the evening I went to dinner with a great group of people [not everyone] to the Rio Grande restaurant. This was, in fact, the birth of SIG-TAG.