Monthly Archives: September 2007

Some things read this week, 2 – 8 September 2007

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Sunday, 2 Sep

Bade, David. “I Know Where I Am Going, Do You?” Remarks at the ALCTS Serials Section, Continuing Resources Cataloging Committee, Update Forum “Continuing Resources Cataloging: Where in the World Are We Going?” ALA Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, June 25, 2007. [pdf available at E-LIS]

You folks do have the E-LIS feed in your readers don’t you? Lots of good stuff, much of it in languages other than English, comes across this feed.

Of course, you probably ought to be subscribed to the dLIST feed, too. Or you can choose to sub by subject. See this page. Maybe you can sub to E-LIS by subject, too, but I have no idea. I prefer to see it all and thus not miss things in a subject I might not normally focus on.

Bates, Marcia J. “Information and knowledge: an evolutionary framework for information science.” Information Research 10 (4), July 2005.

This is one of the Bates’ articles that Hjørland was responding to in “Information: Objective or Subjective/Situational?” [see below and previous post]

Wow!!

This is a doozy, in many ways. Bates is attempting to use the ideas of evolutionary psychology to gain a better foothold on the concept of information.

Sunday – Monday, 2 – 3 Sep

Bates, Marcia J. “Fundamental Forms of Information.” JASIST 57 (8): 1033-1045, 2006. doi: 10.1002/asi.20369

This is one of the Bates’ articles that Hjørland was responding to in “Information: Objective or Subjective/Situational?” [see below and previous post]

I think I am going to have to write a separate post on the ideas in these two articles by Bates.

Monday, 3 Sep

Hjørland, Birger. “Information: Objective or Subjective/Situational?” JASIST 58 (10): 1448-1456, 2007. doi: 10.1002/asi.20620

Originally read 11 August 2007. If you care why I re-read it, look at the comments on the post it was included in.

Furner, Jonathan. “Information Studies Without Information.” Library Trends 52 (3), Winter 2004: 427-446. [Available in the usual places or in UIUC's institutional repository IDEALS]

Cite by Hjørland (above) as arguing “that all the problems we need to consider in information studies can be dealt with without any need for a concept of information. He suggests that to understand information as relevance is currently the most productive for theoretical information studies” (fn7, p. 1454).

Fairly thought-provoking, but I felt that explication of ideas became a little terse near the end of the paper. There were a few places where I wrote, “Huh? How/when did we realize this?”

To the extent that he accepts the concept of information, he seems fairly conflicted whether or not potential informativeness counts or not. The discussion seems to waver back and forth, and then we get a decently explicatory paragraph on 441 that outlines why we need to include potentially informative/relevant messages into our conceptual definition. But then the paragraph ends with this thought (to which I fully subscribe): “In any case, it would appear that determining the extent to which a message is relevant to hearer a at time t is what is more important.” So. Which is it?

In the discussion of The utterance as information we get the following:

In effect, this view commits one not only to the proposition that information is anything that is interpretable—i.e., anything that is capable of being interpreted—but also that the interpretability of an entity does not depend on its historically having been interpreted. Entities can thus be classified as information on the basis of their potential to inform (439, emphasis mine).

OK. I agree that the view espoused in this section commits one to everything in the first sentence. But where did that thus in the second sentence come from? It does not seem to me to follow logically. It is simply a stipulation; perhaps a stipulation based on something along these lines:

If we undertake an inventory of all entities in the world that are potentially capable of being interpreted and decide which are, in fact, interpretable—and moreover, we state that all entities are capable of interpretation—then by the very act of our inventory—and our stipulative definition—we have thus interpreted (and defined) every entity as being interpretable and thus all entities can be classed as information. In fact, there is no need for the inventory or the subsequent classification based on potential interpretability. All entities just are information.

So, perhaps it does follow logically, but in a fully circular way.

In fact, this is highly similar to what Bates has said in the above articles. “Information is the pattern of organization of matter and energy.” The only thing not information for Bates is pure entropy, as it has no organization.

A highly philosophical and thought-provoking article, as I said.

I am grateful for a short discussion on pp. 440-441 which touches on information as uncertainty reducing, amongst other things. This may be helpful in formulating my response to Hjørland.

Monday – Tuesday, 3 – 4 Sep

Cornelius, Ian. “Theorizing Information for Information Science.” ARIST 36 (2002). Medford, NJ: Information Today. 393-425.

This is a pretty good lit review that ends with the following wonderful comment:

However, as we make further attempts to tether the ass of information to the tree of knowledge, we should reflect that, until we know what it is that we cannot do without a theory of information, we will be unlikely to get one (421).

Tuesday – Wednesday, 4 – 5 Sep

Harris, Roy, and Christopher Hutton. Definition in theory and practice: Language, lexicography and the law. London: Continuum, 2007.

Began Part III. Definition and the Law. Read ch. 8 “The Definition of Law and Legal Definition” and ch. 9 “Strategies of Construction.”

Thursday, 6 Sep

Harris and Hutton. See above.

Ch. 10 “Linguistics, Science and Meaning.”

Friday, 7 Sep

Harris and Hutton. See above.

Ch. 11 (Conclusion) “Definition, Indeterminancy and Reference.”

This was a good book; one which bears re-reading. I only wish it wasn’t so God-awful expensive!

Rowley, Jennifer. “The wisdom hierarchy: representations of the DIKW hierarchy.” Journal of Information Science 33 (2), 2007: 163-180. doi: 10.1177/0165551506070706

Suggested by my advisor Wed. when discussing my newest venture into the concept of information.

This article looks at “the data-information-knowledge-wisdom (DIKW) hierarchy by examining the articulation of the hierarchy in a number of widely read textbooks [in information systems and in knowledge management], and analysing their statements about the nature of data, information, knowledge, and wisdom” (abstract).

Overall, this is a reasonable article. It just isn’t very good for my purposes. While it has a fair few sources, a third of them are textbooks in either information systems or knowledge management. Notice that does not say “information science.” They are also, of course, by definition heavily business-oriented.

I know that I get myself into pickles with what I say sometimes and as much as “knowledge management” bugs me silly I realize that I have yet to settle on definitions of these concepts that work for me in the work I want to do in this field, but “wisdom management”? The article doesn’t quite go that far, but it sure seems to be pointing to it.

It does ask some useful questions about the relationships between these concepts, and suggests that inverting the DIKW hierarchy (pyramid) might be “more evocative” (176). More of a “wisdom funnel” (176). I’m still undecided on the DIKW hierarchy since I have yet to fully suss out these concepts for myself, but if I accept it at all my guess is that I would prefer the inverted form.

One other small concern is that the few textbooks that even address wisdom situate “in the context of leadership. Wisdom is seen as a desirable and even essential characteristic of executive business leaders” (177). While on one hand this is probably somewhat true, I think these few textbook writers are out of touch with the reality of much business leadership. Also, the dearth of authors of these texts even addressing the topic is in my favor.

Wisdom has been spun as having a highly ethical component, as it probably should be. So from the corporate viewpoint, leaders should be wise in regards to how they conduct their personal lives as representatives of their companies, but I have a hard time believing that many large corporations want their executives to lead with a focus on wisdom in its ethical mode. I, on the other, wish they would. [See Jackall, Robert. Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. for more information on "how corporate managers think the world works, and how big organizations shape moral consciousness" (blurb from back of paperback).]

Perhaps that is why the focus on “wisdom management.” Wisdom and its ethics re-interpreted from a corporate standpoint is what they want, but certainly not wisdom in a Socratic vein.

Saturday, 8 Sep

Weiss, Paul J. and Steve Shadle. “FRBR in the Real World.” The Serials Librarian 52 1/2, 2007: 93-104.

Found via The FRBR Blog 6 Sep 2007.

Hjørland, Birger. “Theory and Metatheory of Information Science: A New Interpretation.” Journal of Documentation 54 (5), December 1998: 606-621.

Cited by Bates (2005) “Information and knowledge: an evolutionary framework for information science.” See above.

This is an excellent article that discusses the role of epistemological theories in IS. I know that many folks avoid philosophical discussions like the plague, but this article is quite understandable by all. Another reason many folks avoid these sorts of discussions is that they want answers. But as Hjørland writes:

Epistemology has no final answer, the is no consensus about the scientific method. Insight in epistemology can, however, provide you with knowledge about the merits and weaknesses of the different solutions, and progress in the scientific method as well as classification must be based on the historical evidence gained in epistemology and science studies (613).

For anyone interested in Dr. Hjørland’s forthcoming visit to UIUC I highly suggest this article.

For everyone else, I also recommend it highly as a good, balanced and easily understood overview of how and why epistemology is central to our discipline.

Information; the idea

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Information

What the hell is it? What has been thought about it? How has it been theorized? In which disciplines has it been used as a concept? Do we even need it as a theoretical concept? Might we be better of without it?

It seems that I have acquired another area of deep interest. Perhaps some of you could have predicted it—based on much of what I have been reading lately—before I even admitted it to myself. Once you see this week’s upcoming “Some things read…” post—and it is only Monday—it will be fairly evident.

Sure. I meant to “go in deep” and do a bit of reading in this area as I saw fit…

“…you’ll be the keeper of your Holy Grail…”

Pavlov’s Dog. Episode. Pampered Menial.

Sorry, minor musical interlude.

…but I hadn’t quite intended to head so far down the path. Honestly, I think pretty much everyone in our field ought to be seriously concerned with information as a concept. Reading an article or two (Buckland, probably) is simply not enough; as canonical (and good) as they may be.

I forced my way through Raber’s The Problem of Information and tracked down and read many of his very productive sources. If only his book read as well as some of the sources.

While reading Raber I serendipitously stumbled across (that is, I picked the print journal up off the shelf to leaf through) an article by Birger Hjørland in JASIST 58 (10) 2007. I commented on this article, which is a critique of a concept of information put forth recently by Marcia Bates, in my “Some things read this week, 5 – 11 August 2007” post.

Imagine my utter surprise and absolute delight when cleaning out the spam caught by Akismet a few days ago (1 Sep) to find a comment from Dr. Hjørland. He suggested that I send a letter to the editor of JASIST outlining my critique of his view to which he might offer a rejoinder. Wow!

Note: A proper theory of information needs to account for why a comment full of links about licking … ,well, you get the idea, gets through to moderation but a comment from one of our leading researchers with no links gets caught by the spam filter. [Although, perhaps not a theory of information for LIS.]

Lesson to the less “important” among us to check our spam filters and not just automatically trash everything.

As it is, my critique is only of one very small part of his paper. It is also an idea that I have read in many places, and has direct corollaries in other views within theories of information.

That is, that information is that which answers a question (his use) or it is that which reduces uncertainty. I maintain that information can just as often and easily cause an increase in uncertainty and/or generate more questions than it answers, if it even answers any.

In fact, if information did not cause uncertainty or generate questions, would we not quickly satisfy all of our information needs? Whoa! Sorry, just finally verbalized that. Is this so patently obvious that it is rarely acknowledged in our theories?

Anyway, I may well end up doing my bibliography on the concept of information in LIS. So much for doing something that I already have a lot of work done in. Oh well, I’m well on my way as it is.

Some things read this week, 26 August – 1 September 2007

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Sunday, 26 Aug

Harris, Roy, and Christopher Hutton. Definition in theory and practice: Language, lexicography and the law. London: Continuum, 2007.

Read ch. 4 “Ostensive Definition and Linguistic Theory.”

Litwin, R. Library Juice Concentrate. Duluth, Minn: Library Juice Press, 2006.

Finished Section Four: Librarians: Culture and Identity and began Section Five: Cuba:

Litwin, R. “A Critique of Anarchist Librarianship.”

Litwin, R. and Jessamyn West. “Interview with Jessamyn West.”

Neugebauer, Rhonda L. “Rhonda L. Neugebauer Reports on her March, 2000 Trip to Cuba.”

Sparanese, Ann. “Ann Sparanese’s Paper on Cuba for the IRC Latin American and Caribbean Subcommittee.”

Monday, 27 Aug

Wersig, Gernot and Ulrich Neveling. “The phenomena of interest to Information Science.” The Information Scientist 9 (4), December 1975: 127-140.

Cited by Raber, ch. 10 en9.

“Information” must reduce uncertainty. Arrrgh!

This is actually an article worth reading, despite its flaws. It begins by taking a look at various disciplines involved in “information science,” the different routes taken in the rise of information science(s), and some reasons for the difficulties in discussing this concept. It then outlines four broad views (phenomenon-, means-, technological-, and purpose-oriented) under which the concept of information has been expressed in various literatures.

Six major approaches to “‘Information’ as the possible object of information science” as based on “the general structure of relations between humans and the world” are elucidated and critiqued (130-132).

  • Structure approach (matter-oriented)
  • Knowledge approach
  • Message approach
  • Meaning approach (characteristic of message-oriented)
  • Effect approach (recipient-oriented)
  • Process approach

It is under the Effect approach that “‘Information’ is reduction of uncertainty” arises (133).

This diversity of views on ‘information’ is frightening, and in fact is probably incomplete. It would be a relief if we could follow Fairthorne’s proposal: ‘Clearly, “information” and its derivatives are words to avoid’, but obviously this is not possible. … If the term ‘information’, or one of derivatives like ‘informatics’ is unavoidable, we should make it clear in every instance what is meant (132, emphasis mine).

Next is a justification for a societal responsibility for information scientists followed by broad, medium and narrow solutions for defining the boundaries of information science “vis-á-vis other object-oriented disciplines” (135).

The authors opt for the narrow solution as it allows solutions to the concrete, pragmatic problems that need solving. This is not “a narrow understanding of ‘information’ but of the area in which ‘information’ is considered” (137).

A short proposal follows which shows the intersection of the traditional disciplines with the now grouped information sciences, each “catering for different clientèles according to different information needs” (138).

I like this idea at first glance. I need to think it through more critically, and it may need some rearranging or additions or deletions, and 30 years on perhaps some new terms for the various disciplines, but I am beginning to lean towards a definite narrowing of the scope of ‘information science’ as to consider it only one of the many ‘informations sciences.’

Thus, I like this article a lot. I think that in a short space it offers a lot to seriously consider in trying to explicate the concepts of ‘information’ and ‘information science’ and the place of the former in the latter.

My biggest issue with these authors is that they fall back on one of the variants of the Effect approach mentioned above:

The basic term ‘information’ can be understood only if it is defined in relation to these information needs

Either as reduction of uncertainty caused by communicated data.
Or as data used for reducing uncertainty (138).

Even in a highly empirical domain I simply cannot accept this definition of ‘information.’ Perhaps if someone provides a term for the information which actually increases uncertainty, and can justify having two theoretical entities, I might accept this. But I have yet to see one by anyone who leans towards the uncertainty reduction and/or question answering views of ‘information.’

I Kuhn’s view (highly simplified), it is anomalous data which causes uncertainty, doubt, inconsistency, etc. with a current standard theory in science. This resultant anomalous state of knowledge leads towards attempts to resolve the uncertainty. When enough observations do not fit within the current theory that theory is eventually discarded by a few scientists in favor of one which better explains previous observations and the anomalous observations under the current theory. Eventually, perhaps, a paradigm change happens as the new theoretical explanations become the standard.

Is not the meaning and interpretation given the anomalous data (or perhaps just the recognition of its having significance) also information? [I know this question needs restructuring for greater rhetorical force. Nonetheless, it is my belief (for now) that information is often a cause of uncertainty and question generation. Defining it so narrowly, without offering a counterpart concept, as that which must reduce uncertainty or that which only answers questions is highly limiting and perhaps even question begging.]

See also my comments on this and related ideas on my “Some things read this week” post of 5-11 August 2007. I also seem to have conflicting ideas on whether narrowing the scope of information science is appropriate if one looks at the same previous post. I accept this. A large part of this conflict is based on the definitions of ‘information’ and ‘use’—among others—which we accept first. Definitions of our major theoretical entities, though, should delimit the scope of the discipline and not the other way round. See the following article for related thoughts on delimiting the scope of information science and also for a critique of this article.

Roberts, Norman. “Social Considerations Towards a Definition of Information Science.” Journal of Documentation 32 (4), December 1976: 249-257.

Cited by Raber, ch. 10, en8 & en10.

Yay!! [This is the note I wrote on the article after I finished it.]

This is a short, but important, article on the prospect of refocusing information science as a social science. It outlines some reasons why, despite most theorists agreeing that information concepts and phenomena have a social significance, information science is oriented “towards the scientific and scientism rather than the social scientific” (249).

Specific theorists considered include Mikhailov, Wersig and Neveling (see previous article above), Yovits, and Whittemore and Yovits, and Brookes. Wersig and Neveling get the most space.

After demonstrating that the highly constricted domain alloted by Wersig and Neveling for information science is untenable, Roberts turns to the idea of information as uncertainty reducer. His critique takes several tacks including problems of definition, the substitution of one substitute measure for another substitute measure, and “the adoption of a naive human information model” (252).

Curiously, for committed social scientists, no recognition is accorded the frequent situations in which additional increments of information increase, rather than dispel, uncertainty.

…

With this, and other, warnings available to us it would seem unhelpful, to say the least, for information science to manufacture its very own version of economic man in the shape of uncertainty man and to adopt him as the basis for the exploration of information problems[5] (252).

[en5] It would be possible to deny this argument by maintaining that information which causes uncertainty cannot be so regarded but this would rob the model of all social credibility (257). [It would also rob any model of any psychological credibility!]

There is much more of value in this article, including a reminder of how a social science such as information science is still a science.

I’ll leave you with this closing thought:

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, is the recognition that the methodologies and expectations of information science are those of the social sciences. In particular the requirements of social explanations imply that the individual, the ultimate justification of all information work, services and theorising, cannot be excluded from the considerations of information scientists (257).

Highly recommended for pretty much everyone in our field.

Monday – Tuesday, 27 – 28 Aug

Harris and Hutton. See above.

Began Part II. Definition and the Dictionary. Read ch.5 “The Lexicographer’s Task.”

Tuesday, 28 Aug

Frohmann, Bernd. “Communication technologies and the politics of postmodern information science.” Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science 19 (2), July 1994: 1-22.

Cited by Raber ch. 10 en 19a and 20.

Quite oddly, for an article that uses the term postmodern so frequently, I really enjoyed this article. I also found myself agreeing with most of it, and it is an important argument.

The kind of politics embedded in these technologies [interactive consumer information technologies] and their supporting infrastructures is evident from their role in the construction of human subjectivity, or what will be termed here a technological practice of identity politics. The argument that follows is that the debate about the postmodern character of the subjects who participate in the social relations configured by the new communication and information technologies presents the most urgent issues for the possibilities of a democratic politics of information (7).

I really found the following quote from Mowshowitz quite accurate for many reasons, experiential and theoretical, but I immediately thought of Facebook groups and wrote just that in the margins of the paper:

Consumers in the network marketplace will be members of many different affinity groups, which will persist for varying periods of time. Moreover, the consumer may very well switch from one group to another. To the extent that personal identity is bound up with ever changing affinity groups, individuality becomes transformed into virtual individuality. At any given moment, a person’s identity can be inferred from the intersection of affinity groups to which he belongs at the same time. (Mowshowitz 1993) (10).

There is much more about social fragmentation, pluralism, identity politics, the role of information and consumer technologies in the construction and manipulation of identity. These issues and their implications are then analyzed “for theory construction in IS that is not politically blind” (13).

Highly recommended, especially to those interested in the political implications of IS theory and practice, identity politics, progressive librarianship, and related issues.

Wednesday – Thursday, 29 – 30 Aug

Harris and Hutton. See above.

Read ch. 6 “Definitions and History.”

Monday – Thursday, 27 – 30 Aug

Litwin, R. See above.

Finished Section Five: Cuba

  • Oberg, Larry. “The Status of Gays in Cuba: Myth and Reality.”

Read Section Six: Various and Sundry Readings (all by Litwin except where noted)

  • Reid, Carol. “Libary Limericks”
  • “Some Meditations on Those Amusing Searches.”
  • Collected by Litwin. “Selected Quotes of the Week.”
  • “Suggested Paper Topics.”
  • “Some Books for Progressive Librarians.”

One of my favorite limericks by Carol Reid:

There once was a bored cataloger
Who doggedly worked as a blogger;
He wanted to write
And stay up half the night,
Not grind in machines like a cog (grrr…)

I gave a Selected Quotes for the Week last week in my commentary and I’d like to provide another. All I’m saying, folks, is perhaps consider the idea when you are “reaching” for your next piece of information to consume:

“It would be a serious intellectual mistake to confuse information that functions as entertainment with actual, or knowledge-based, information. It would be a mistake as well to simply ignore the cognitive implications of information processing as entertainment. Real information, such as who controls wealth and property in the United States, why prison building outdistances school construction, or comparative rates of upward and downward mobility, is as difficult to locate as it ever was and must be culled from the kinds of books and journals not featured and sometimes not even carried by the megabookstore at the strip mall or reported on by television features.” – Joseph Urgo, In the Age of Distraction, University of Mississippi Press, 2000, as cited in Litwin, Library Juice Concentrate, p. 204.

Library Juice Concentrate is highly recommended. Unless of course, you prefer not to think.

As Liz said of Litwin in a comment on last week’s post, “he contributes a necessary voice to the librarianship conversation.” Amen to that!

Friday, 31 Aug

Harris and Hutton. See above.

Read ch. 7 “Types and Problems of Definition.”

Saturday, 1 Sep

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

Read ch. 3 and began ch. 4.

Karen Sparck Jones. “What’s new about the Semantic Web? Some questions.” [ Posted in Articles, Books, Information Retrieval, Language and word issues, Librariana, My Life, Society, Technology, Web/Tech