I read this at the coffee shop one morning a couple of weeks ago and, as usual, was quite impressed. She shows that a model of communication is mandatory for information science but that one of information seeking is optional. She also critiques the overuse of ‘information’ and makes the “radical suggestion” that we need a whole new language for library and information science (143). Yes, yes, and yes! [Was cited by Dick 1995; see below for citation. Or this blog post: 2 articles by Archie Dick]

Based on a linguistic analysis of phrases including the word ‘information,’ randomly sampled across a 20-year period from Library & Information Science Abstracts (LISA: 1969-Sep 1989), “establishes three predominant cognitive models of information and the information transfer process” (130, abstract).

Outline of article:

• Introduction
• Related Cognitive Models
• Method
• Results
• Analysis
  • Focus of models
  • Compatibility of models
  • Direct communication model
  • Indirect communication model
  • Information-seeking model
• Discussion
• Conclusions
• Appendix A
  • A. Direct communication (DC) model
  • B. Indirect communication (IC) model
  • C. Information-seeking (IS) model
• Appendix B. Syntagms evoking general frames
• References

Introduction

In trying to determine the cognitive models within the field the author made two basic assumptions: “(1) the literature of a field incorporates the cognitive models common to the discipline; and (2) linguistic analysis can be used to ferret out what those models are” (131).

Related Cognitive Models

Green discovered three models, two of which take the perspective of the information system and one which takes the perspective of the information user. The first two fall under the critique of

“the traditional paradigm of information transfer criticised by Dervin. In what she refers to as a positivistic or information-theoretic framework, information is perceived as a self-existent and absolute entity, independent of human minds. Information is stored within a variety of types of information systems, which users may approach in order to extract information relevant to their needs” (132).

Method

Pointing out that the phenomena of the information transfer process “is the key event around which library and information science is built,” Green states that

“If the positivistic model of information transfer observed by Dervin is truly representative of the thinking of the profession and if that mode of thinking is as dysfunctional as Dervin suggests (which, no doubt it is), library and information science educators and researchers would have some serious overhauling and restructuring of their cognitive models to accomplish” (132-33/133).

I adore her all over again for that “which, no doubt it is” aside.

There are a couple limitations of the method used that are listed (134). One of them, which is only a possible limitation or less of one than is suspected, would be partially answered if this study were repeated for the period 1990-2010. I would love to see that comparison.

Analysis

As one can guess from the outline of the article above, the three models found are: Direct communication (DC) model, Indirect communication (IC) model, and the Information-seeking (IS) model (135). I will leave it to the interested reader to delve further into this paper on their own if they are interested in these models and the specific support found for them via Dr. Green’s analysis.

Discussion

“As noted previously, communication models and information-seeking models are not inherently incompatible. Given that information transfer is the basic phenomenon around which library and information science revolves, the discipline must have a model of communication from information source to information user. Since the information user is often the initiator of the information transfer, we may have (and in general we would like to have) information-seeking models, too. Thus, a model of communication is mandatory; a model of information-seeking, although desirable, is theoretically optional. The upshot of this recognition is that the discipline’s models of communication are more crucial than its model(s) of information-seeking. … Sadly, our models of communication provide little insight as to how information transfer is actually effected” (141, empahsis mine).

While I will leave the concept of “information transfer” stand for now, this idea of a “transfer” is also to be rejected. Nonetheless, whatever fills the role of this so-called “information transfer” will still be “the key event around which library and information science is built” (132-33). Thus, a proper theory of communication is the basis for all that we do in library and information science, whether theory or practice.

Did the information-seeking model that was discovered accomplish its aims? No, it did not. Although ostensibly focused on the user, the IS model still emphasized the information system far too much, along with paying more attention to quantity vs. quality of the information retrieved (recall vs. precision) (141-42).

The issue is that

“the cognitive models of the user are not considered. Moreover, the cognitive models embodied in the information retrieved are also ignored; the relevance of information to a user’s need is defined solely in terms of shared ‘aboutness’, without respect to compatibility of underlying cognitive frameworks. Consequently, matching information retrieved to information needed is perceived mechanistically” (142).

This provides a an exceptional argument for domain analysis and a focus on epistemological relevance and viewpoint. Just because some source is ‘about’ a topic does not mean it will meet the needs of a user; any user much less a specific user.

The next paragraph warmed my heart to no end:

“Unfortunately, such a view of information retrieval, which is in the same vein as the positivistic or information-theoretic framework as criticized by Dervin, is, one may argue, built into our understanding of the word ‘information’. … This leaves us with the question why we have adopted such heavy use of the word ‘information’ throughout our discipline when the cognitive models associated with it are in at least some respects incompatible with what we are trying to accomplish” (142).

Conclusions

“Shortcomings discovered in the analysis … highlight the areas where our focus of research should be: the cognitive structures of texts; and how readers perceive them, re-mould them, and integrate them with the cognitive models they possessed at the outset of the interaction” (142, emphasis mine).

The question of integration is actually the foundation of all of these questions, as it is of the question of communication.

“A second recommendation stems from the observation that the word ‘information’ predisposes us to think of the retrieval process in a mechanistic sense, which goes counter to our modern understanding of how the process should be viewed. (Ironically, the word ‘retrieval’ also carries this bias.) … The recommendation offered here is a radical one: we need to change the basic inventory of words we use to communicate about our field. We should be more concerned with learning and knowledge than with retrieval and information” (142-43).

Change our language? Yes, yes, yes!

This article provides me the following:

• A theory of communication is mandatory for LIS
• A theory of comm is prior to a theory of information-seeking
• An argument for domain analysis and epistemological considerations
• A critique of ‘information’ as the basis for my discipline
• A call to radically change our language within the field

Sunday – Saturday, 4 – 10 May 2008

• Ch. III : Relevance (Sun)
• Ch. IV : Bibliographical Instruments and Their Specifications (Mon)
• Ch. V : Subjects and the Sense of Position (Wed)
• Ch. VI : Indexing, Coupling, Hunting (Thu)
• Ch. VII : Consultants and Aids (Fri)
• Ch. VIII : Reliability (Fri)
• Ch. IX : Adequacy and Bibliographical Policy (Fri-Sat)

What can possibly be said about this work in a few pathetic sentences?

This work needs to be in print. It needs to be available on the web. It needs an index; needs a bibliography; needs to be marked up in TEI; needs an outline of its arguments; needs to be read widely and discussed widely.

I would gladly give a year or two of my life to facilitate most of that, if someone would only pay me. The University of California Press is completely failing us by letting this languish and remain out of print.

I hope to say more about this wonderful essay if I can ever get my hands on a copy of my own. The kind of close reading and engagement that it really deserves cannot be accomplished (by me) with a library copy.

If you’ve never read this then do so. If you have, consider reading it again. My advisor said she had one of her classes read parts of it recently and it blew most of their little minds. Good!

Monday, 5 May 2008

Is a call for the rejection of the Kuhnian paradigm in favor of Popper’s views.

Monday evening dinner: crab cakes, 2 pints of Guinness and 3 articles

One of the best opening sentences ever in an LIS article:

The major challenge for information science at the dawn of the millennium is to establish an appropriate epistemological foundation for the field (231).

Of course, he was at the Royal School in Copenhagen at the time. A small influence perhaps?

The paper argues that information science in general and organization of knowledge in particular needs to establish a clear epistemological foundation, which takes into account that the field should be studied as a human science. It is argued that the definition of knowledge is needed, and suggests that Wittgenstein’s concepts of ‘form of life’ and ‘world pictures’ could be used as frameworks (abstract).

As usual, I’m not exactly sure what the author is on about—although he’s a wonderful guy when I see him at conferences—but this seems as if it might be quite useful when I turn to metalanguage/metalinguistic issues in the future.

Hmmm. “Instantiation, essentially, is a generic term for the phenomenon of realization in time. Other terms are associated with the concept, but with more problematic overtones in their definitions” (1).

Saturday, 10 May 2008

Being 13 years on this seems an odd piece on one level. On another it is the words of a pioneer and leader looking to the future with a long career behind him. In 16 pages it runs the gamut from libraries, information jungle, “three-minute attention span of attention,” creativity, serendipity, predictive power of science, reflection, interrelations between media, facet analysis, data, information, knowledge, wisdom, and much more.

This can be read so many ways. And it needs to be read generously. I have objections to much of the phrasings, even outright to some of his ideas. But I also love parts of it. I’m going to take it as a moment in time versus some tightly argued thesis as I agree with most of what I take, anyway, to be his major arguments.

Sunday, 18 Nov

Norman, Richard. “Holy Communion.” Eurozine [First published in New Humanist 6/2007].

Discusses New Wave Atheism and how it is aggressively antagonistic to religion, which is the wrong way to proceed. I most certainly agree with this.

When recent books by Dawkins, Hitchens and others began coming out I was excited at first. It was good to see that intellectuals were once again engaging with the issues of the day. But as soon as the reviews started appearing I was more appalled than anything. The overly simplistic argumentation, the selective choice of examples, and the tack taken was wrong, for many reasons.

I am what many would call an atheist. I much prefer the term agnostic, though, as that is the best I can epistemologically claim. If you like, I have faith that there is no god (or gods), except those which we create in our own likeness. But I cannot know this.

Whatever our beliefs, be they atheism, humanism, Hinduism, Catholicism, some form of Protestantism, Islamism, etc., we are all in the same boat. Many of us have the same beliefs and goals about how others ought to be treated or how the world could be. We need to work together toward these. Clearly, there are differences between people and groups of people, but aggressive differentiation serves no useful purpose.

Hjørland, Birger and Jeppe Nicolaisen. “Bradford’s Law of Scattering: Ambiguities in the Concept of “Subject.” In F. Crestani and I. Ruthven (Eds.). CoLIS 2005: Context: Nature, Impact, and Role; Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3507: 96-105.

Hjørland, Birger. “Towards a Theory of Aboutness, Subject, Topicality, Theme, Domain, Field, Content . . . and Relevance.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 52.9 (2001): 774-778.

Sunday – Tuesday, 18 – 20 Nov

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

• Ch. 4: The Concept of Subject or Subject Matter and Basic Epistemological Positions

Monday, 19 Nov

Harris, Roy. The Language Connection: Philosophy and Linguistics. Bristol, U.K: Thoemmes Press, 1996. [Re-reading]

• Ch. 8: Metalinguistic Improvements
• Ch. 9: Metalinguistic Mistakes
• Ch. 10: Metalinguistic Illusions

Monday – Tuesday, 19 – 20 Nov

Hjorland, Birger. “Information Retrieval, Text Composition, and Semantics.” Knowledge Organization 25.1/2 (1998): 16-31.

Argues for a broader—and different—view of semantics within LIS. Primarily contrasts Wittgenstein’s early “picture theory” with his later “theory of language games,” but has several useful touchpoints for shifting to a more integrationist theory.

Tuesday, 20 Nov

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

• Postscript

Tallis, Raymond. Escape from Eden. New Humanist 118(4), Nov/Dec 2003. Found via The End of Cyberspace blog.

I know what I said—and I stand by it—about link posts but I’ve gotten more interesting links from Alex Soojung-Kim Pang’s link posts than everyone else combined.

By the way librarians, have you seen his post from 17 Nov, “Libraries as space 2.0…and early indicators of social IT trends?” He ends with the following:

But if I’m not mistaken, librarians started talking about information commons around 2001– well before Friendster, LinkedIn, and all the rest of Web 2.0 happened. I wonder what librarians are talking about these days?

Perhaps some of you can help him out with that question.

From the Tallis article which is a discussion of how it is that humans are more than just the animals that we are.

Criticising the language of the biologisers is not, however, enough. Defenders of human exceptionalism must, given our undoubted biological origins, find a ‘biological’ basis for our unique escape from biology and a ‘biological’ explanation of how we acquired the ability to run our lives — as opposed to being run by genes that happen to delude us into believing that we are running our lives. Given the relative triviality of the genotypical and phenotypical differences between ourselves and our closest primate cousins, this may seem a tall order.

Harris, Roy. Language, Saussure and Wittgenstein: How to Play Games with Words. London and New York: Routledge, 1988.

• Ch. 1: Texts and Contexts (Tue)
• Ch. 2: Names and Nomenclatures (Tue-Wed)
• Ch. 3: Linguistic Units (Thu)
• Ch. 4: Language and Thought (Fri AM)
• Ch. 5: Systems and Users (Fri)
• Ch. 6: Arbitrariness (Fri)
• Ch. 7: Grammar (Sat)
• Ch. 8: Variation and Change (Sat)
• Ch. 9: Communication (Sat)
• Ch. 10: Language and Science (Sat)

Despite the differences between Saussure’s and Wittgenstein’s later thoughts on language they are remarkably similar. In this book, Harris explicates the games analogy that both used.

Saturday, 24 Nov

Winograd, Terry and Fernando Flores. Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design. Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley, 1987.

• Ch. 1: Introduction.
• Ch. 2: The rationalistic tradition.
• Ch. 3: Understanding and Being.
• Ch. 4: Cognition as a biological phenomenon.

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

Originally read 18 June 2007 because it was cited by Zhang, J. (2007). Ontology and the Semantic Web. Proceedings of the North American Symposium on Knowledge Organization. Vol. 1. Available: http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu/1897

Re-read 28-29 Sep 2007 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 will not be explicating this article as such here. I am going to use this post to note some of the points of contact that I noticed between Hjørland’s thoughts and Integrationism, to record and ask questions that I had and need to find an answer for, etc.

Semantics and Its “Warrant”

Theories of semantics should be formulated in ways that provide methodological implications for determining meanings and relations in semantic tools such as thesauri and semantic networks. Often such theories are not clear; this renders the theories vague and unhelpful (377).

What does i.v. say on this?

Frohmann (1983) has discussed the semantic bases and theoretical principles of some classification system. His is one of the few papers in IS to recognize that problems in classification should be seen as problems related to semantic theories (378).

Read this 19 June 2007; re-read this for an i.v. angle?

Frohmann presents two semantic theories. … According to the second, the categories to which a concept belongs must be found in the specific literature or discourse of which the associated term is a part. Consequently, the semantic relations are not given a priori, but are formulated a posteriori. This distinction has implications for classification theory (378).

Oh boy, does it ever?

Thus, a basic problem in KO is whether semantic relations are a priori or a posteriori; … (378).

This question is also related to one about the possibility of universal solutions to KO because a posteriori relations are unlikely to be universal (379).

Is there a way to incorporate both? How would be go about truly trying to incorporate a posteriori relationships?

However, it is well known that, for example, synonyms are seldom synonyms in all contexts. It thus becomes important not to think of semantic relations as simply “given,” but to ask: When are two concepts A and B to be considered synonyms ( or homonyms or otherwise semantically related?) When is a semantic relation? We should again ask the pragmatist question: What difference does it make whether, in a given situation, we choose to consider A and B as semantically related in a specific way? (379, emphases mine).

This certainly made me think of Harris (1973). What is the i.v. on “When is a semantic relation?”?

Short discussion of Ogden and Richard’s (1923) triangle of meaning/semiotic triangle (379-380). Where did I see Harris’ take on this?

Hjørland then goes on to discuss “some theoretical possibilities about the nature of concepts and semantic relations: (379):

• Query/situation specific or idiosyncratic
• Universal, Platonic entities/relations
• “Deep semantics” common to all languages (or inherent in cognitive structures)
• Specific to specific empirical languages (e.g., Swedish)
• Domain- or discourse-specific
• Other (e.g., determined by a company or workgroup, “user-oriented”)

Concerning Query/Situation-Specific or Idiosyncratic Semantics

In a way, it is the specific “information need” that determines which relations are fruitful and which are not in a given search session. A semantic relation that increases recall and precision in a given search [is a mighty powerful relationship!] is relevant in that situation (380-381, plus my commentary).

The pragmatic fallback is well represented in this quote:

This pragmatist point of departure is important to keep in mind in developing a theory of concepts and semantics. Semantic relations relate to a given task or situation and not all users of a given set of semantic relations will share the same view of which terms are equivalent. On the other hand, it is clear that if we base a semantic theory on an individual/idiosyncratic view of concepts and semantics, it is not possible to design systems for more than one user or situation—an absurd conclusion. We need more stable principles on which to determine semantic relations. We need a semantic theory about the meaning of words as forms of typified practices. Knowledge about semantics in typified practices may then be used by information searchers in order to include or exclude certain documents (381).

Concerning Universal, Platonic Entities/Relations

Not much to say here. Is a very short section. I will be looking at the following articles, both of which are in AKO 8:

Green, Rebecca. “Conceptual Universals in Knowledge Organization and Representation” (15-27) and Green, Rebecca, Carol A. Bean and Michèle Hudon, “Universality and Basic Level Concepts” (311-317).

I’ll also be looking at both Green, et. al. books on relationships for a refresh. You all didn’t think I had forgotten about Dr. Green, did you?

Concerning “Deep Semantics” Common to All Languages or Inherent in Cognitive Structures (A Priori Relations)

Semantic primitives in concept theory and in IS. Innate ideas (rationalistic) in semantics, facet-analytic tradition (Ranganathan) and formal concept analysis (Priss).

Although this rationalist theory dominates the literature (and is associated with the cognitive view), I do not find it fruitful for KO (384).

More talk about science, what is his view on KO in non-science areas?

Concerning Semantics Specific to Given Empirical Languages

Natural languages are structures in which the words classify the world differently (384).

Hjelmslev’s “tree” chart.

Concerning Domain- or Discourse-Specific Semantics

Although objects have objective properties, representation of those properties in languages and concepts is always more or less “subjective” or “biased” by individuals, social groups, or different cultures (385).

Objects may well have subjective properties also.

The implication is that semantic relations reflect human interests. … This does not imply that all semantic relations are domain-specific (385).

Certainly does not.

Goes on to show that we need to evaluate the literatures of specific domains or discourses to identify and analyze the different methodologies and assumptions made as an aid to determining meaning.

In this way, meanings are linked to different views, interests, and goals; accordingly, terms can be generally considered polysemous. [en 7] Attempts to standardize terminology may unwittingly suppress certain views (387).

Or wittingly suppress. See early Harris on standardization. Is also a comment on definitions and definitional change. Endnote 7 is a comment on the German tradition of Begriffsgeschichte, discussed in the section on semantic relations (en7, 396). [Need to look at this.]

Aspergum vs. Ecotrin vs. aspirin = i.v., circumstantial.

The implication of different paradigms for KO and semantics is that any bibliography of a certain size must confront conflicting ways of defining concepts and determining semantic relations (388).

There is a trade-off between being an optimal tool for the information seeker and a practical tool for the library manager. For the theory of IS, it is nonetheless important to describe the principles of designing optimal search tools (388-389). [the pragmatic fallback]

The point is that the kind of information presented here is necessary for any informed decision about classification practice. Exactly the same kind of information would be helpful for the information seeker … (389). [the macrosocial feeding the circumstantial]

Perhaps the most important task of the information professional is to make the different interests and paradigms visible so that the user can make an informed choice (390). [How does this fit within an i.v.?]

Other Kinds of Warrant

Discusses Beghtol’s (1986) article on warrant. But what about “user warrant” (390)? [Have another read of Beghtol]

Mentions oral and written sources.

Semantic Relations

Relations between concepts. senses, or meanings should not be confused with relations between the terms, words, expressions, or signs that are used to express the concepts. It is, however, common to mix both of these kinds of relations under the heading “semantic relations” (see references omitted). For this reason, synonyms, homonyms, and so forth, are considered under the label “semantic relations” in this chapter (391).

Amen! But much harder in practice to keep these straight or even to see the difference. [See preceding paragraphs to the above quote for some explication.]

On the call for richer sets of relationships in our tools and a a critique of the recall/precision view of IR:

What information searchers need are maps that inform them about the world (and the literature about that world) in which they live and act (393).

Begriffsgeschichte (is this idea of use to me?) = conceptual history.

Historians and other humanistic researchers have realized that in order to use sources from a given period, one must know what the terms meant at the time. Therefore, they have developed impressive historical dictionaries that provide detailed information about conceptual developments within different domains, … (393).

Implication of broadening the view within IS to use important work on semantic relations is that “different domains need different kinds of semantic tools displaying different kinds of semantic relations” (393). Well, this actually follows from much of the previous discussion, but this view implies that we need to look more broadly.

The “Intellectual” Versus the Social Organization of Knowledge

On citations are semantic relations:

I hold that the citing relation is in itself a kind of semantic relation. In support of this claim, I distinguish between “ontological” and social semantic relations and argue that citing relations belong to the latter (394).

Discusses further the difference between and uses of these.

Conclusion

The pragmatist view of semantics suggests that words and expressions are tools for interaction and their meanings are their functions within the interaction, constituting their capacities to serve it in their distinctive ways. [Integrationist] When information professionals classify documents or informational objects, the relevant meanings and properties are available only on the basis of some descriptions. This important consideration, … , stands in opposition to the prevailing implicit assumption that all relevant properties are obvious to the information specialists and that the latter follow certain given principles providing an optimal classification that is objective, neutral, and universal—hence, technically efficient (395, emphases mine).

I am not going to argue that no one thinks that way—some do—but I sure would like to put them to work on some real world projects so they can quickly learn the folly of their blindered thinking.

Traditional approaches to KO have a tighter affiliation with positivism than with the pragmatist view of semantics. … The implication is that traditional views have provided solutions that are, at best, statistical averages and thus sub-optimal (396).

No disagreement from me on this one. In fact, one could say that first sentence is what is driving me to this topic in the first place, urgently prodded along by the works of Roy Harris. And while I agree with the second sentence, what corners will need to be cut due to the pragmatic fallback? Hjørland has pointed to this himself several times in this paper; see above in a couple of places.

This is a very good paper, despite all my questioning of it. I will be spending more time with it I can assure you as it will most likely serve as a cornerstone of my CAS project. I agree with the vast majority of it, and several months back, before I had read so much Harris and related integrationist critiques, I accepted even more of it.

Citations from within this Hjørland paper:

Beghtol, C. (1986). Semantic validity: Concepts of warrant in bibliographic classification systems. Library Resources & Technical Services, 30 109-125.

Frohmann, B. P. (1983). An investigation of the semantic bases of some theoretical principles of classification proposed by Austin and the CRG. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 4: 11-27.

External citations:

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

López-Huertas, Mariá, and International Society for Knowledge Organization. Challenges in knowledge representation and organization for the 21st century : integration of knowledge across boundaries : proceedings of the seventh international ISKO conference, 10-13 July 2002,. Würzburg: Ergon-Verlag, 2002 [Advances in Knowledge Organization v. 8].

… 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.

Monday, 13 Aug

Wilson, Patrick. “Situational relevance.” Information Storage and Retrieval 9 (1973): 457-471.

Cited by Raber in The Problems of Information, ch. 9, en13, p. 186 for the whole article in support of:

While many people, for example, may share the same problem or at least the same kind of problem, it does not mean that the same information will be useful to each of them in exactly the same way. As a result, relevance must be regarded as individual and situational, depending on the user’s perceptions, concerns, preferences, current state of kowledge, and view of his or her situation (186).

I like a lot about this view of relevance, except for its reliance on question answering. Perhaps parts of this view can be used while expanding beyond the question answering, but probably not without throwing out the question answering logical basis. I am unsure whether the logical basis is supposed to be prior to, or whether it is, or could be, after-the-fact. I feel that it should be, primarily, after-the-fact, that is, the sort of post hoc conditionals that I was complaining about last week.

Froehlich, Thomas J. “Relevance Reconsidered—Towards an Agenda for the 21st Century: Introduction to Special Topic Issue on Relevance Research.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science 45, April 1994: 124-134.

This is the intro to a special issue on relevance research. This article and many of those comprising this issue are cited by Raber in ch. 9. This article in end notes 11, 14 and 22.

Sets a good stage for the articles in the special issue, and serves as a good summary itself. Worth a read by itself.

Priss, Uta. “Formal Concept Analysis in Information Science.” In Cronin, Blaise, ed. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST) 40, 2006. Sorry, can’t give a full citation since I read a draft version and it’s 11:30 PM, but I verified it here.

I read this due to something my advisor pointed me at but I sure hope this isn’t what she meant. She’s on a very well deserved vacation so I’ll have to wait a few more days to find out. [As I suspected, it was not.]

I have no doubt that this technique can be useful but it just perpetuates many of the things that I am beginning to see as wrong with what we do in LIS. Just because something can be done easily in a computer is not a good reason to do it that way. And, honestly, the mathematicalization of language and concepts is just too much.

Formal concepts in FCA can be seen as a mathematical formalization of what has been called the “classical theory of concepts” in psychology/philosophy, which states that a concept is formally definable via its features (draft 11).

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).

Ugh!

Svenonius, Elaine. “Reference vs. Added Entries.” [link] Paper presented at Authority Control in the 21st Century: An Invitational Conference, Dublin, OH, March 31-April 1, 1996. [originally read 11 May 2007].

Directly suggested to me by Bryan Clark Campbell [Sorry, Bryan. Losing my mind.]. I just wish this paper didn’t end in the “middle.” Not sure how much is really missing, but it clearly ends abruptly.

Tuesday – Wednesday, 14 – 15 Aug

Raber, Douglas. The Problem of Information: An Introduction to Information Science. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press, 2003.

Ch. 10. on “Information as a Social Phenomenon.”

Wednesday, 15 Aug

Jin, Qiang. “Eliminating redundant entries in bibliographic records.” Library Collections, Acquisitions, & Technical Services 29 (2005): 412-424.

Also suggested by Bryan Campbell along the same lines as Svenonius, that is, pulling apart the function of references vs. added entries.

Thursday, 16 Aug

Ellis, David. “The Physical and Cognitive Paradigms in Information Retrieval Research.” Journal of Documentation 48 (1), March 1992: 45-64.

Cited by Raber, ch. 9 en15, regarding the physical and cognitive paradigms not exhausting the ways in which to think about information as a theoretical object.

I guess I should add that I read a little of David Bade’s The Theory and Practice of Bibliographic Failure, Or, Misinformation in the Information Society each day. I guess you could label it my “bus ride” book, although I do read it on a few other occasions. One shouldn’t rush through a book on errors, though, it seems to me. T’would be an error; would it not?

Friday – Saturday, 17 – 18 Aug

Frohmann, Bernd. “The Power of Images: A Discourse Analysis of the Cognitive Viewpoint.” Journal of Documentation 48 (4), December 1992: 365-386.

OMG! If only Raber could write like this. At least he cited it 4 times in ch. 10.

Lots of connection to Dr. Richard Stivers’ work and the things I did with him. Will have to go back and re-read a few things of his.

This is an incredible analysis of the cognitive viewpoint in LIS.

Highly recommended, but you really ought to read up a bit on the cognitive viewpoint first. Frohmann does outline it, of course, but in a fairly cursory way. I would not have been as impressed with the analysis if I hadn’t already had a good idea of what was being critiqued.

Saturday, 18 Aug

Robertson, S. E. “Between Aboutness and Meaning.” The Analysis of meaning : informatics 5 : proceedings of a conference held by the Aslib Informatics Group and the BCS Information Retrieval Specialist Group, 26-28 March 1979, The Queen’s College, Oxford. Maxine MacCafferty and Kathleen Gray, eds. London : Aslib, 1979: 202-205.

Cited by Raber, ch. 7, “Representation of Information,” en5, p. 133. “On one hand we can say that the purpose of information retrieval systems has little to do with answering questions, satisfying needs, or even resolving anomalous states of knowledge. Rather, its ultimate purpose is to retrieve texts that will help users of the system do these things.”

This is what this short paper claims, but I’m thinking this is a bit narrow. Perhaps it is because I am, in a sense, inside the system, but I often use our systems as a typical user and as a cataloger (another kind of user) to do just that. I frequently look up a surrogate of an item (on the web and in the OPAC) to answer a question, satisfy a need, and/or resolve an ASK. I have no real desire in the document itself sometimes, just in a specific piece of metadata about it. For instance, I may look up a record of an item so I can import it into Zotero. Or, I may need to know if we have a previous edition of an item so I can assign the same call no. Or, do we have another item on this topic by the same author so I begin with the same cutter. In these cases, I could care less about retrieving the item itself.

As we expand our concept of information retrieval systems beyond the idea of an OPAC and databases these sorts of examples should proliferate. How about it? Can anyone think of any other examples of using an IR system (typical library or web 2.0 or otherwise) in a more direct fashion? That is, not to retrieve the document or text but to answer the question directly, resolve an ASK, etc.

Looking something up in Wikipedia fails as one is retrieving a document there. I guess one could argue that the surrogate that I retrieve in the OPAC is also a document. Sure. In one sense, I agree. But I think that’s fundamentally different than a Wikipedia article, say. And I think if I let the above view off the hook so easily then we are unnecessarily restricting our vision of what an IR system can be and be used for.

Any thoughts?

Sunday, 5 Aug

Gnoli, Claudio. “Progress in synthetic classification: Towards a unique definition of concepts.” UDC Seminar: The Hague: 4-5 June 2007. Preprint of the paper published in Extensions & corrections to the UDC, 29, 2007. Available at dLIST.

Tuesday, 7 Aug

Miksa, Shawne. “You Need My Metadata: Demonstrating the Value of Library Cataloging (A Response to the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control). pdf

Rest of week, read more in both:

Raber, Douglas. The Problem of Information: An Introduction to Information Science. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press, 2003.

Bade, David W. The Theory and Practice of Bibliographic Failure, Or, Misinformation in the Information Society. City of the Red Hero [Ulaanbaatar]: Chuluunbat, 2004.

Saturday, 11 Aug

Hjørland, Birger. “Information: Objective or Subjective/Situational?” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 58 (10): 1448-1456, 2007.

An interesting article, which consists primarily of showing that the view of information put forward by Marcia Bates in two recent articles is ill-suited to LIS.

It seems JASIST is also slipping into weak editing. So far it is minor, and I hope it doesn’t go any further. [Found a bit more in the next article I read today from JASIST. ]

Also good in that it influenced me to track down many of its citations. Yay! I love productive sources.

I have one gripe with something Hjørland writes. Honestly, though, it is something I am noticing in lots of places lately. Raber is prolific at it, particularly in his ch. 9 on relevance. I had intended to critique that chapter but may let it go in the spirit of vacationing.

Here is the quote from Hjørland:

To say about something that it is informative means that this thing may answer a question for somebody. The informativeness is thus a relation between the question and the thing. No thing is inherently informative. To consider something information is thus always to consider it as informative in relation to some possible questions (1451, emphasis in original).

No! No! No! No!

I agree with everything in those statements except the reliance on question answering. Information does not only answer questions and may, in fact, often only generate them. It also “does” other things. Information may impact us, it affects us, it may even change us, and it can answer questions, and/or generate them.

Perhaps Hjørland only means that a post hoc conditional can be constructed along the lines of, “If P had had this question, then this information would have answered it.” These sorts of post hoc conditionals could be constructed for the other things information “does” in my view, also. But they are wrong and useless. At best, they confuse the matter as to what kind of theoretical entity information is. They are philosophical child’s play and serve no useful function in the kind of analysis we need. I am not claiming that they are not useful constructs in other situations and/or arenas.

I do not think Hjørland means this, though, as it would seem to run counter to some of the arguments I have seen him make. I also (like to) imagine that he would agree with an expanded role for information than just answering questions. Thus, despite the natural tendency to collapse nuances, and the limited space in a peer-reviewed journal article, can we please not do this when the point is to explicate the concept itself?

Raber (see above) does something similar at one point in his chapter on relevance (ch. 9):

At this point, from the perspective of a user of information, the conceptual distinction between relevance and pertinence breaks down. Information is either useful or it isn’t (186, emphasis mine).

No! No! No! I do agree with his analysis of the break down between relevance and pertinence for the user. I do not agree, though, that, even from the user’s perspective, information is either useful or not.

What possible definition of “useful” could one possibly be using that is this broad? I accept that many people think that one this broad exists; I do not think there is a useful definition of “useful” that is so broad, though. [I am well aware of what I just did, but I think I can rely on you to properly parse what I meant. Isn't language lovely?]

A second issue with using this term (and probably most others one could find) is that it immediately becomes, “Useful (or whatever) from whose perspective?” Well, we were considering it from the user’s personal perspective, so …. There is much that I would personally consider as relevant to me that I would not define as “useful.” While you might use that term, and I might also in the same sort of post hoc conditional that I critiqued above, I would use a much narrower term to describe the effect, or the relevance, of the information on or to me. Perhaps one could consider such terms synonyms from a gross perspective, but that gross conflation of terms is one I find not very relevant.

I am having a hard time finding specific examples that others might accept. [One of my weaknesses which needs addressing if I am going to continue in my analytical mode....] The best I can express my point at the moment is to say that human language and psychology are both far too complex to reduce the fact that something is relevant to some individual to its being useful to them. That is, it may be anything but useful at the time and only later come to be described as useful. Perhaps, rarely, never to be so described by the said individual. Thus, any attribution of “usefulness” is made by another, which has already been shown as irrelevant to the individual user.

My argument as to broadening information past simply answering questions applies to relevance. That is, something is relevant to us if it affects us, impacts us, or changes us, and not just if we find it useful.

I think Raber actually knows this as displayed later in the same chapter.

Given what we have discussed so far, we must now ask what difference does the use of information make to me? Am I any different after its use? Note that I need not be any better off for using information for it to be relevant. In the presentation of relevance, the only issue is whether or not the use of information will change me, my situation, or both (189, emphasis mine).

By the way, I think a large part of the issue here (above) is this use of the concept of “use.” Clearly, we can often be said to use information, but I do not think all of our interactions with information can be adequately described by this concept. It is far too general a concept and, perhaps, implies intention to use. I vehemently disagree that all of our interactions with information involve intention.

Raber adds a few pages later:

If, on the other hand, the text leads me to change anything about my thinking, i.e., it makes a difference to me, then the text becomes relevant information (191).

Hmm? So are all differences to me useful differences?

I apologize if much of this thinking seems highly confused. It is. And I do not like it. But I am (have been, really) embarking on a serious quest to understand the most fundamental concepts in our field and how they “work” in reality, that is, with real individual experiencing subjects who are situated in a social (and historical and political) context.

We, as a field and as a society, have inherited some really flawed ways of viewing many things, but most importantly, for the work we do, we have a seriously flawed view of how language is employed.

Most of our fundamental concepts, and the concepts we use to talk about them, are highly complex, and confusing. Concepts such as information, relevance, aboutness and meaning that are key to what we do in LIS are a complete mess. We generally get by using them in everyday life because the implications of (minor) differences in use have little consequence, but in our field it is different. Those difference in use have almost completely stifled our field. All of these terms have objective (and/or inter-subjective) and subjective components. The same goes for use and many of the other terms we employ when talking about our core concepts.

I am currently unable to say exactly why, but I feel (and think) that these differences in use of our core theoretical concepts are today of much greater import than they were in the not too distant professional past. Something about the interaction of people and information, how much of it is available, from many more sources, shifting notions of authority and authorship, etc. are making these conceptual issues of far greater import.

I was just finishing reading Raber’s ch. 9 and was coming to the conclusion that perhaps in LIS that it is OK to talk (primarily) about the use of information, seeing as how we are dealing primarily with recorded knowledge. I still felt that was too narrow, but that perhaps we should narrow down a bit on the types of information we are really concerned with. But Raber made me regroup.

These needs then begin as something felt rather than something thought. As of now we really don’t know how or why we become conscious of and capable of articulating needs as complex as the need for information. …

Given a human reality that is necessarily constructed from the not always knowable or predictable relations between self and others, we must grant that the final goal of information seekers may be as affective as cognitive. … To be meaningful, information science must be inclusive. It must focus its attention on a wide variety of information, information users, and information use if it is to assert a legitimate claim to be a science about all information and its users (199, emphasis in original).

So perhaps library science can retreat to explicit information use (although I do not think so), but information science a la Raber cannot! I do think information science needs to rein itself in some as to what kinds of information and information use it considers its domain (see Hjørland article above for some of the ideas that make me think this). Nonetheless, both library and information science need to consider information in its non-formally recorded modes and also its interactions with individual users in a sense broader than “use.”

Fonseca, Frederico. “The Double Role of Ontologies in Information Science Research.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 58 (6): 786-793, 2007.