Monthly Archives: September 2007

Certificate of Advanced Study Project

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As many of you know, I began in the Certificate of Advanced Study (CAS) degree program at GSLIS, UIUC the day after I graduated with my Masters in May 2006.

In the past almost 18 months I have answered far too many times as to why I was pursuing further education in the field. It seems to have tapered lately. Thankfully. Here is what the program page has to say:

Librarians, information scientists, and others in information management enroll in the program to refresh and update their skills, gain greater specialization in their professional training, or redirect their careers from one area to another.

Gaining greater specialization and hopefully even feeling adequate to the task were my goals. I also managed to get a couple different assistantships doing the actual kind of work I think I want to pursue—serials cataloging graduate assistant, thesaurus maintenance GA, moonographic cataloging GA. I loved my earlier assistantships at GSLIS and being on Team Awesome, but they had basically nothing to do with my job goals.

The requirements for the degree include:

This 40 semester hour course of study is structured to encourage students to design programs that meet specific educational and career goals. A sequence of 32 hours of courses is developed by students with their advisors. Up to 16 of the hours may be taken outside of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. The final eight hours are the CAS project, a substantive investigation of a problem in librarianship or information science, which is followed by a final oral examination.

In my application letter I stated that:

I intend to pursue further study in the areas of cataloging and classification, ontologies and thesauri, metadata, folksonomies, XML, and other topics related to the organization and classification of information, broadly defined. My goal is to become a cataloger or metadata librarian in an academic setting, one who is prepared to make continuing contributions to the wider field.

It seems that I did just that, and this is still my goal. My stated project idea has been less than realized, though:

Within the literature on cataloging and classification education I have noticed a distinct dichotomy between the LIS educators and the cataloging practitioners. Moreover, these practitioners are usually senior catalogers and/or supervisors. There seems to be a distinct lack of connection between these two extremes. I propose to survey new cataloging practitioners (<5 years experience) to discover the following: how well prepared they felt prior to taking their first job; how well prepared they found they, in fact, were, and in what areas; what they wish they had learned prior to their first job; what means were available in their work environment to make up any lack in their knowledge, and how well supported they were in pursuing that goal. My hope is that by addressing this lack of attention to the critical middle ground in this dispute—the new cataloging practitioner—that the two ends may be brought closer together in the pursuit of a quality education for the cataloger of the future.

I would still like to see someone do this, and do it well. But for many reasons it became clear that it was not going to be me to do so. I do not regret that decision at all. My reasons for deciding against this topic are probably not that relevant to any one else. If you are interested, buy me a beer of a coffee at a conference or somewhere else some time and I will do my best to recount them. If you are seriously considering a topic like this yourself then I will gladly communicate with you via whatever means in the case that my reasons may or may not (most likely) be relevant to you. And, honestly, I can no longer remember all of them.

No longer having an idea in mind for a topic—which happened fairly quickly actually—I went about pursuing my interests in the courses that I took. While I was unable to take every course that I listed in my application letter as being my proposed course of study—some weren’t offered or other things were more important at the moment—I did take several of them and a few others that fit well within the prose description of my proposed course of study. [If you are interested in seeing the courses I took the complete list can be found here, with the CAS work beginning Summer 2006.]

But I still needed a topic for my project, “a substantive investigation of a problem in librarianship or information science.” As I wrote the other day, I have found it.

Simply put, I am going to attempt to apply Integrationism to the field of LIS. At the moment [last several months], I have been reading primarily about integrational linguistics. Well, perhaps that’s not fair; maybe I’ve just been thinking about it that way. Many of Harris’ books are far broader than linguistics.

I’ve set up a CAS Project category under Education—UIUC—GSLIS. I probably need one for Integrationism, but don’t know where I want to put it yet. Hmm, maybe under Theory?

My topic for this semester’s Bibliography class has been shifted more along these lines from its original topic as noted in previously linked recent blog entries.

As I said in a comment on the “Tunneling for rabbits” post:

I will be posting things here and there on the blog, asking questions, trying to elicit citations and/or suggestions, probably dropping some “overviews” or pieces of sections of the paper as it develops. Please feel extremely free to chime in.

While an overview of Integrationism as I see it should probably be first up, it will not be. I have various (weak?) reasons for this. Primarily, I have read several book-length critiques in which Integrationism figures. I have only recently gotten my hands on more condensed materials. Thus, this one will have to wait a while.

First up, besides the ramblings over the past few days [sorry if those reappeared in your aggregators when I added the CAS Project category to them], will be notes on my re-reading of Hjørland’s “Semantics and Knowledge Organization” from ARIST 41: 2007.

If you are local, or will be on 9 Oct, you will want to read the above article in preparation for Dr. Hjørland’s Research Fellow lecture, entitled “Arguments for the “bibliographical paradigm”.” Of course, I recommend it to all.

Sorry I cannot link to the other paper on which his talk will be based: Hjørland, B. (2007). “Arguments for ‘the bibliographical paradigm’. Some thoughts inspired by the new English edition of the UDC” Information Research, 12(4). When it is available it will supposedly be at this link. As you can see from the index at Information Research no. 4 is not yet online.

If you can get to GSLIS, “copies of these papers will be available in a binder on the second floor near the copier.” Otherwise, ARIST stays on reserve in the LIS Library. If you are not at UIUC, hopefully you have access to ARIST via your library and I did my best to point you to the CoLIS6 paper. Even if the “direct” link is bad, I did point you to the main index of Information Research. Both papers are well worth reading, whether or not you agree with the premises and arguments.

I am excited about my CAS project. Hopefully I will remain so.

I invite you communicate with me as I progress. Answer my questions, point me to sources, challenge something I wrote, …. I may not fully respond to everything—although I will hopefully acknowledge all—if for whatever reason I think something will lead me too far astray. I will prefer more condensed, article-length, sources or book chapters [format agnostic] to rambling, full-length books. In many cases, I will be consulting lots of tertiary literature—encyclopedias & dictionaries of a field and so on. This clearly goes against my habitually probing generalist nature, but I have not the time to do otherwise.

If for some reason you prefer not to comment publicly, you can use my contact form above. I may then give you my school email as I try to keep school-related stuff segregated from non-school where possible. I know, I know. That does not sound like me but such is the pain of multiple email accounts. And, yes, I am supposedly working on a “solution” but it is not the biggest priority at the moment.

So wish me well or snicker behind my back at the ridiculously large task I’ve set myself. I prefer the first but honestly it makes no difference to me. I get interested in what I get interested in and I have little control over it. :)

Some things read this week, 23 – 29 September 2007

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Saturday evening at the diner after the bar, 22 Sep

Downey, et. al. How to Think Like a Computer Scientist (2nd ed). at Open Book Project. (Text for LIS452)

  • Ch. 12: Classes and objects
  • Ch. 13: Classes and functions

Sunday, 23 Sep

Harris, Roy, and George Wolf, eds. Integrational Linguistics: A First Reader. 1st ed, Kidlington, Oxford, UK: Pergamon, 1998.

  • Ch. 3: Harris, R. Making Sense of Communicative Competence

Sunday – Friday, 23 – 28 Sep

Harris, Roy. Synonymy and Linguistic Analysis. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973.

  • Introduction
  • Ch. 1: Synonymy, Form and Meaning
  • Ch. 2: Synonymy and Phonological Analysis
  • Ch. 3: Synonymy and Grammatical Analysis
  • Ch. 4: Synonymy and Semantic Analysis
  • Ch. 5: Synonymy and Linguistic Knowledge

Seeing as I ordered myself a copy of the Harris and Wolf Reader, I decided to put it aside for now and began another one.

This book is based on Harris’ Ph.D. I’m not sure how much I’ll read as I’m having a hard time following some of it for various reasons. Ch. 2 especially is just sort of washing over me. The book is not very large, though, so I’ll keep at it for now.

The book treats synonymy as applicable to sentences, and perhaps broader, instead of just to words. Even before I realized it was taking a broader view of synonymy (before I checked it out), it seemed to me that it might be highly applicable to LIS.

Are we not, in some sense, saying that two items are synonymous when we apply the same controlled vocabulary terms to them? When I apply the same tag to multiple items is there not some way in which I am declaring them to be synonymous?

==

Well, as you can see I went ahead and read the whole thing, and simplified the entry by not spreading it over multiple entries, the main reason being that in most cases the chapters ended up getting split across days.

Some of it was more or less beyond my knowledge base, especially in the first 3 chapters. I did a lot better with the last two as they involved more critiques of people and views from philosophy (vs. linguistics) with which I am at least acquainted. Despite my lack of preparation for much of it, it was a typical Harris book; well written and well argued.

A comment he makes regarding the difficulty of determining “systematically all of the types of situation in which a context-bound synonymity holds” addresses one of my complaints about many of the theories/approaches that are adopted or avoided in LIS:

Nonetheless—the theorist of context-bound synonymy might argue—the practical difficulty of the enterprise of discovering in exactly what situation two words are synonymous does not impugn the validity of the concept (127).

Although I have no examples to hand, I have often thought this when reading our literature. “You’re throwing this idea out because it is hard to employ?”

Thursday, 27 Sep

Hjørland, Birger. Information Seeking and Subject Representation: An Activity-theoretical Approach to Information Science. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1997.

  • Ch. 1: Introduction: Information Seeking and Subject Representation

Oh, my, my. So many points of contact between Hjørland and Integrationism.

Friday, 28 Sep

Davis, Hayley G. Words: An Integrational Approach. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2001.

Ch. 1: Orientation: The Word of Linguistic Theory

Blair, David C. “Wittgenstein, Language and Information: “Back to the Rough Ground!”" In Crestani and Ruthven (Eds.). Context: Nature, Impact, and Role. Proceeding of the 5th International Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Sciences, CoLIS 2005, Glasgow, UK, June 4-8, 2005. Heidelberg: Springer, 2005. 1-4.

Friday – Saturday, 28 – 29 Sep

Hjørland, Birger. “Semantics and Knowledge Organization.” ARIST 41 (2007): 367-405.

Originally read 18 June 2007. Re-read for two reasons: (1) Seems vastly relevant to my CAS project and (2) it is one of two articles referenced for Dr. Hjørland’s Research Fellow lecture [9 Oct 4-5 PM, Rm 126 GSLIS].

I now have a lot to say about this article, but it will be getting its own post.

Saturday, 29 Sep

Readings for LIS452 for next week’s topic of Abstract automata and formal languages

Using the Future to Create the Present – Betty Sue Flowers

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This past Wednesday, 26 Sep 2007, was the Fall 2007 Phineas L. Windsor Lecture at GSLIS.

Betty Sue Flowers, Director of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum was the lecturer.

I must say I was kind of ambivalent about this lecture but I ended up truly enjoying it. I have, I believe, attended all of the Windsor Lectures since my arrival at GSLIS. Well, looking through the lectures page it seems I may have either missed one or simply do not remember it.

I have heard Betty Sue speak on two previous occasions, both via telephone in LEEP classes. In fact, I called her at her office on the 1st occasion as I was the Tech GA for that class. The 2nd time I was taking the class. She is a wonderful speaker but I am generally ambivalent—actively leaning towards the negative end—towards some of the topics she was to cover in the Windsor Lecture. Plus, she considers herself a futurist. On that topic, let’s just say I still haven’t got my damn flying car I was promised when I was a kid.

Enough about me; on to the lecture, keeping in mind that these are very sketchy notes. Also where I have used “” I do believe that I captured a direct, verbatim quote. Other cases may be also but are more likely a paraphrase.

Using the Future to Create the Present

“This field [LIS] is under-theorized to the outside world.”

Amen, but then many outside fields are also under-theorized by us! (me)

The trouble with the future is how the past blocks our vision of the future.

“Logic is an organized way to go wrong with confidence.” — attributed to a NASA head engineer on a project which she consulted for.

A-freakin’-men, brother! (me)

Our extrapolation from the past to the future is like this. [I.e., we infer the same from the past into the future. Thus, we are often wrong about the future; and we create bad futures due to lack of vision.]

We cannot know the future BUT we must have a story about it.

This I can fully agree with.

  • How do we escape from extrapolating from the past to make the future better?
  • Our stories of the future (and bad extrapolating from the past) affect the present.
  • “The present is created by the story you’re telling of the future.”
  • We need a clear distinction between fact and narrative. The story you tell about the facts are what influence/create the present.

How do we break out of the current story to a new plot?

Scenario planning:

  • Equally plausible stories.
  • Must hold the future as a fiction.
  • Creating in a field of play allows one to support a position that they don’t have to stand by/defend as much as they might in a non-scenario case.

Stories of the United States – historically there have been 3 stories and we are now adding a 4th.

  1. Hero Myth – “brings out competition,” lack of communication as is individualistic.
  2. Religious Myth – “goodness.” [Religious more in the Joseph Campbell sense, not religion per se.]
  3. Democratic/Scientific/Enlightenment Myth- “truth,” “we can all reason together.”
  4. Economic Myth – “growth.”
  • Pictures and numbers make this the 1st truly global myth.
  • Has a kind of parity: my number is as good as your number; my bit is as good as your bit. [Ah, leveling ala Kierkegaard!]
  • Growth implies interconnectedness – can create a field of possibilities never seen before – both good and ill.

Sorry for the sketchiness, but perhaps it will give you a flavor and you will make the effort to hear her speak if you ever have the chance. I would recommend it highly! There is a good possibility that this lecture will be available as streaming audio (Real) at the lecture archive link in the near future.

Plus, this allowed me to record my notes in a slightly more formal way than on the heavy paper handout they gave us as we entered the lecture.

On a slightly related note ["the future"], please have a look at, and comment on, this recent post by Jonathan Rochkind, “Notes on future directions of Library Systems.

I had a very quick read through yesterday and it looks pretty good on a first pass. He clearly admits where it needs fleshed out more; perhaps others can help him do so.

Story, or not story

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[Disclaimer: I do not mean to offend anyone's personal views. My only aim here is to share a love of word play with others who may also appreciate it.]

Earlier this week I did the copy cataloging to enter this book into our library. I found the juxtaposition of the the title and the subject heading quite humorous.

Murphy, Francesca Aran. God is Not a Story: Realism Revisited.
LCSH: Narrative theology.

Truth be told, the book looks highly interesting to a heretic such as me, and the subject clearly matches the title because the book is (based on my reading a fair amount of the intro) a reaction to a “side-effect” of narrative theology, which argues that

the Church’s use of the Bible should focus on a narrative presentation of the faith, rather than on the exclusive development of a systematic theology.

The intro to the book explains it better than the Wikipedia article, but it seems that (and it makes sense that) a side-effect of focusing on story is that the view, intentional or otherwise, that ‘God is story’ arises. That’s is in the existential sense. Does seem to be a distinct possibility.

Anyway, based on my reading of Auerbach’s Mimesis I imagine that if I was a theologian I would be highly drawn to narrative theology. It is the story of the Bible that is important. But Murphy’s objection is easy enough to see as a definite issue within narrative theology.

Nonetheless, heathen word play lover that I am, God is Not a Story == Narrative theology cracks me up.

Tunneling for rabbits

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How far down the rabbit holes can I fall, and can I then tunnel between them whilst still falling?

Do I deserve my “little ducklings” or would I be better served by spectators at my self-immolation?

I offer the ducklings/spectators the option of deciding for themselves and changing their minds as they see fit, just as I reserve the right to change what I think I’m doing here.

I’m not sure that I’m really ready for this (the announcement, not the work) but I have decided on the topic for my CAS project, which since it came “soon enough” in the semester has changed my topic for my bibliography in Bibliography class this semester.

For Bibliography I had decided, and significantly begun, on the (primary) English-language publications of Dr. Birger Hjørland. Based on my wide-ranging interests and readings of the last several months I had been attracted to more and more of his articles and ideas. He also has a fairly representative list of publications available on his website, though it is not complete. A few A&I searches, luck, and ensuring that the “right people” know of my interest and I quickly have a pretty close to exhaustive list. Much of it is available electronically and much more will be as soon as Knowledge Organization gets online. I now have almost everything printed or photocopied and in 2 large binders (except for his book which remains pristinely non-hole punched).

I was really looking forward to (and had begun) reading this substantial amount of material chronologically. How many of us have ever had the opportunity to do such a thing and literally observe (as much as possible via published output) someone’s views develop over time?

But a choice of CAS project topic forced a shift. As I said previously (and even earlier in other venues), one of the possible things to address during Bibliography was “compiling my working bibliography for my CAS project.” But as the semester began I still had no idea what I was going to do for my project.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I “knew” my topic. But it has taken several weeks and multiple conversations to go from the idea that my topic could only be addressed as a dissertation, to it being doable if I take the “long route” to finishing my CAS by getting a job first, to “Suck it up, dude! You can do this in a semester” to “Yes, I have it and damn it, I’m excited about it!”

So what is my topic? Well, I actually did a better job giving it away the other day than I feel up to at the moment. But simply put, I am going to attempt to apply Integrationism to the field of LIS [see both links for more details.]

What does this mean for my immersion in Dr. Hjørland’s work? At least two points come immediately to mind. First, of the major epistemological viewpoints or “paradigms” in LIS, I see his approach “(the ‘sociological-epistemological paradigm’ or the ‘domain analytic approach’)” (Hjørland, 1998, 611) as the only one (currently) capable of embracing an integrationist perspective. Second, it is a handful of his articles which have seriously allowed me to see (or perhaps crystallize for me ) some of the overarching themes, stances, viewpoints, paradigms, and so on in our field. Thus, much of his work remains critically important to my further work and, in particular, to my CAS project topic.

For instance, I took myself out for dinner and drinks this evening and read the intro chapter to his book (1997) and took notes. There are several places where his language practically screams Integrationism.

As for my bibliography itself, it has gone from being boldly reaching in quantity but well defined and bounded to highly amorphous and about as vaguely defined as possible. But I absolutely adore Dr. Krummel for allowing me to take this route. I have not completely shifted to Harris (and/or Integrationism) as that is a much bigger topic for a bibliography. What I am theoretically focusing on at the moment are the points of contact between Harris and Hjørland. Depth and not quantity is the operative word now. Quality was always the operative word and still is.

Dr. Krummel said he is completely unconcerned about the number of entries that are in the final bibliography and that my focus is on the direct points of contact while including and defining the grey areas to either side as best as I can. That leeway and trust seriously frees me up to do some important exploratory work. I can read the things I was reading anyway, albeit in a different light, and include the things I consider important without having to worry about reading pretty much a whole body of work.

Have I leapt in over my head? Again? Probably. But I am fired up about this whole project! Hell, I even seem to be turning into a proper researcher and doing well thought out searches, considering what kind of sources I need for each aspect of my project, talking to subject librarians, and so on.

I have been making so many book purchases lately that the credit union contacted me to make sure someone hadn’t stolen my debit card info. I have mostly been buying Harris books, but I ordered 2 proceedings last night with papers by Hjørland in them. In most cases I have library copies available and even in my possession. But I want and/or need these for myself.

Today I had another productive conversation with Kathryn because she is my advisor and because Dr. Krummel insisted that I keep in touch with her about all of this. What an easy demand to meet! :) As my ideas have been coalescing to morphing to coalescing again I have been wavering about whether I was going/needed to meet with Dr. Hjørland one-on-one when he comes to visit soon. Today I scheduled this meeting.

Now I have an ambitious list of things to address in preparation for making this a productive meeting for both of us. I need to read some of and re-read some others of Dr. Hjørland’s publications, same for Harris, hopefully have a productive talk with The Improbable Don Quixote, make some short overview sketches, and try to have a short overview document of “the issues” as I see them for Dr. Hjørland’s convenience a day or two in advance.

“Yeah.” Anyone got a match?

Seriously though. I am absolutely stoked! Perhaps I’m just too stupid to be more than a itty-bitty bit concerned about what I’m getting myself into. Perhaps I expect too much of myself. But I want this.

I do not expect to revolutionize the world or even LIS. I certainly do not expect to solve anything. Even if I managed the first I wouldn’t accomplish the second. But I can do a good job of laying out what I see as a major problem area in our field. I can point to some overlap and points of contact between two major theoreticians.

Best of all possible outcomes? Who knows?

Success? Spark a few interests and start a conversation. That is what I am aiming for. Well, and a tad bit of learning for mself along the way. ;)

The upside for the moment is that it keeps me out of the biblioblogosphere for a while. Perhaps a very good thing? Cause some of you folks … yeah, I got some things to say and they may not be exactly endearing. But some of you really need to come down off your high horses. Sure, you’ve got some valid points but it simply is not the case that we all learn the same nor is it always the case that trying to take a middle road or questioning is meant to be obstructionist. The place has become mighty fractious (and worse) again. Disagreement I like. Veiled name-calling, belittling, “just get on board,” and “my way is the right way” are not disagreement and they are certainly not discussion. They are condescending, they are threatening, and they are wrong. OK, done.

See what I mean? Probably best I have no time to get into all this at the moment.

Hjørland, Birger. “Theory and Metatheory of Information Science: A New Interpretation.” Journal of Documentation. 54.5 (1998): 606-621.

Hjørland, Birger. Information Seeking and Subject Representation: An Activity-theoretical Approach to Information Science. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1997.

Is it now the right thing at the wrong time, or…

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… the wrong thing at the right time, or, perhaps, can it just be there are too many right things to do at overlapping right times?

I know I haven’t fully explicated my bibliography topic yet but a potential change has arisen already. This change is both negative and beneficial; as most changes are. [And as many who ardently advocate for change seem too often to ignore.]

I have chosen a “topic” of immense interest to me which will also allow me to pursue it (reading sequence, primarily) in a fundamentally different way. The topic is (much of) the work of one specific author who writes in areas of immense interest and importance to me. They often write about the larger issues, or at least situate their thoughts in context with the larger issues, argue for making our epistemologies (and assumptions) explicit, and argue for an explicit epistemological basis which I am clearly drawn to.

This person is also going to be visiting GSLIS in the near future and will also be at ASIS&T Annual. This will provide me several opportunities to talk with them. And while at ASIS&T I will also be able to speak with some of the other folks with whom my author has been engaged with in their own slice of “the grand discussion.”

I have spent quite a few hours and a score or two of $$ collecting, adding to Zotero, and printing the fairly sizeable output of my author, along with beginning my reading program “from the beginning,” as one might say.

Sounds just about perfect, doesn’t it? What could possibly be wrong?

Well, I am a CAS student, which means I have to do an 8 semester hour “project” as a capstone to my degree. I had always been hoping to do something a tad (or lot) more projecty than a large paper. The large paper was always, of course, a fall back since one of those is always imminently doable.

The final eight hours are the CAS project, a substantive investigation of a problem in librarianship or information science, which is followed by a final oral examination [from the CAS program description].

When I first signed up for Bibliography this fall several months back I was hoping to know what my project was going to be so I could work on my lit review, in particular. I began the semester without a project topic (as I was fully afraid that I might).

As many of you know—from my reading lists and otherwise—I maintain several deep interests at the same time. I imagine many of you do, too. That is one of the stereotypical traits of librarians that gets far less airplay than, say, love of cats.

Back in May or so, David Bade turned me on to the Oxford linguist/philosopher Roy Harris. [Thank you! Thank you! Thank you, David!] I have since read 6 of his books and am currently reading a 7th. I also have 4 more sitting at home. I have recently ordered 3 others from Amazon (2 have arrived).

Harris is a leading figure in integrational linguistics or, simply, Integrationism.

While I have some recorded stabs at thesis or problem statements [that I'm not ready to share], it ought [it seems to me] to be abundantly clear to everyone that everything we do in libraries, librarianship, and/or information science is based upon the use of language. I have so far found no way in which to take this as completely uncontroversial.

In some ways, though, it may not be entirely self-evident. On this point, I am a bit divided. I cannot personally see how it could not be self-evident, but I am unsure whether that is the case for everyone [in LIS].

Subject description and assignment, indexing, thesauri and ontologies (controlled vocabularies of all types), information retrieval (of any kind), librarian as intermediary/gatekeeper, relevance, user query statements, query expansion, …. Really, is there anything we do which is not based upon the use of language?

Honestly, that question is a little naïve. The same could be asked about lots of arenas of life. But considering how vastly broad the domain of LIS is—both theory and practice—I can think of nothing so completely dependent on language.

So the question now becomes, “What is the LIS view(s) of language?” Once we admit to the radical dependency upon language for a field involved in the use of recorded data/information/knowledge this seems a fairly basic question. Have any of you ever asked it?

On the [what I consider to an extremely off-] chance that you’ve ever asked it of yourself, did you ever try to get outside the “metalinguistic framework” of the educated Westerner (or of orthodox linguistics, which is founded on the same)? Did you even try to try to answer it based simply on your supposedly naïve sense of being a lay user of language? Probably not, to either of those questions.

The integrational critique has serious implications for our discipline. Deeply fundamental implications. If I thought I was the person to even begin to address them I would petition to change to the Ph.D. program immediately. Unfortunately [in this case], I am not even remotely as bright as some of my friends seem to think. If I was then perhaps I could actually produce a dissertation that was one of the rare few that actually adds to scholarship. I would so love to be able to do so. But, it is not to be. I am simply not this bright.

I can easily see how wedded our field is to orthodox linguistics, I can easily find examples across every aspect of our field to show this is the case, I can (soon) produce a good overview of the integrational critique of orthodox linguistics, I can see many of the implications this critique holds for our field.

Unfortunately, I cannot see them to the depth to which they truly go. Nor can I yet even begin to see what choice we have but to act as if orthodox linguistics is “correct” in our actual practice. And while I do think this admission is a start, as it implies that we’ve acknowledged the issue of reliance on a completely bankrupt theory of language, I do not particularly want to argue for a [further?] separation of our theory from practice.

I want to be able to “see” what a full embrace of integrationism might mean for the theory and practice of LIS! And without other people paving much of the way I am simply not that person. I certainly do not know all of my limits but this is one of them.

Based on my applying for jobs before I was particularly ready to [I'd prefer to be done with this degree] the question of how exactly I would finish my CAS [time frame, mostly] arose. I have a total of 5 years [started May 2006] so the 8 hr. project could be done over an extended period. Over the last few months as this issue arose in my mind—and I read more and more Harris books—I came to think that maybe it could be addressed if I took the longer route inherent in starting a job before completion. I thought that I couldn’t possibly do it in a semester. But after my talk with my advisor the other day I have decided that, yes, I can.

So. Perhaps I have my CAS project topic.

Without going into any more detail [I hadn't intended to. Yet.] it seems to me that I ought to switch my bibliography topic to Integrationism and Harris in particular.

What to do? What to do?

I imagine that I will still be really interested in my first topic for quite a while. I even think that if there is a way to “harmonize” integrationism and LIS then this author’s views are the (currently) only beginnings.

If I change my topic then I will certainly still be able to engage with my author while visiting us (as I had fully intended before I chose the topic anyway!) and at ASIS&T. My questions will just take a broader focus than before. While the $ spent on printing would become a currently “unnecessary” expense I really have no problems with it. It is all in binders in (primarily) chronological order and will be easily accessible in the future. At hand, so to speak.

Long and perhaps rambling. But maybe now you see the context for the opening questions. It seems to be another case of too many right things to do at overlapping right times. :(

How is one to do the right thing at the right time when they conflict with what is actually doable?

Sure. I could put off the reading of more Harris until after the semester. Except for it isn’t happening that way. Or I could just keep on with my pleasure reading of Harris and put the more serious considerations off for spring. But unlike my current author, Harris has written both a ton of articles and a ton of books. I really need to be paying better (i.e. explicit, notated) attention to where I see connections between Harris and LIS.

What am I to do? It’s not too late but a decision needs to be made.

Some things read this week, 16 – 22 September 2007

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Sunday, 16 Sep

Zelle, John M. Python Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science. Wilsonville, Or: Franklin, Beedle, 2004. [LIS452 text]

  • Ch. 7: Decision Structures
  • Ch. 8: Loop Structures and Booleans
  • Ch. 6: Defining Functions

Harris, Roy. Introduction to Integrational Linguistics. 1st ed, Kidlington, Oxford, UK: Pergamon, 1998.

  • Ch. 6 and Postscript

Monday, 17 Sep

Harris, Roy. The Language Connection: Philosophy and Linguistics. Bristol, U.K: Thoemmes Press, 1996.

  • Ch. 1: Questions About Language
  • Ch. 2: Speech and its Parts
  • Ch. 3: One-Dimensional Speech

Hjørland, Birger. “Psychology and Information Search Strategy: ‘Information Input Overload’.” Social Science Information Studies. 4.2-3 (1984): 143-148. 12 September 2007.

Tuesday, 18 Sep

Harris. The Language Connection (see above).

  • Ch. 4: Logical Loopholes
  • Ch. 5: Wordy Redefinitions

Wednesday, 19 Sep

Harris. The Language Connection (see above).

  • Ch. 6: Conveying Thoughts
  • Ch. 7: The Plain Truth

Thursday, 20 Sep

Harris. The Language Connection (see above).

  • Ch. 8: Metalinguistic Improvements
  • Ch. 9: Metalinguistic Mistakes

Friday, 21 Sep

Harris. The Language Connection (see above).

  • Ch. 10: Metalinguistic Illusions
  • Postcript

This was a wonderful book that aims “to examine what he calls the ‘metalinguistic framework’ within which the study of language has been pursued by both philosophers and linguists since the days of the ancient Greeks. His view is that, despite appearances, it is essentially the same framework in both disciplines (Ray Monk in the Preface, vii-viii).

I’ll leave you with a lovely excerpt from ch. 6, “Conveying Thoughts,” that in some ways points to the topic of my (now probable) CAS project:

Second, I also wish to draw attention to the fact that, although it actually generates this problem of how A and B can ever be sure they are attaching the same meanings to the same words, and hence how ‘a language’ (=code) ever comes into existence in the first place, the telementation-cum-fixed-code model at the same time serves implicitly to validate the metalanguage that the philosopher and linguist wish to use for their respective purposes. Specifically, it is a model that supports the treatment of speech as involving the recurrent instantiation of a set of units and combinations. In other words, if we look at this strategy with a certain detachment, we see that the problem about how the same meanings get attached the the same words in order to convey thoughts is simply the price that has to be paid (and is paid willingly by both philosopher and linguist) for safeguarding something that is more important to their disciplines, i.e. the metalinguistic framework within which they operate (89).

Is LIS guilty of the safeguarding of their own (and probably the very same) metalinguistic framework? I think the answer can only be Yes. How does our metalinguistic framework generate our successes but, more importantly, how does it generate our failures? What non-questions does it generate and focus research on, and what questions does it prevent us from asking?

Friday – Saturday, 21-22 Sep

Harris, Roy, and George Wolf, eds. Integrational Linguistics: A First Reader. 1st ed, Kidlington, Oxford, UK: Pergamon, 1998.

  • Introduction
  • Ch. 1: Harris, R. “Language as Social Interaction: Integrationalism versus Segregationalism.” [F/S]
  • Ch. 2: Harris, R. “The Integrationist Critique of Orthodox Linguistics.” [Sat.]

This book is the reader that accompanies: Harris, Roy. Introduction to Integrational Linguistics. 1st ed, Kidlington, Oxford, UK: Pergamon, 1998, which I read last week and the beginning of this one.

Saturday, 22 Sep

Zelle, John M. Python Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science. Wilsonville, Or: Franklin, Beedle, 2004. [LIS452 text]

  • Ch. 5: Objects and Graphics

Wistful and confused

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I know I’ve been pretty quiet lately. Lots going on and not so well physically. I just seem to stay sick anymore.

Lots of things happening, though.

Bibliography class

I have a topic for my Bibliography class and I’m making great progress collecting things and entering them into Zotero. I’ve read a few previously and I read the earliest one Monday eve. I’m not yet ready to discuss my topic here for a couple reasons, but I will. As for the fancy web-based ideas I’m not counting on them happening for this project.

I am excited about being able to read this body of literature chronologically, though. It will be a vastly different experience from my normal habits.

I am focusing on one author and will attempt to situate his work (0verall themes, where drawing from, where pointing to) within the overall context of our discipline. I am starting to get a grasp on some of the overall themes, “paradigms,” and so on in the field thanks to all my reading. I hope to write an introductory essay that will sketch some of this out while firmly situating my author’s perspective(s) within it.

Zotero and Web of Knowledge/Science

Anybody out there using Zotero also using ISI’s Web of Knowledge/Science and able to get usable citations out and into Zotero? Zotero’s site claims they work with ISI but I have been unable to get anything out that Zotero will recognize.

Programming class

Just getting started with Python was really kicking my butt until yesterday evening, but I finally made a breakthrough and then made some real progress. I’m pretty sure I met all the requirements for my 1st program and it’s 9 days early. :)

I doubt it will stay this way but here’s hoping there’ll be similar breakthroughs.

Job applications

Due to budget issues, the position I was asked to apply for was put on hold until February at the earliest (along with a few other positions). I’m not sure how I feel about this exactly, but it does complicate life some. For one thing, as much as I would love the other position I applied for, I only did so because I was applying for the other. I figured that if I was applying for a job before I was really ready to then I might as well apply for a second. And since the second seemed perfect, well….

That job is at a much smaller school, though, so I imagine they are having a hard time getting the search committee together to meet at the start of the fall semester. As much as they wanted someone to start right away they may not be able to pull that off.

And if anyone from this school is reading, I am perfect for your job and would love to work with you. My above comment is only in relation to the actual decision to begin applying and not about choosing what to apply to.

The P-word

The P-word has been cropping up a lot again lately. I have also discovered an interest that is easily P-level work—if I am capable of it—and which is really calling my name. I feel like I need to strap myself to the mast and plug my ears.

[Had a nice talk with my advisor today (most of this post was written last night) and the P-word has again been banished. Whew! In fact, despite my earlier concerns over doing this topic as my CAS "project" we have decided that it is a wonderful fit.]

Confusion reigns.

Ex moving away

Friday evening I’m heading to Normal to help my ex and her boyfriend load up a moving van for their move to Georgia (his home). They’ve been talking about this for a while now and it’s finally truly happening.

I’m not sure how I feel about all this. I know I’m supposed to hate my ex but I don’t. In fact, I love her very much (and her boyfriend). We are all good friends. No; I am not in love with her and have not been for well before we were divorced. But she is important to me.

Since Sara went off to college over 5 years ago, the ex has been my only family member living anywhere near me. Heck, I have been using her as my emergency contact since she was by far the closest to me physically. Now I’m truly going to be all alone in the (local) world.

I don’t like it.

ACRL@UIUC

Karla and I did our best to get the ACRL student chapter reinvigorated this year, and while we seemed to have lots of people interested in academic and research libraries at orientation and Orgapalooza we played hell getting people to volunteer to be officers. Elections finally opened yesterday. Yay!

Karla and I both have a lot of things going on in our lives and we have given and given over the years. We did what we could this year out of a feeling of duty. [And I despise duty ethics!] We are the only two long-term members still around and we want to see this chapter flourish again and, perhaps, spawn a few others. While neither of us is interested in being officers, we can (and will) provide lots of guidance and even spearhead a few things. We started seeding the ACRL@UIUC Moodle space with suggestions and started collecting meeting times that would work for folks once we had officers to get things moving.

  • Interested in the 1st year academic librarian experience? Who do you think knows most of the 1st year academic librarians at UIUC? They were (mostly) Karla and my classmates.
  • Want to visit the Circus Collection at ISU, or ISU as a possibly more typical academic library setting than UIUC? Who worked there for 6 years and still has lots of friends there?
  • Interested in the idea of the Information/Learning Commons or gaming in academic libraries or any of the other innovative things happening in the UIUC Undergraduate Library?

We can do much of this legwork and/or putting people in contact with the right people. So I’m very glad to see us moving forward.

Good and bad

As usual, there is much not being said although, in this case, most is on different but related topics.

Clearly there is much good in amongst the bad. And this is not to claim that there is no middle. Me; I’m no 2.0topian nor a Luddite. There is a middle, or should I say there are middles?

I am grateful for friends, near and far. I am grateful to have an advisor who doesn’t push me to do things I’m not ready to do, but who believes in me nonetheless.

ASIS&T Annual 2007 is soon and I’ll get to see some of those dear far friends. I’ll also get to rub elbows with some of the “names” in our profession. Hopefully this year I’ll be a little less shy about approaching some of them. [Reminder to self and others: They have always been gracious.]

I just wish I could be well for a while.

And I sure as hell wish I hadn’t “woke up” to find myself all alone (in a direct sense) this close to the mid-century mark.

Confused and wistful; wistful and confused. Pick one.

Some things read this week, 9 – 15 September 2007

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Thursday – Sunday, 6 – 9 Sep

Capurro, Rafael and Birger Hjørland. “The Concept of Information.” ARIST 37, 2003: 343-411.

This is an excellent and lengthy review article on the concept of information. It is much broader in coverage than just IS, though, looking also at the concept interdisciplinarily and, in specific, in the natural sciences, the social sciences and humanities, and in LIS.

It is, as one might imagine for a lit review, full of useful sources. My only complaint—and it is mostly inwardly focused on my monolingualism—is that the authors cite a lot of German sources, including some of the more interesting sounding ones. [I know David, it is not too late to learn.]

For instance, although I did not fully accept some of the ideas attributed to Weizsäcker, I can fully accept these ideas:

Finally, Weizsäcker points to the “unavoidable circle” between language and information; that is, between word plurivocity and conceptual univocity, as a characteristic of exact thinking. The reason is that we are finite observers and actors within language as well as within evolution. We cannot, in Kantian terms, understand things as they are in themselves and therefore we never have fully univocal concepts (Weizsäcker sources omitted, emphasis mine, 363).

Contrast this with this view from Priss, commented on here.

The advantage of formalizations, however, is that notions are defined with absolute precision within the formal realm and that they therefore may be implementable in software (draft 12).

The implications of Weizsäcker’s comment run deep for machine inferencing.

There are even a fair few decent looking sources for the more politically active/socially conscious amongst us. For example:

Braman supposedly shows the different approaches to defining information for policy makers and how this is, in fact, a political decision (373-74).

Braman, S. (1989). Defining information: An approach for policymakers. Telecommunications Policy, 13 (1), 233-242. This article is also cited on p. 345 and on p. 346.

“Romm (1997) shows that serious ethical implications are involved in defining something as factual as opposed to meaningful” (387).

Romm, N. (1997). Implications of regarding information as meaningful rather than factual. In R. L. Winder, S. K. Probert & I. A. Beeson (Eds.), Philosophical aspects of information systems (pp. 23-34). London: Taylor & Francis.

Lengthy, but recommended.

Sunday – Saturday, 9 – 15 Sep

Harris, Roy. Introduction to Integrational Linguistics. 1st ed, Kidlington, Oxford, UK: Pergamon, 1998.

Read chaps. 1-5.

Wednesday, 12 Sep

Harel, David. Computers Ltd.: What They Really Can’t Do. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. (Text for LIS452)

Read ch. 1. [book arrived late.]

Saturday, 15 Sep

Downey, et. al. How to Think Like a Computer Scientist (2nd ed). at Open Book Project. (Text for LIS452)

  • Ch. 3: Functions
  • Ch. 4: Conditionals and recursion
  • Ch. 5: Fruitful functions
  • Ch. 6: Iteration

I actually read a lot more this week but it was mostly a different kind of reading as I began work on my bibliography. More on that topic later.