Monthly Archives: April 2007

So, I guess I’m a freak

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I got a call from the cable guy standing outside my apartment building today. [Short story: no buzzers on the building and the doors are locked. Guess I'm lucky I never get visitors.]

Seems they had never turned off the cable TV, which he had done. “It won’t affect your cable internet and I’d be happy to turn it back on. I can even offer you the 1st month at half off. ….” Actually, he was quite pleasant, but I said no thanks anyway.

I’d much rather spend my time reading Farradane, Coates, Beghtol, Green and others. My TV works just fine when fed DVDs.

I had never even thought to try hooking up the cable. Looking back at all the things I’ve read over the past 9 months makes me happy I didn’t. So much time could have been wasted. [I'm not claiming TV is worthless or that there is nothing good on; only that it is a time sucker. Personally, I've chosen other time suckers.]

Yes, I know I’m a freak.

Some things read this week, 22 – 28 April 2007

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Seems I snuck a bit more reading in yesterday; although I’ll leave the things I re-read out. I did manage to finish FRAD.

Saturday, 21 Apr 2007

Levinson, Jerrold. “What a musical work is.” The Journal of Philosophy 77 (1), Jan.. 1980: 5-28. (JSTOR)

Keep in mind that this is only my opinion and that I could be completely wrong. Also, honestly, I have little education in music. That said, this is one of the worst articles that I have ever read. It is surely the worst I have read that was published in The Journal of Philosophy. There were perhaps two actual claims in this article with which I could agree, and one I had to qualify.

I almost gave up reading this article several times last night. I literally had to force my way through it as I repeatedly reminded myself of the moral obligation I had to my class (Ontologies). Except for the fact that I respect my classmates and our guest lecturer this week, Dave Dubin, I would not have read past the first couple pages. And, honestly, I want the hour or so it took me to read it back.

Levinson makes it clear that he is restricting his discussion to what he calls, “that paradigm of a musical work, the fully notated “classical” composition of Western culture, for example, Beethoven’s Quintet for piano and winds in E-flat, Opus 16″ (6). One of his aims is to retain the concept of composing as a truly creative act. While this is a noble aim, which accords with our commonsense notion of artistic creation, one should not end up with such a ridiculous theory just to support commonsense.

I will primarily try to keep my mouth shut in class while we discuss this, but I also know that that will be impossible. I do have a few specific questions, though. My main one will be along the lines of, “Do we speak of textual works like this?” “Is it the case that the reception of, interpretation of, and experience of a textual work are part of what defines it as a work?

I do think Levinson is explicating some important concepts about music here. I just don’t think that he is discussing works as the same concept as, say, FRBR, or Svenonius, Tillett, Smiraglia, or Vellucci does. And if, in fact, it is work that he is discussing then it is an extremely narrow and elitist notion of work. It is in no way a commonsense notion of work at all, even if he has saved some commonsense notions of artistic creation.

His logic is also incoherent at times, or, perhaps, I ought to say that the implications of his logic are incoherent. He seems to choose what he uses logic for and which implications he wants and which he can ignore.

A complete waste of my time. I am not looking forward to discussion of this article.

Update: Discussion went pretty well, actually. I am certainly no more enamored of Levinson’s theory, but several people including the class musicologist seemed to think that Levinson would gladly accept my contention that under his theory he has not heard any works of Beethoven, but only performances of … what I don’t know. They also agreed that this theory leads to an explosion of entities. Whether or not this is good or bad, or can be handled by catalogs elicited vastly different responses. All in all, I was proud of myself during discussion despite my utter uselessness for this piece for the purpose of which it purports. Again, I think Levinson is discussing some important issues in music, and broader, but it is not the concept of works.

Saturday – Monday, 21 – 23 Apr 2007

Khoo, Christopher S. G. and Jin-Cheon Na. (2006). “Semantic relations in information science.” Annual Review of Information Science and Technology 40 Medford, NJ: Information Today, p. 157-228.

This is an excellent article that I first read last December while working on my paper for 590TR Information Transfer and Collaboration in Science. My paper was a “representative literature review on the topic of mapping different thesauri and the uses of such for the organization of information to meet the needs of interdisciplinary scientists.” As such, some article I read—now lost to me—pointed me to this article by Khoo and Na. Many of the articles I was reading on mapping thesauri raised the issue of whether or not inter-concept relationships within a single thesaurus could truly carry over into a multiply-mapped thesauri, especially in the context of multilingual thesauri. I was considering my problem of mapping across scientific domains to be very similar to “true” multilingual mapping, thus, I decided this might be a highly relevant piece to read. I ended up finding it fascinating!

It is also the piece which put me on to Bean & Green and Rebecca Green, period. For that I shall be ever grateful. I re-read it as I work on my presentation on relationships for RO this Wednesday morning.

I highly recommend this piece to all and sundry. Since it is a lit review you could certainly skip over the parts you aren’t so interested in, although I seriously recommend the entire piece. To tempt you, here is an outline based on the section, subsection headings:

    • Overview
    • What are Semantic Relations
      • Semantic Relations in Language and Logic
      • The Psychological Reality of Semantic Relations
      • Semantic Relations in Semantic Memory
    • Types of Semantic Relations
      • Overview
      • Lexical-Semantic Relations
      • Case Relations
      • Relations Between Larger Text Segments
    • Selected Semantic Relations
      • Hyponym-Hyperonym Relation
      • Troponymy Relation
      • Meronym-Holonym Relation
      • Synonymy
      • Antonymy
      • Cause-Effect Relation
    • Semantic Relations in Knowledge Structures
      • Semantic Relations in Thesauri
      • Semantic Relations in Indexing Languages
      • Semantic Relations in Ontologies
    • Automatic Identification of Semantic Relations
      • Overview
      • Automatic Identification of Semantic Relations Using Pattern Matching
      • Automatic Construction of Extraction Patterns
      • Text Mining for Semantic Relations
      • Automatic Construction of Case Frames
    • Semantic Relations in Information Retrieval
      • Overview
      • Semantic Relations in Query Expansion
        • Query Expansion Using Term Association
        • Query Expansion Using Lexical-Semantic Relations
      • Relation Matching for Precision Enhancement
      • Question-Answering with Full-Text Documents
      • Semantic Relations in Automatic Text Summarization
    • Conclusion
    • References (approx. 20 pages)

Sunday, 22 Apr 2007

Sanger, Larry. “Who says we know: On the new politics of knowledge.” Edge (The Third Culture column, 2007.

This could be a bit old by now as it was the Library Link of the Day yesterday and I find them to be a bit behind on many things (and, of course, I’m not posting this for almost a week).

Reasonably interesting article from one of the co-founders of Wikipedia, and founder of Citizendium.

[Somewhere this week I saw a link to an article taking on Sanger, but I have no idea where anymore.]

Smith, Barry. “John Searle: From Speech Acts to Social Reality.” In: John Searle. Cambridge University Press, 2003. pp 7-35. [pdf]

Read for Ontologies this week.

Searle, John. “The Structure of the Social Universe: How the Mind Creates an Objective Social Reality.” In: John Searle. Mind, Language, and Society Basic Books 1998. pp. 111-134.

Also for Ontologies this week.

Monday, 23 Apr 2007

Hjørland, Birger. “Library and information science and the philosophy of science (Introduction to the Special Issue).” Journal of Documentation 61 (1), 2006: 5-10.

Cited by Lee, Renear and Smith. (2006). “Known-item search: Variations on a concept.” Read 3 Mar 2007. Available at E-LIS.

Hovy, Eduard. “Comparing sets of semantic relations in ontologies.” In Green, Bean and Myaeng, eds. The Semantics of relationships: An interdisciplinary perspective. Information Science and Knowledge Management series, v. 3. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2002: 91-110.

Is an attempt to develop a method for comparing ontologies, both at a general level and at the level of terms and relationships.

Friday, 27 Apr 2007

Lancaster, F. W. and Virginia Gale. (2003). “Pertinence and relevance.” Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science.

Does a good job disambiguating the differences between pertinence and relevance and their applicability to information retrieval. Differentiates the following components of an information retrieval request and their interrelationships: Information need, Recognized need, Request statement (expressed need), Search strategy, Documents, and Representations of documents. Covers some of the literature on relevance (and pertinence). While the article goes to pains to point out the transience of pertinence decisions, it fails to cover many of the variables that affect these decisions. For a better explication of such see Green (2001) and Bean & Green (2001) [See here for the 2nd citation, Green is the overview article in the same book].

Thursday – Saturday, 26 – 28 Apr 2007

Beghtol, Clare. “Bibliographic classification theory and text linguistics: Aboutness analysis, intertextuality and the cognitive act of classifying documents.” Journal of Documentation 42 (2), June 1986: 84-113.

Distinguishes between a document’s aboutness and its meaning and then utilizes the text linguistic theory of T. A. van Dijk to suggest a theory of the cognitive process of classifying documents. Discusses two forms of intertexuality: “that between documents classified in the same class of the same classification system; and that between the classification system as a text in its own right and the documents that are classified by it” (84). Describes an experimental study that could be used to test the model presented. Also comments on the uses of text linguistics for theories of bibliographic classification.

This is a fairly complex article which bears close reading and, in truth, deserves a second reading. I did find, though, that it offers the best explication that I’ve seen so far as to what it is I am doing when I classify items. Should be required reading in all advanced cataloging classes, and perhaps late in the semester of intro classes.

The first several sections would also be usefully read in conjunction with Lancaster and Gale (2003, see above), and Bean & Green (2001) or Green (1995) and Green & Bean (1995) regarding “relevance.” [See here for full cites to these 3 articles.]

Highly recommended, but deserves some effort.

Cited in Beghtol, Clare. (2001) “Relationships in classificatory structure and meaning.” In Bean & Green, Relationships in the Organization of Knowledge. 99-113.

Saturday, 28 Apr 2007

Coates, E. J. “Classification in information retrieval: The twenty years following Dorking.” Journal of Documentation 34 (4), December 1978: 288-299.

Traces the developments in both classification theory and practice in the approximately twenty year period since the 1957 International Study Conference on Classification for Information Retrieval held at Dorking. Considers developments in both syntactic and semantic issues, along with implementation.

Two overarching trends are: (1) the lack of fundamental progress in classification theory at a fundamental level compared to earlier work by Ranganathan, and (2) a amazing output of new, and updating of previous, classifications, and indexing tools. Progress on the theoretical side included a refinement of concept of facets analysis, and, more importantly, “the realization that facets are themselves essentially the functions or superficial manifestations of relations between concepts belonging to different facet categories” (290).

Relational indexing schemes, such as those by Farradane, SYNTOL, Kergèvant, and Perreault are discussed. The work of the Classification Research Group on a new general classification that was abandoned, but eventually led to PRECIS is discussed.

Impressive developments in practice that were finally catching up to theory are brought out. Bliss Bibliographical Classification (BC2) is hailed as a major success on that head. One major disaster in classification is also discussed; that of the British National Bibliography (BNB) highly supplemented and faceted version of DDC 14 for an unsupplemented DDC 18. PRECIS, UDC, and BSO are also discussed; BSO primarily in the context of a switching language and for its accord with current theory.

A very interesting discussion, perhaps of serious import today, is a discussion of the initial impact of computerization on classification. The final topic is “Classification under fire,” which takes on suggestions of the day that “classification for information retrieval is obsolete or of dubious utility” (298).

Although this article is rapidly approaching 30 years of age, it is of extreme relevance today. In many ways, it points to the lack of further progress on the practical, implementation side of indexing languages writ large. It is also instructive in its final sections of the mistaken calls for classifications obsolescence in the face of full-text indexing and keyword indexing.

Highly recommended for both its succinct historical overview and for its applicability towards issues of the day in 2007. Should be required reading in advanced cataloging and indexing classes.

Cited in Beghtol, Clare. (2001) “Relationships in classificatory structure and meaning.” In Bean & Green, Relationships in the Organization of Knowledge. 99-113.

I’ve also done some re-reading of things for my annotated bibliography on relationships, as some of these are for it. But it’s time to post this as I doubt I’ll be reading anything else new tonight.

Me? Harsh? OK

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[NB: This post has been significantly edited, twice. It was almost abandoned [see this post for some context]. It is not meant to be harsh, nor personal, but I think it needs to be addressed. I also want to say at the outset that I respect Ryan and the things he writes. Follow to through the end and hopefully that will be clear.]

OK, I’ll bite. I’ve been “harsh” before.

But if I was your “harshest critic” then you were lucky. And, if you also mean that I was harsh then you have a lot of living to do.

On 12 April I made a comment on a post at Life As I Know It. Jennifer Macaulay, in a post entitled, “Just Say Yes To Technology?“, was commenting on a post by Ryan Deschamps, The Other Librarian, entitled, “What the Library 2.0 Crowd is Trying to Say about Technology.” Ryan also commented there, seemingly taking a bit of minor offense at Jennifer’s and my questioning attitude. Jennifer responded, and due to being the end of the semester I failed to go back and check in.

This morning [yesterday now] Ryan posted a follow-up on his own blog, “Yes, I will Learn with you…“.

If you actually care about any of this, I suggest you go read Ryan’s original post, then Jennifer’s post in response along with the comments, and then Ryan’s follow-up in which I am labeled his “harshest critic.”

Now that that is done, I want to say that although I stand by every word I wrote on Jennifer’s post, Ryan managed to ignore the nice thing I said about him. Maybe that didn’t serve his purpose in labeling me. It might be hard to single someone out as the “bad guy” when they started out with “Well said, Jennifer! I, too, enjoyed Ryan’s post and only had a problem with the same thing as you” (emphasis not in original).

Let me also state that I generally enjoy the things Ryan writes. While my tastes are not exactly the same as his, he often writes things I find interesting. He also generally writes in a far more nuanced way than many others; something I greatly appreciate!

I clearly was short in my comment at Jennifer’s; school and work lives are hectic and time is short. My reply was not exactly nuanced but was an attempt (clumsy perhaps) to add a bit of nuance and perhaps to get some from Ryan.

For the record, here is my entire comment:

Well said, Jennifer! I, too, enjoyed Ryan’s post and only had a problem with the same thing as you. You, though, said what I would have liked to but with kindness and some detail. My rather simplistic critique would basically have been that saying Yes before even asking any questions is stupid; not a good way to start a conversation.

I understood his point to be “Minimize the obstacles, ask only necessary questions, and empower people,” or something like that. But what he actually said about saying yes immediately is extremely simplistic and also ill-advised from a managerial perspective. Do anyone want a manager who immediately says yes to things and then after asking a few questions retracts that yes? Does anyone want to be that manager?

Ryan was frustrated with my synopsis of his point, which I admit is a bit simplistic (see comment re time above) but it was not meant to be dismissive. (Part of) Ryan’s response:

I said technology ought to *begin* with a “yes.” By that, I meant to say “yes, now go get me a business plan.” or “yes, now where does this fit into our priorities and/or strategic plan.” And no, don’t want managers to reduce the questions — I said ask *hard* questions. But say “yes” first. Or, (if I can change my tune just a bit) at least as often as we say “yes” first to a whole slate of other activities.

The point is less about reneging on the need for planning and/or alternative actions and/or critical thinking and more about engaging techies in the discussions that already get a “yes” before ever asking any questions (which I agree is stupid, if by that you mean going into the implementation stage without anything resembling a plan).

In an additional comment he added:

… I’m just a little concerned that the headline and Mark’s read could give the wrong impression if someone didn’t actually read what I wrote. That’s what comments are for anyway right? To clarify, add, participate etc.

Another point here is the need for playspace — namely access to a test server, with all sorts of bells and whistles, including a test copy of the ILS if possible. It’s really hard for people to demo tech projects when people can’t see the possibilities. And out-of-the-box products, especially open source ones, don’t really show well to people who don’t know how something works.

Well, Ryan, I apologize if I gave anyone the wrong impression. Sincerely, I do. But that is perhaps why I prefaced my comment with the fact that I enjoyed your post but only disagreed with one thing. Maybe not very explicit but it seems to be to be an implicit endorsement of people reading your post. Jennifer also linked to your post, as I have done above. I don’t want to turn this into a “he said, he said” thing but think about your complaint for a second. From Jennifer’s post and, thus, my comment on it, and from this post, your exact and entire words—in context—can be found. Did you give anyone that opportunity regarding my words in your post this [yesterday] morning, sir?

I fully support your statement re “playspace” or sand boxes or what have you. And that doesn’t just go for the “techies,” it also applies for the non-systems folks who have responsibility for major systems where perhaps running new and complex reports might crash an ILS or playing with non-standard bib records that do not need to be exposed to “the world.” Been there, done that.

You know what? This is getting tedious. And re-reading Ryan’s post from this morning it is pretty clear that I must not be of “the generation of librarians coming up,” nor do I understand change, and so on.

I’m going to be simple here and even, perhaps, harsh. Ryan, you are seriously oversimplifying this whole issue. It is not only “techies” who get told “No” as you allude. I doubt you mean it, but my minor disagreement seems to have irked you enough that your powers of nuance are escaping you. I never, in any way, was saying the answer should be “No.”

You have turned this into another “us vs. them” dichotomy of which I am very tired. I happen to be on everyone’s side. That is, the side of fulfilling the actual mission of libraries. Having lived a bit longer than you, I’ve seen far too many of these “us vs. them” dichotomies and pretty much everyone of them is bullshit. You started out trying to help bridge one and now, in fact, have helped cement one (or more).

I have tried to get some nuance from this and you have said things a couple of different ways but, nonetheless, still seem to be saying the same thing, much of which I agree with, such as, give people the benefit of the doubt, say yes when you can, prioritize, ….

[cut]

==== new ===

Although the entirety of Ryan’s comments, including his newest post from yesterday, do not support this statement from one of his comments [more above] I am going to focus on it in the spirit of giving him the best interpretation:

Or, (if I can change my tune just a bit) at least as often as we say “yes” first to a whole slate of other activities.

OK, I’m fully in agreement with that. I just don’t think all the nuance he has tried to add begins to point to this. To me, he seems to be claiming something significantly different. And that something I have real issues with.

=========

End the end, I’m giving Ryan the benefit of the doubt. I don’t think he really and truly means what he says to be taken across the board. Maybe he’s in an environment where his employees only bring him well-formed and well thought out ideas that they can defend. Maybe only “techies” get told “No” where he is. Or maybe he’s just trying to defend the finer points of his discussion, which, I maintain, are well worth defending. But the world isn’t this way everywhere else.

And, by the way, I absolutely adore “Yes, I will learn with you…”. That is the right attitude.

[For the record: I am of "the generation of librarians coming up." And as far as change management goes, I may not be the best theorist, but having spent over 20 years in the Army being forced to change jobs every 12 months to 3 years, generally maintaining 4-5 jobs at the same time due to "additional duties," none of which you were ever adequately prepared for, and leaving one as soon as you became proficient in it, I think I am fully immersed in the experiential aspect of change management. I have also lived through 2 new ILS implementations, including being responsible for a significant piece of one. Thus, I'd put my skills in that department up against any of whomever your idea of "the generation of librarians coming up" are.]

I sincerely apologize if anyone takes any of this as “harsh.” That is not my purpose, nor my desire. I was only trying to be supportive of the vast majority of Ryan’s points—and still am—

====new===

but Ryan seems to have taken my minor disagreement personal and made it so in reply. Maybe that wasn’t his intention, but seeing as he complained about possible misconstrual of his words in a venue where all of his words could be traced in context and then used [some of] mine slightly out of context with no chance for the reader to see where they came from he did, in fact, do so.

Ryan, I truly don’t want this to be personal. There is no need for that. I fully respect your opinion and agree almost entirely. If what you are doing works for you—and it seems to be—then by all means ignore what I say. I have stripped a lot regarding what I actually think you have said in over 95% of your words on this topic because I think you really meant what you said in one sentence in a comment. I just don’t feel that that is what actually came through from most of your words. Seeing as that is how I am now choosing to interpret your thoughts on the matter the rest of my critique is not important or necessary.

I will assume that your overlooking the possibility of linking to my comment in context was simply that, an oversight. If not, then I ask you to rethink your earlier complaint about Jennifer and my critiques where your words were fully accessible. I see from your About page that one of your main interests is ethics. Thus, I assume you can reason your way through this one.

Ryan, I think you do good work at your blog. Please keep it up!

Sincerely,

Mark

Not disagreeable enough?

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[Lisa has kindly pointed my faux pas in conflating the Chronicle and Inside Higher Ed. Oops! Just goes to show that maybe I ought to be reading both more.]

No, not just me, all of us out here in the biblioblogosphere according to Steven Bell in the Chronicle’s Inside Higher Ed.

While I fully agree that librarians, as a whole, are a bit too invested in moral minimalism*, we are also generally nice and decent human beings who would like to get along. And there is certainly nothing wrong with that; the world could use a bit more of “us.”

As an academic librarian who regularly navigates the library blogosphere, I find that the librarian’s penchant for pleasantry extends to our own virtual nest. In the world of library blogging the sky is always sunny, and nary is a dissenting or argumentative thought expressed.

You want dissent, Steven? Clearly that is complete bullshit! Dissent enough for you, Mr. Bell? I don’t know what parts of the biblioblogosphere you have been following, but you have clearly missed large parts. Unfortunately, much of the dissent has not been over substantial issues. Thus, I fully agree with Mr. Bell’s contention that the level of discourse needs to be raised.

In fact, I agree with much of what he writes, but I fully disagree with the overly rosy picture he paints. It simply is not true.

By the way, her name is Rochelle Hartman; not Rachel. Take a look at the URL.

Maybe I’m just a bit touchy from too many nights of poor sleep as I wrestle with whether and how to respond to something someone wrote, or how my response is going to be interpreted. Maybe I’m a bit touchy after spending several hours yesterday on a response to someone that I almost entirely agree with, except for one point, and then sleeping poorly and being up before 5 AM on a Saturday because of it.

You may or may not see that post, but I need to decide soon so that I can get back to homework. In fact, by yesterday evening I had decided to just let it go and then I read Mr. Bell’s Chronicle article. While I disagree with the overly rosy picture he painted, I do agree with him. The question becomes, “While my gestating post is clearly disagreement, will it raise the level of discourse?” That, of course, would be my goal, but I don’t see it as doing so, unfortunately. That may be my fault as the writer, it could be the fault of the intended audience or any other reader, it could be both.

There is some definite truth to what Steven Bell wrote, but it is not as rosy a picture as he paints by any means. He claims that “Other areas of academia have fostered some excellent exchanges between dissenting parties — in blogs, journal back and forths, and at scholarly meetings…” but gives no examples. I’d especially like to see some examples of what he considers to be “excellent exchanges between dissenting parties — in blogs.” I fully agree with the part about journal back and forths in (some) other disciplines.

I think my biggest problem with his article is that it is much like the airing of “our” dirty laundry in public. While I don’t put much truck in the whole “image” issue, I still feel this was sort of a stab in the back for it to be published in this venue. I could be wrong, but I don’t much remember Mr. Bell joining the discussion a few months back.

While there are many issues within librarianship that need to reach a larger audience because of their importance, I fail to see how this is one of them. I also fail to see how this article will do anything positive to change the situation. It certainly cannot help our image externally, nor do I see how it will encourage more dissent or disagreement, or raise the level of discourse, within the biblioblogosphere. Does he think the picture he has painted will actually attract others who may dissent to start blogging or commenting on blogs? I guess I just don’t understand the purpose of this article other than for Mr. Bell to see his name in print in the Chronicle again.

* Feel free to pop the phrase “moral minimalism” into my blog’s search box and you’ll find I’ve commented on it many times.

Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control

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Anyone have anything they want LC’s Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control to hear? Humble, little me is a registered attendee for the 2nd meeting which is on “Structures and Standards for Bibliographic Data”.

I can’t nor won’t make any promises, but if you have some thoughts you’d like epxressed I’ll see what I can do. Kathryn and I will begin working on our statement next week.

Several of us are carpooling up to Chicago. It’ll be a long day, but I wouldn’t miss this opportunity.

The background paper can be found here.

Feel free to comment here, use the comment form, or email me directly sometime prior to Wed., May 2nd with your concerns that you’d like expressed to the working Group.

Of course, you are free to submit your own written testimony and I highly encourage you to do so! But if you don’t have the time or energy to do a full-fledged proper submission send me your thoughts and I’ll see what I can do to incorporate them.

I’m goin’ to Chicago, sorry but I can’t take you
Yes I’m goin’ to Chicago, sorry but I can’t take you

Ida Cox – Chicago Monkey Man Blues

“Best Iris”

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“Best Iris”

Originally uploaded by broken thoughts.

Over at my friend’s place, we’ve been having a discussion of how to sign off letters, emails, etc. She has settled on “Best, Iris” but was asking others for input and info on their practices.

Being my typical goofy self, I suggested she just remove the comma.

I’ve had my eye on this little bud the last 2 days. This morning when I went out to the bus stop in the rain, she had done her magic and blossomed.

In honor of my friend Iris, I present “Best Iris.”

I’m telling you, kid, just remove the comma. ;)

Relationships: a primer

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This morning I actually got fresh, hot cookies straight from the oven for the 1st time in almost two years! I stepped into The Cookie Jar and saw that there weren’t any chocolate chip with walnut cookies and was immediately disheartened. Then I realized I was in a bit early and just perhaps….

Ed, the owner, came around the corner from the back and when he saw me said, “They’ve just come out of the oven.” I must have lit up like a 1000-watt bulb cause he immediately said, “I don’t think I can even handle them yet. They’d probably just break apart.” I responded with, “Ed, I don’t want you to burn yourself, but otherwise just put them in the bag. I’m just going to chew them up; I’m not putting them on display or anything.” He said that I might need a spoon and I said, “I’ll manage. Somehow.” With a huge grin on my face, of course. :)

I had four wonderfully warm, fresh from the oven, cookies this morning. I ate one on the way to the coffee shop and as badly as I almost needed a spoon I can guarantee you that I did not spill a crumb! They were so fresh from the oven that the other three were still warm once I finally had my coffee and got over to GSLIS.

Oops. This post wasn’t supposed to be about cookies, but it was an awesome way to start the day.

In Representation and Organization this morning, I gave my presentation about my final project all wrapped up with my book report. The book I reviewed is: Bean, Carol A. and Rebecca Green, Eds. Relationships in the Organization of Knowledge. Information Science and Knowledge Management, v. 2. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001.

My final project is an annotated bibliography of all the various and sundry things that I’ve been reading about the highly interdisciplinary—quite possibly the epitome of interdisciplinary—topic of relationships since I started down this road at the end of last fall semester. I will be turning that in some time before next Wed. at 5 PM.

So my presentation was a combined book review and very quick introdution into the broad topic of relationships.

Relationships: a primer.

It doesn’t cover near enough, nor much of anything at any kind of depth. But with only 45 minutes total to present Kathryn and I both knew that I couldn’t do much. Still, I intentionally over-designed the presentation so that folks could use it to explore a bit more on their own if they desire. I can only hope they will.

To spare you the effort, I’ll cut to the chase and give you my conclusion:

While I certainly cannot expect everyone in LIS to be enamored of every one of these types of relationships, I most certainly do expect every LIS “professional” to be concerned with the kinds that most directly impinge on their particular area(s) of expertise.

Relationships are everywhere. There is no reality without them, at least not a reality processable by humans or any other form of life as we understand it. Seeing as LIS is concerned with the recorded forms of human knowledge, they are inescapable.

We have been obsessed with “entities,” things, for far too long. Perhaps it is time we pay more attention to what it is that allows us to recognize any entity in the first place.

Yes, you know me, folks. I’m all about imposing moral imperatives on others. ;)

The semester is certainly winding down, although it’s hard to really feel that way yet. I still need to finish the annotated bibliography and the actual written book review before next Wed. morning. And I still have to revise my paper for Ontologies, sometime before the end of the semester.

I’m really glad I’m not taking a class during Summer I. So I’ll have a sort of break before the main summer session begins. Lots to do during that time frame though. Oh well.

Good luck to all students out there and here’s hoping you all can finish your semester on a high note. Or at least breathing and still on two feet. And a hearty congratulations to all the soon-to-be crowned librarians!

LIS Students Ning

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One of the new places I have been hanging out online lately is in the LIS Students Ning.

Ning is a sort of complete social networking package that people can setup for their groups. I believe that there is a Library 2.0 Ning and I imagine many others. This one is for “Students in Library and Information Science (and recent grads and friends)” according to the header on the main page.

It is small but growing. I have already met a few people I did not know, and have found several interesting student blogs of which I was unaware. I even met one of our own LEEP students. Actually, I’m pretty sure I met Mandy f2f last summer during Boot Camp since I still worked for ITD then, but having left ITD I have little exposure to most of the LEEP students anymore. So that was nice. I now have a LEEP buddy to meet for coffee or drinks during the next 2 on campus sessions, since most (all?) of my previous LEEP buddies have already or will have graduated in a few weeks.

I’m not sure what I think of Ning yet. It is sort of like MySpace for adults. It seems a bit slow on occasion. OK, it is a bit slow. But it allows for little communities of like interest to form with a fairly complete package of tools included; blogs, forums, email, chat, picture and video sharing, and other things.

There is an aggregated RSS feed that brings in posts from all the (external) blogs of current members. So we have access to an internal blog if we want, which has a feed, as do most of the other features, such as the forum. And you can even add your own blog to the feed easily enough yourself. I managed to do it and I don’t even use Google Reader.

Anyway, if you are any of the following: “Students in Library and Information Science (and recent grads and friends)” you might want to join us. If you are interested in interacting with more students from a wider range of places than where you are locally, but cannot bring yourself to venture too far afield in the wider blogosphere or other fora, then consider joining us.

It’s relatively easy, and it’s free.

Free lunch

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I had a quite interesting lunch today.

Barbara M. Jones, University Librarian, Wesleyan University came to visit, and she took a small number of students out to lunch. The small number wasn’t her requirement; it was just three of us that made ourselves available.

It seems that several prestigious schools are having a hard time completing their job searches. She is traveling to several of the top library schools to talk to students interested in academic librarianship about what they, i.e., academic libraries, can do better to attract interested (and attract the interest of) candidates.

Now, I fully realize that there is another side to this story (actually, several). I do not want to get into them here/now. I am, also, not choosing sides. If I were to, though, it would have to be “our” side, that of the new graduate/job seeker. That is not my point, though.

I find it quite interesting and a bit heartening to know that someone wants to do something about the problem as they see it. Not to try and increase the number of students in LIS schools, not to ask Congress to waive loan money, …, but to approach real flesh-n-blood students and ask, “What is it we can do to attract you?, Are we writing our job ads so you feel comfortable applying?, How should we be wording them?, What are you looking for in an academic library career?, etc.”

I am not quite sure on exactly who’s behalf she is making this trek. Wesleyan, of course, came up. Yale came up. The Oberlin Group came up.

As for the small number of students who took her up on her offer I can only say it is near the end of the semester and we are all overloaded. Still, this was a golden opportunity. Many of us bitch and moan (generally, rightly so) about the state of the job market right now. But here was someone from a pretty prestigious institution wanting to talk directly to students, to us.

If you are at the next school she visits and are interested in an academic library job, do yourself (and the rest of us) a favor and have lunch with her. Tell her what is on your mind, and the mind of your fellow students if you so choose. I did my best to speak for my fellow students interested in this path, but in the end I could only truly speak for myself.

And I got a really nice free lunch for my time, too.

Again, this is a very complex issue, but I applaud Barbara Jones and Wesleyan for making this effort to talk directly to students.

Some things read this week, 15 – 21 April 2007

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Sunday, 15 April 2007

The first 3 items are from my Bloglines backlog and are all also from the wonderful 3 Quarks Daily.

Smith, Justin E. H. “Selected minor works: Where’s the philosophy?” 8 May 2006

This is absolutely brilliant and if I start quoting it I’ll just have to reproduce the whole thing. So just go read it! It is brilliant and hilarious.

Now that I am a tenured professor of philosophy, and thus may resign from service in my profession’s pep squad without fear of losing my salary, I’m going to come right out and say it: after all this time as a student, and then as a graduate student, and then as a professor of philosophy, I still have absolutely no idea what philosophy is, and therefore what it is I am supposed to be doing.

…

There’s formal logic, but if I agree with Heidegger on anything it is that logic, like shortpants, is for schoolboys. In the good old days, when one learned anything at all at school, one learned the forms of argumentation, the fallacies together with their Latin names, etc. This is all really just advanced critical thinking, and if I can see that q follows from p on a symbol-dense page, I still don’t believe that counts as knowing anything. As Wittgenstein said, everything is left the same.

…

But Richard Rorty is at least right to say that what philosophy departments offer fails largely to live up to the sense that newcomers have that the discipline ought to be doing something rather more, well, important.

Bravo! [And, yes, I realize that I just contradicted myself.]

Huber-Dyson, Verena. “Gödel in a nutshell.” Edge 14 May 2006. At 3QD 19 May 2006.

This is a very short piece.

The essence of Gödel’s incompleteness theorem is that you cannot have both completeness and consistency. A bold anthropomorphic conclusion is that there are three types of people; those that must have answers to everything; those that panic in the face of inconsistencies; and those that plod along taking the gaps of incompleteness as well as the clashes of inconsistencies in stride if they notice them at all, or else they succumb to the tragedy of the human condition.

Harpham, Geoffrey. “Science and the theft of humanity.” American Scientist Online July-August 2006. At 3QD 9 July 2006.

Medium length article detailing the fall of the integrated thinker with the rise of the Modern university, the segregation of the disciplines, the beginning reintegration with the rise of interdisciplinarity, and the recent “plunder” of the humanities by the sciences.

Humanists, who have been only partially aware of the work being done by scientists and other nonhumanists on their own most fundamental concepts, must try to overcome their disciplinary and temperamental resistances and welcome these developments as offering a new grounding for their own work. They must commit themselves to be not just spectators marveling at new miracles, but coinvestigators of these miracles, synthesizing, weighing, judging and translating into the vernacular so that new ideas can enter public discourse.

They—we—must understand that while scientists are indeed poaching our concepts, poaching in general is one of the ways in which disciplines are reinvigorated, and this particular act of thievery is nothing less than the primary driver of the transformation of knowledge today. For their part, those investigating the human condition from a nonhumanistic perspective must accept the contributions of humanists, who have a deep and abiding stake in all knowledge related to the question of the human.

Guarino, Nicola and Christopher Welty. “Identity and subsumption.” In Green, Bean and Myaeng, eds. The Semantics of relationships: An interdisciplinary perspective. Information Science and Knowledge Management series, v. 3. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2002: 111-126.

This is an interesting but difficult article, heavy on logic. Builds on the philosophical notions of identity, unity, and essence and the constraints they impose on the subsumption relationship (so-called is-a relationship) in the service of building “simpler, cleaner, and ultimately more reusable taxonomies” (124).

Sunday – Monday, 15 -16 April 2007

Green, Rebecca. “Internally-structured conceptual models in cognitive semantics.” In Green, Bean and Myaeng, eds. The Semantics of relationships: An interdisciplinary perspective. Information Science and Knowledge Management series, v. 3. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2002: 73-89.

Delivers a highly readable account of the basic cognitive semantic phenomena within cognitive semantics and establishes the prevalence of internal structure at all conceptual levels. Image schemata, basic level concepts, and frames are lucidly explained before moving on to mappings between these phenomena—metonymy, metaphor and blended spaces.

Highly recommended.

Wednesday, 18 April 2007

Khoo, Christopher, Syin Chan and Yun Niu. “The many facets of the cause-effect relationship.” In Green, Bean and Myaeng, eds. The Semantics of relationships: An interdisciplinary perspective. Information Science and Knowledge Management series, v. 3. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2002: 51-70.

Provides an overview of the cause-effect relation from the perspectives of philosophy, psychology and linguistics. Focuses on causal inference in text comprehension by looking at explicit expressions of causation (causal links, causative verbs, resultative constructions, conditionals, and causative adverbs, adjectives and prepositions) and implicit causal attribution of verbs. Also considers types of causation and roles in causal situations.

Recommended.

Tuesday – Saturday, 17 – 21 Apr 2007

IFLA. Functional Requirements for Authority Data: A Conceptual Model (Draft), 2007-04-01

Am most of the way through it; may finish it today. It looks like Kathryn and I (and perhaps Allen) will be leading a discussion on it for Metadata Roundtable in June or early July before comments are due.

Wednesday – Friday, 18 – 20 Apr 2007

Baggini, Julian. Atheism. A Very Short Introduction (series). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Read the 1st 2 chapters before and after the Andrew Bird show. Finished reading it Thursday and Friday during lunch.

Excellently written and argued. I only had one real issue.

On page 69, in a section on Death in the chapter on Meaning and purpose, Baggini writes:

Take the idea that life can only have a meaning if it never ends. It is certainly not the case that in general only endless activities can be meaningful. Indeed, usually the contrary is true: there being some end or completion is often required for an activity to have any meaning. A football match, for example, gains its purpose only because it finishes after 90 minutes and there is a result. An endless football match would be as meaningless as a kick around the park. Plays, novels, films, and other forms of narrative also require some kind of completion. When we study we follow courses that end at a determinative point and don’t go on forever. Take virtually any human activity and you find that some kind of closure or completion is required to make them meaningful (emphasis mine).

I understand the point he is trying to make and, in general, I agree with him. Also, part of the problem is that he never defines “meaning,” although he does define “meaning of life.”

But I still say WTF? Depending on the level of play, and perhaps other factors, a football match may very well serve a purpose (and this have meaning) whether or not it ends in 90 minutes. It may end early due to an injury or weather (non-pro), and does any game that goes into overtime not have a purpose?

And his equating a “kick around the park”—in essence, play—as meaningless is unconscionable. I get so very tired of bright—and not so bright—people claiming play serves no purpose and/or is meaningless! It may, in fact, be one of the highest forms of meaning attainable by humans.

And as for study always ending at a determinative point (at least to have any meaning), well, I imagine many of you can just about guess at the apoplectic fit that brought on.

Please realize that I am being particularly harsh on Baggini over this paragraph. This is a lovely little book that is overall quite well argued, despite the shortcomings of this paragraph. It is a wonderful read for the atheist, the agnostic and the religious. It is not dogmatic in any sense. He detests fundamentalism in any form.

Very highly recommended.