Joseph T. Tennis
University of Washington, Information School, Faculty Member
- University of British Columbia, Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Study, Department MemberUniversity of Washington, Textual Studies, Faculty Memberadd
- Joseph T. Tennis is a Professor and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs at the Information School of the University o... moreJoseph T. Tennis is a Professor and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs at the Information School of the University of Washington, Adjunct Professor of Linguistics, and a member of the Textual Studies faculty at UW. He was the President of the International Society for Knowledge Organization (2014-2018). He is an Associate Member of the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Study at The University of British Columbia. He has been an occasional visiting scholar at the State University of São Paulo since 2009.
He is the Managing Editor for Advances in Classification Research Online, and on the editorial board for Library Quarterly (USA), Knowledge Organization (Germany), Scire: Representación y Organización del Conocimiento (Spain), Informatio (Uruguay), and Zagadnienia Informacji Naukowej (Poland). He is also a member of the Dublin Core Usage Board (an international standards body that works toward the implementation and maintenance of interoperable metadata). He has been active in the InterPARES research project (working on digital records preservation) since 2005, and currently serves as an advisor and researcher on metadata issues.
His research has been funded by Microsoft, IMLS, and SSHRC. He holds a B.A. in Religious Studies from Lawrence University. He received his M.L.S. from Indiana University and an Sp.L.I.S. in Book History, and the Ph.D. in Information Science from the University of Washington. He works in classification theory, the ethics and aesthetics of information organization labor, the versioning of classification schemes and thesauri, subject ontogeny, information provenance, authenticity metadata, and the comparative discursive analysis of metadata creation and evaluation, including archival metadata, both contemporary and historical.edit
Aboutness ranks amongst our field’s greatest bugbears. What is a work about? How can this be known? This mirrors debates within the philosophy of language, where the concept of representation has similarly evaded satisfactory definition.... more
Aboutness ranks amongst our field’s greatest bugbears. What is a work about? How can this be known?
This mirrors debates within the philosophy of language, where the concept of representation has similarly
evaded satisfactory definition. This paper proposes that we abandon the strong sense of the word aboutness,
which seems to promise some inherent relationship between work and subject, or, in philosophical terms, between
word and world. Instead, we seek an etymological reset to the older sense of aboutness as “in the vicinity,
nearby; in some place or various places nearby; all over a surface.” To distinguish this sense in the context of
information studies, we introduce the term episemantics. The authors have each independently applied this term in slightly different contexts
and scales (Hauser 2018a; Tennis 2016), and this article presents a unified definition of the term and guidelines for applying it at the scale
of both words and works. The resulting weak concept of aboutness is pragmatic, in Star’s sense of a focus on consequences over antecedents,
while reserving space for the critique and improvement of aboutness determinations within various contexts and research programs.
The paper finishes with a discussion of the implication of the concept of episemantics and methodological possibilities it offers for
knowledge organization research and practice. We draw inspiration from Melvil Dewey’s use of physical aroundness in his first classification
system and ask how aroundness might be more effectively operationalized in digital environments.
This mirrors debates within the philosophy of language, where the concept of representation has similarly
evaded satisfactory definition. This paper proposes that we abandon the strong sense of the word aboutness,
which seems to promise some inherent relationship between work and subject, or, in philosophical terms, between
word and world. Instead, we seek an etymological reset to the older sense of aboutness as “in the vicinity,
nearby; in some place or various places nearby; all over a surface.” To distinguish this sense in the context of
information studies, we introduce the term episemantics. The authors have each independently applied this term in slightly different contexts
and scales (Hauser 2018a; Tennis 2016), and this article presents a unified definition of the term and guidelines for applying it at the scale
of both words and works. The resulting weak concept of aboutness is pragmatic, in Star’s sense of a focus on consequences over antecedents,
while reserving space for the critique and improvement of aboutness determinations within various contexts and research programs.
The paper finishes with a discussion of the implication of the concept of episemantics and methodological possibilities it offers for
knowledge organization research and practice. We draw inspiration from Melvil Dewey’s use of physical aroundness in his first classification
system and ask how aroundness might be more effectively operationalized in digital environments.
Research Interests:
This paper describes the philosophical and operational challenges to methodology in subject ontogeny research. The observation that indexing languages, comprising thesauri, classification schemes, taxonomies, and ontologies change over... more
This paper describes the philosophical and operational challenges to methodology in subject ontogeny research. The observation that indexing languages, comprising thesauri, classification schemes, taxonomies, and ontologies change over time has been a concern of the first order. The need to question the methods and aims of subject ontogeny and scheme change are second order work requiring ontological and epistemic assumptions. Operational concerns for the study of scheme change and subject ontogeny are species of one two-sided issue: isolation quantification. While some foundational issues make the study of the topic difficult, there may be some helpful techniques including phenomenology.
Metadata that is associated with either an information system or an information object for purposes of description, administration, legal requirements, technical functionality, use and usage, and preservation, plays a critical role in... more
Metadata that is associated with either an information system or an information object for purposes of description, administration, legal requirements, technical functionality, use and usage, and preservation, plays a critical role in ensuring the creation, management, preservation and use and re-use of trustworthymaterials, including records. Recordkeeping1 metadata, of which one key type is archival description, plays a particularly important role in documenting the reliability and authenticity of records and recordkeeping systemsas well as the various contexts (legal-administrative, provenancial, procedural, documentary, and technical) within which records are created and kept as they move across space and time. In the digital environment, metadata is also the means by which it is possible to identify how record components – those constituent aspects of a digital record that may be managed, stored and used separately by the creator or the preserver – can be reassembled to generate an authentic copy of a record or reformulated per a user’s request as a customized output package.
Issues relating to the creation, capture, management and preservation of adequate metadata are, therefore, integral to any research study addressing the reliability and authenticity of digital entities, regardless of the community, sector or institution within which they are being created. The InterPARES 2 Description Cross-Domain Group (DCD) examined the conceptualization, definitions, roles, and current functionality of metadata and archival description in terms of requirements generated by InterPARES 12. Because of the needs to communicate the work of InterPARES in a meaningful way across not only other disciplines, but also different archival traditions; to interface with, evaluate and inform existing standards, practices and other research projects; and to ensure interoperability across the three focus areas of InterPARES2, the Description Cross-Domain also addressed its research goals with reference to wider thinking about and developments in recordkeeping and metadata.
InterPARES2 addressed not only records, however, but a range of digital information objects (referred to as “entities” by InterPARES 2, but not to be confused with the term “entities” as used in metadata and database applications) that are the products and by-products of government, scientific and artistic activities that are carried out using dynamic, interactive or experiential digital systems. The nature of these entities was determined through a diplomatic analysis undertaken as part of extensive case studies of digital systems that were conducted by the InterPARES 2 Focus Groups. This diplomatic analysis established whether the entities identified during the case studies were records, non-records that nevertheless raised important concerns relating to reliability and authenticity, or “potential records.” To be determined to be records, the entities had to meet the criteria outlined by archival theory – they had to have a fixed documentary format and stable content. It was not sufficient that they be considered to be or treated as records by the creator. “Potential records” is a new construct that indicates that a digital system has the potential to create records upon demand, but does not actually fix and set aside records in the normal course of business. The work of the Description Cross-Domain Group, therefore, addresses the metadata needs for all three categories of entities.
Finally, since “metadata” as a term is used today so ubiquitously and in so many different ways by different communities, that it is in peril of losing any specificity, part of the work of the DCD sought to name and type categories of metadata. It also addressed incentives for creators to generate appropriate metadata, as well as issues associated with the retention, maintenance and eventual disposition of the metadata that aggregates around digital entities over time.
Issues relating to the creation, capture, management and preservation of adequate metadata are, therefore, integral to any research study addressing the reliability and authenticity of digital entities, regardless of the community, sector or institution within which they are being created. The InterPARES 2 Description Cross-Domain Group (DCD) examined the conceptualization, definitions, roles, and current functionality of metadata and archival description in terms of requirements generated by InterPARES 12. Because of the needs to communicate the work of InterPARES in a meaningful way across not only other disciplines, but also different archival traditions; to interface with, evaluate and inform existing standards, practices and other research projects; and to ensure interoperability across the three focus areas of InterPARES2, the Description Cross-Domain also addressed its research goals with reference to wider thinking about and developments in recordkeeping and metadata.
InterPARES2 addressed not only records, however, but a range of digital information objects (referred to as “entities” by InterPARES 2, but not to be confused with the term “entities” as used in metadata and database applications) that are the products and by-products of government, scientific and artistic activities that are carried out using dynamic, interactive or experiential digital systems. The nature of these entities was determined through a diplomatic analysis undertaken as part of extensive case studies of digital systems that were conducted by the InterPARES 2 Focus Groups. This diplomatic analysis established whether the entities identified during the case studies were records, non-records that nevertheless raised important concerns relating to reliability and authenticity, or “potential records.” To be determined to be records, the entities had to meet the criteria outlined by archival theory – they had to have a fixed documentary format and stable content. It was not sufficient that they be considered to be or treated as records by the creator. “Potential records” is a new construct that indicates that a digital system has the potential to create records upon demand, but does not actually fix and set aside records in the normal course of business. The work of the Description Cross-Domain Group, therefore, addresses the metadata needs for all three categories of entities.
Finally, since “metadata” as a term is used today so ubiquitously and in so many different ways by different communities, that it is in peril of losing any specificity, part of the work of the DCD sought to name and type categories of metadata. It also addressed incentives for creators to generate appropriate metadata, as well as issues associated with the retention, maintenance and eventual disposition of the metadata that aggregates around digital entities over time.
Research Interests:
This article presents an inventory what theorists describe as the definition of domain analysis. Survey writings on and of domain analyses for their distinct attributes and arguments. Compile these components and attributes, linking them... more
This article presents an inventory what theorists describe as the definition of domain analysis. Survey writings on and of domain analyses for their distinct attributes and arguments. Compile these components and attributes, linking them to their function, and from there. Describe a proposed ideal form of domain analysis. Evidence that while the debate about the substance and form of the epistemic and ontological character of domain analysis will continue, some might find it useful to give shape to their ideas using a particular form that follows function. If our purpose is to delineate and communicate what it is that we are analyzing when we engage in domain analysis, then I hope this small contribution can be of use.
Research Interests:
Describes three units of time helpful for understanding and evaluating classificatory structures: long time (versions and states of classification schemes), short time (the act of indexing as repeated ritual or form), and micro-time... more
Describes three units of time helpful for understanding and evaluating classificatory structures: long time (versions and states of classification schemes), short time (the act of indexing as repeated ritual or form), and micro-time (where stages of the interpretation process of indexing are separated out and inventoried). Concludes with a short discussion of how time and the impermanence of classification also conjures up an artistic conceptualization of indexing, and briefly uses that to question the seemingly dominant understanding of classification practice as outcome of scientific management and assembly line thought.
Research Interests:
This paper describes three metaphors for time drawn from contemporary and historical literature on knowledge organization systems (KOS). It then links these metaphors to the evaluation of knowledge organization by describing the dominant... more
This paper describes three metaphors for time drawn from contemporary and historical literature on knowledge organization systems (KOS). It then links these metaphors to the evaluation of knowledge organization by describing the dominant paradigm in KOS evaluation to be judging whether a KOS is correct. We conclude by saying a foundational view of evaluating and theorizing about KOS must account for change and time in order for us to take a long view of improving knowledge organization and our understanding of KOS.
Research Interests:
This paper proposes a dual conception of work in knowledge organization. The first part is a conception of work as liminal, set apart from everyday work. The second is integrated, without separation. This talk is the beginning of a larger... more
This paper proposes a dual conception of work in knowledge organization. The first part is a conception of work as liminal, set apart from everyday work. The second is integrated, without separation. This talk is the beginning of a larger project where we will characterize work in knowledge organization, both as it is set out in our literature (Šauperl, 2004; Hjørland 2003 Wilson, 1968), and in a philosophical argument for its fundamental importance in the activities of society (Shera, 1972; Zandonade, 2004).
But in order to do this, we will co-opt the conception of liminality from the anthropology of religion (Turner, 1967), and Zen Buddhist conceptions of moral action, intention, and integration (Harvey, 2000 and cf., Harada, S., 2008).
The goal for this talk is to identify the acts repeated (form) and the purpose of those acts (intention), in knowledge organization, with specific regard to thresholds (liminal points) of intention present in those acts.
We can then ask the questions: Where is intention in knowledge organization liminal and where is it integrated? What are the limits of knowledge organization work when considered at a foundational level of the intention labor practices? Answering such questions, in this context, allows us to reconsider the assumptions we have about knowledge organization work and its increasingly important role in society. As a consequence, we can consider the limits of classification research if we see the foundations of knowledge organization work when we see forms and intentions. I must also say that incorporating Zen Buddhist philosophy into knowledge organization research seems like it fits well with ethics and ethical responses the practice of knowledge organization. This is because 20th Century Western interpretations of Zen are often rooted in ethical considerations. This translates easily to work.
As requested, I have tried to show in this paper that we can learn something about the limits of classification research by taking a “post-Western” view of work, practice, and perhaps even structure.
But in order to do this, we will co-opt the conception of liminality from the anthropology of religion (Turner, 1967), and Zen Buddhist conceptions of moral action, intention, and integration (Harvey, 2000 and cf., Harada, S., 2008).
The goal for this talk is to identify the acts repeated (form) and the purpose of those acts (intention), in knowledge organization, with specific regard to thresholds (liminal points) of intention present in those acts.
We can then ask the questions: Where is intention in knowledge organization liminal and where is it integrated? What are the limits of knowledge organization work when considered at a foundational level of the intention labor practices? Answering such questions, in this context, allows us to reconsider the assumptions we have about knowledge organization work and its increasingly important role in society. As a consequence, we can consider the limits of classification research if we see the foundations of knowledge organization work when we see forms and intentions. I must also say that incorporating Zen Buddhist philosophy into knowledge organization research seems like it fits well with ethics and ethical responses the practice of knowledge organization. This is because 20th Century Western interpretations of Zen are often rooted in ethical considerations. This translates easily to work.
As requested, I have tried to show in this paper that we can learn something about the limits of classification research by taking a “post-Western” view of work, practice, and perhaps even structure.
Research Interests:
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical framework, based on contemporary philosophical aesthetics, from which principled assessments of the aesthetic value of information organization frameworks may be conducted.... more
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical framework, based on contemporary philosophical aesthetics, from which principled assessments of the aesthetic value of information organization frameworks may be conducted.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper identifies appropriate discourses within the field of philosophical aesthetics, constructs from them a framework for assessing aesthetic properties of information organization frameworks. This framework is then applied in two case studies examining the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), and Sexual Nomenclature: A Thesaurus. Findings – In both information organization frameworks studied, the aesthetic analysis was useful in identifying judgments of the frameworks as aesthetic judgments, in promoting discovery of further areas of aesthetic judgments, and in prompting reflection on the nature of these aesthetic judgments. Research limitations/implications – This study provides proof-of-concept for the aesthetic evaluation of information organization frameworks. Areas of future research are identified as the role of cultural relativism in such aesthetic evaluation and identification of appropriate aesthetic properties of information organization frameworks.
Practical implications – By identifying a subset of judgments of information organization frameworks as aesthetic judgments, aesthetic evaluation of such frameworks can be made explicit and principled. Aesthetic judgments can be separated from questions of economic feasibility, functional requirements, and user-orientation. Design and maintenance of information organization frameworks can be based on these principles.
Originality/value – This study introduces a new evaluative axis for information organization frameworks based on philosophical aesthetics. By improving the evaluation of such novel frameworks, design and maintenance can be guided by these principles.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper identifies appropriate discourses within the field of philosophical aesthetics, constructs from them a framework for assessing aesthetic properties of information organization frameworks. This framework is then applied in two case studies examining the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), and Sexual Nomenclature: A Thesaurus. Findings – In both information organization frameworks studied, the aesthetic analysis was useful in identifying judgments of the frameworks as aesthetic judgments, in promoting discovery of further areas of aesthetic judgments, and in prompting reflection on the nature of these aesthetic judgments. Research limitations/implications – This study provides proof-of-concept for the aesthetic evaluation of information organization frameworks. Areas of future research are identified as the role of cultural relativism in such aesthetic evaluation and identification of appropriate aesthetic properties of information organization frameworks.
Practical implications – By identifying a subset of judgments of information organization frameworks as aesthetic judgments, aesthetic evaluation of such frameworks can be made explicit and principled. Aesthetic judgments can be separated from questions of economic feasibility, functional requirements, and user-orientation. Design and maintenance of information organization frameworks can be based on these principles.
Originality/value – This study introduces a new evaluative axis for information organization frameworks based on philosophical aesthetics. By improving the evaluation of such novel frameworks, design and maintenance can be guided by these principles.
Research Interests:
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical framework, based on contemporary philosophical aesthetics, from which principled assessments of the aesthetic value of information organization frameworks may be conducted.... more
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical framework, based on contemporary philosophical aesthetics, from which principled assessments of the aesthetic value of information organization frameworks may be conducted.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper identifies appropriate discourses within the field of philosophical aesthetics, constructs from them a framework for assessing aesthetic properties of information organization frameworks. This framework is then applied in two case studies examining the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), and Sexual Nomenclature: A Thesaurus. Findings – In both information organization frameworks studied, the aesthetic analysis was useful in identifying judgments of the frameworks as aesthetic judgments, in promoting discovery of further areas of aesthetic judgments, and in prompting reflection on the nature of these aesthetic judgments. Research limitations/implications – This study provides proof-of-concept for the aesthetic evaluation of information organization frameworks. Areas of future research are identified as the role of cultural relativism in such aesthetic evaluation and identification of appropriate aesthetic properties of information organization frameworks.
Practical implications – By identifying a subset of judgments of information organization frameworks as aesthetic judgments, aesthetic evaluation of such frameworks can be made explicit and principled. Aesthetic judgments can be separated from questions of economic feasibility, functional requirements, and user-orientation. Design and maintenance of information organization frameworks can be based on these principles.
Originality/value – This study introduces a new evaluative axis for information organization frameworks based on philosophical aesthetics. By improving the evaluation of such novel frameworks, design and maintenance can be guided by these principles.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper identifies appropriate discourses within the field of philosophical aesthetics, constructs from them a framework for assessing aesthetic properties of information organization frameworks. This framework is then applied in two case studies examining the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), and Sexual Nomenclature: A Thesaurus. Findings – In both information organization frameworks studied, the aesthetic analysis was useful in identifying judgments of the frameworks as aesthetic judgments, in promoting discovery of further areas of aesthetic judgments, and in prompting reflection on the nature of these aesthetic judgments. Research limitations/implications – This study provides proof-of-concept for the aesthetic evaluation of information organization frameworks. Areas of future research are identified as the role of cultural relativism in such aesthetic evaluation and identification of appropriate aesthetic properties of information organization frameworks.
Practical implications – By identifying a subset of judgments of information organization frameworks as aesthetic judgments, aesthetic evaluation of such frameworks can be made explicit and principled. Aesthetic judgments can be separated from questions of economic feasibility, functional requirements, and user-orientation. Design and maintenance of information organization frameworks can be based on these principles.
Originality/value – This study introduces a new evaluative axis for information organization frameworks based on philosophical aesthetics. By improving the evaluation of such novel frameworks, design and maintenance can be guided by these principles.
Research Interests:
A starting point for contributing to the greater good is to examine and interrogate existing knowledge organization practices that do harm, whether that harm is intentional or accidental, or an inherent and unavoidable evil. As part of... more
A starting point for contributing to the greater good is to examine and interrogate existing knowledge organization practices that do harm, whether that harm is intentional or accidental, or an inherent and unavoidable evil. As part of the transition movement, the authors propose to inventory the manifestations and implications of the production of suffering by knowledge organization systems through constructing a taxonomy of harm. Theoretical underpinnings guide ontological commitment, as well as the recognition of the problem of harm in knowledge organization systems. The taxonomy of harm will be organized around three main questions: what hap- pens?, who participates?, and who is affected and how? The aim is to heighten awareness of the violence that classifications and naming practices carry, to unearth some of the social conditions and motivations that contribute to and are reinforced by knowledge organization systems, and to advocate for intentional and ethical knowledge organization practices to achieve a minimal level of harm.
Research Interests:
This paper considers the ethical concerns that surface around hierarchy as structure in knowledge organization systems. In order to do this, I consider the relationship between semantics and structure and argue for a separation of the... more
This paper considers the ethical concerns that surface around hierarchy as structure in knowledge organization systems. In order to do this, I consider the relationship between semantics and structure and argue for a separation of the two in design and critique of knowledge organization systems. The paper closes with an argument that agency and intention, as ethical concerns in knowledge organization, lead us to argue for a neutral stance on hierarchy.
Research Interests:
Both basic and applied research on the construction, implementation, maintenance, and evaluation of classification schemes is called classification theory. If we employ Ritzer’s metatheoretical method of analysis on the over one-hundred... more
Both basic and applied research on the construction, implementation, maintenance, and evaluation of classification schemes is called classification theory. If we employ Ritzer’s metatheoretical method of analysis on the over one-hundred year-old body of literature, we can see categories of theory emerge. This paper looks at one particular part of knowledge organization work, namely classification theory, and asks 1) what are the contours of this intellectual space, and, 2) what have we produced in the theoretical reflection on constructing, implementing, and evaluating classification schemes? The preliminary findings from this work are that classification theory can be separated into three kinds: foundational classification theory, first-order classification theory, and second-order classification theory, each with its own concerns and objects of study.
Research Interests:
This paper provides rationale for considering precepts for an engaged knowledge organization based on a Buddhist conception of intentional action. Casting knowledge organization work as craft, this paper employs Žižek’s conception of... more
This paper provides rationale for considering precepts for an engaged knowledge organization based on a Buddhist conception of intentional action. Casting knowledge organization work as craft, this paper employs Žižek’s conception of violence in language as a call to action. The paper closes with a listing of precepts for an engaged knowledge organization.
Research Interests:
Examines the limitations of the dynamic theory of classification in accommodating the changes and rapid growth of new topics in the universe of knowledge. Change in an analytico-synthetic scheme for classification is much more a web of... more
Examines the limitations of the dynamic theory of classification in accommodating the changes and rapid growth of new topics in the universe of knowledge. Change in an analytico-synthetic scheme for classification is much more a web of connections and mapping these changes is a complex process. Suggests that there is need for exploration of this complexity for both improving systems, and revisiting our theory.
Research Interests:
Knowledge organization (KO) research is a field of scholarship concerned with the design, study and critique of the processes of organizing and representing documents that societies see as worthy of preserving (Tennis, 2008). In this... more
Knowledge organization (KO) research is a field of scholarship concerned with the design, study and critique of the processes of organizing and representing documents that societies see as worthy of preserving (Tennis, 2008). In this context we are concerned with the relationship between language and action.
On the one hand, we are concerned with what language can and does do for our knowledge organization systems (KOS). For example, how do the words NEGRO or INDIAN work in historical and contemporary indexing languages? In relation to this, we are also concerned with how we know about knowledge organization (KO) and its languages. On the other hand, we are concerned with how to act given this knowledge. That is, how do we carry out research and how do we design, implement, and evaluate KO systems?
It is important to consider these questions in the context of our work because we are delegated by society to disseminate cultural memory. We are endowed with a perspective, prepared by an education, and granted positions whereby society asks us to ensure that documentary material is accessible to future generations. There is a social value in our work, and as such there is a social imperative to our work. We must act with good conscience, and use language judiciously, for the memory of the world is a heavy burden.
In this paper, I explore these two weights of language and action that bear down on KO researchers. I first summarize what extant literature says about the knowledge claims we make with regard to KO practices and systems. To make it clear what it is that I think we know, I create a schematic that will link claims (language) to actions in advising, implementing, or evaluating information practices and systems.
I will then contrast this with what we do not know, that is, what the unanswered questions might be (Gnoli, 2008 ; Dahlberg, 2011), and I will discuss them in relation to the two weights in our field of KO.
Further, I will try to provide a systematic overview of possible ways to address these open questions in KO research. I will draw on the concept of elenchus - the forms of epistemology, theory, and methodology in KO (Tennis, 2008), and framework analysis which are structures, work practice, and discourses of KO systems (Tennis, 2006). In so doing, I will argue for a Neopragmatic stance on the weight of language and action in KO (Rorty, 1982 ; 2000).
I will close by addressing the lacuna left in Neopragmatic thought – the ethical imperative to use language and action in a particular good and moral way. That is, I will address the ethical imperative of KO given its weights, epistemologies, theories, and methods. To do this, I will review a sample of relevant work on deontology in both western and eastern philosophical schools (e.g., Harvey, 1995).
The perspective I want to communicate in this section is that the good in carrying out KO research may begin with epistemic stances (cf., language), but ultimately stands on ethical actions. I will present an analysis describing the micro and the macro ethical concerns in relation to KO research and its advice on practice. I hope this demonstrates that the direction of epistemology, theory, and methodology in KO, while burdened with the dual weights of language and action, is clear when provided an ethical sounding board. We know how to proceed when we understand how our work can benefit the world.
KO is an important, if not always understood, division of labor in a society that values its documentary heritage and memory institutions. Being able to do good requires us to understand how to balance the weights of language and action. We must understand where we stand and be able to chart a path forward, one that does not cause harm, but adds value to the world and those that want to access recorded knowledge.
On the one hand, we are concerned with what language can and does do for our knowledge organization systems (KOS). For example, how do the words NEGRO or INDIAN work in historical and contemporary indexing languages? In relation to this, we are also concerned with how we know about knowledge organization (KO) and its languages. On the other hand, we are concerned with how to act given this knowledge. That is, how do we carry out research and how do we design, implement, and evaluate KO systems?
It is important to consider these questions in the context of our work because we are delegated by society to disseminate cultural memory. We are endowed with a perspective, prepared by an education, and granted positions whereby society asks us to ensure that documentary material is accessible to future generations. There is a social value in our work, and as such there is a social imperative to our work. We must act with good conscience, and use language judiciously, for the memory of the world is a heavy burden.
In this paper, I explore these two weights of language and action that bear down on KO researchers. I first summarize what extant literature says about the knowledge claims we make with regard to KO practices and systems. To make it clear what it is that I think we know, I create a schematic that will link claims (language) to actions in advising, implementing, or evaluating information practices and systems.
I will then contrast this with what we do not know, that is, what the unanswered questions might be (Gnoli, 2008 ; Dahlberg, 2011), and I will discuss them in relation to the two weights in our field of KO.
Further, I will try to provide a systematic overview of possible ways to address these open questions in KO research. I will draw on the concept of elenchus - the forms of epistemology, theory, and methodology in KO (Tennis, 2008), and framework analysis which are structures, work practice, and discourses of KO systems (Tennis, 2006). In so doing, I will argue for a Neopragmatic stance on the weight of language and action in KO (Rorty, 1982 ; 2000).
I will close by addressing the lacuna left in Neopragmatic thought – the ethical imperative to use language and action in a particular good and moral way. That is, I will address the ethical imperative of KO given its weights, epistemologies, theories, and methods. To do this, I will review a sample of relevant work on deontology in both western and eastern philosophical schools (e.g., Harvey, 1995).
The perspective I want to communicate in this section is that the good in carrying out KO research may begin with epistemic stances (cf., language), but ultimately stands on ethical actions. I will present an analysis describing the micro and the macro ethical concerns in relation to KO research and its advice on practice. I hope this demonstrates that the direction of epistemology, theory, and methodology in KO, while burdened with the dual weights of language and action, is clear when provided an ethical sounding board. We know how to proceed when we understand how our work can benefit the world.
KO is an important, if not always understood, division of labor in a society that values its documentary heritage and memory institutions. Being able to do good requires us to understand how to balance the weights of language and action. We must understand where we stand and be able to chart a path forward, one that does not cause harm, but adds value to the world and those that want to access recorded knowledge.
Research Interests:
This article introduces the problem of collocative integ-rity present in long-lived classification schemes thatundergo several changes. A case study of the subject “eugenics” in the Dewey Decimal Classification is pre-sented to illustrate... more
This article introduces the problem of collocative integ-rity present in long-lived classification schemes thatundergo several changes. A case study of the subject “eugenics” in the Dewey Decimal Classification is pre-sented to illustrate this phenomenon. Eugenics isstrange because of the kinds of changes it undergoes. The article closes with a discussion of subject ontogenyas the name for this phenomenon and describes impli-cations for information searching and browsing
Research Interests:
Describes the position claiming that the contemporary technological, sociopolitical, and socioeconomic environment gives us pause to consider the core theory and practices of bibliography, combining bibliography of the work (in library... more
Describes the position claiming that the contemporary technological, sociopolitical, and socioeconomic environment gives us pause to consider the core theory and practices of bibliography, combining bibliography of the work (in library and information science), bibliography of the text (in textual studies and scholarly editing),and bibliography of the artifact (in book history and now digital forensics), and calls for collaborative multidisciplinary research at the intersection of these fields to ask, is there a new bibliography?
Research Interests:
Background: Academic social tagging systems, such as Connotea and CiteULike, provide researchers with a means to organize personal collections of online references with keywords(tags) and to share these collections with others. One of the... more
Background:
Academic social tagging systems, such as Connotea and CiteULike, provide researchers with a means to organize personal collections of online references with keywords(tags) and to share these collections with others. One of the side-effects of the operation of these systems is the generation of large, publicly accessible metadata repositories describing the resources in the collections. In light of the well-known expansion of information in the life sciences and the need for metadata to enhance its value, these repositories present a potentially valuable new resource for application developers. Here we characterize the current contents of two scientifically relevant metadata repositories created through social tagging. This investigation helps to establish how such socially constructed metadata might be used as it stands currently and tos uggest ways that new social tagging systems might be designed that would yield better aggregate products.
Results:
We assessed the metadata that users of CiteULike and Connotea associated with citations in PubMed with the following metrics: coverage of the document space, density of metadata (tags) per document, rates of inter-annotator agreement, and rates of agreement with MeSH indexing. CiteULike and Connotea were very similar on all of the measurements. In comparison to PubMed, document coverage and per-document metadata density were much lower for the social tagging systems. Inter-annotator agreement within the social tagging systems and the agreement between the aggregated social tagging metadata and MeSH indexing was low though the latter could be increased through voting.
Conclusion:
The most promising uses of metadata from current academic social tagging repositories will be those that find ways to utilize the novel relationships between users, tags, and documents exposed through these systems. For more traditional kinds of indexing-based applications (such as keyword-based search) to benefit substantially from socially generated metadata in the life sciences, more documents need to be tagged and more tags are needed for each document. These issues may be addressed both by finding ways to attract more users to current systems and by creating new user interfaces that encourage more collectively useful individual tagging behaviour.
Academic social tagging systems, such as Connotea and CiteULike, provide researchers with a means to organize personal collections of online references with keywords(tags) and to share these collections with others. One of the side-effects of the operation of these systems is the generation of large, publicly accessible metadata repositories describing the resources in the collections. In light of the well-known expansion of information in the life sciences and the need for metadata to enhance its value, these repositories present a potentially valuable new resource for application developers. Here we characterize the current contents of two scientifically relevant metadata repositories created through social tagging. This investigation helps to establish how such socially constructed metadata might be used as it stands currently and tos uggest ways that new social tagging systems might be designed that would yield better aggregate products.
Results:
We assessed the metadata that users of CiteULike and Connotea associated with citations in PubMed with the following metrics: coverage of the document space, density of metadata (tags) per document, rates of inter-annotator agreement, and rates of agreement with MeSH indexing. CiteULike and Connotea were very similar on all of the measurements. In comparison to PubMed, document coverage and per-document metadata density were much lower for the social tagging systems. Inter-annotator agreement within the social tagging systems and the agreement between the aggregated social tagging metadata and MeSH indexing was low though the latter could be increased through voting.
Conclusion:
The most promising uses of metadata from current academic social tagging repositories will be those that find ways to utilize the novel relationships between users, tags, and documents exposed through these systems. For more traditional kinds of indexing-based applications (such as keyword-based search) to benefit substantially from socially generated metadata in the life sciences, more documents need to be tagged and more tags are needed for each document. These issues may be addressed both by finding ways to attract more users to current systems and by creating new user interfaces that encourage more collectively useful individual tagging behaviour.
Research Interests: Information Systems, Computational Biology, Life Sciences, User Interface, Social construction, and 13 moreBiological Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, Pubmed, BMC Bioinformatics, Social Tagging, IT Value, Information Storage and Retrieval, Application development, Aggregate Productivity, Side Effect, Indexation, Internet, and Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
Introduction. We define a collection of metrics for describing and comparing sets of terms in controlled and uncontrolled indexing languages and then show how these metrics can be used to characterize a set of languages spanning... more
Introduction. We define a collection of metrics for describing and comparing sets of terms in controlled and uncontrolled indexing languages and then show how these metrics can be used to characterize a set of languages spanning folksonomies, ontologies and thesauri.
Method. Metrics for term set characterization and comparison were identified and programs for their computation implemented. These programs were then used to identify descriptive features of term sets from twenty-two different indexing languages and to measure the direct overlap between the terms.
Analysis. The computed data were analysed using manual and automated techniques including visualization, clustering and factor analysis. Distinct subsets of the metrics were sought that could be used to distinguish between the uncontrolled languages produced by social tagging systems (folksonomies) and the controlled languages produced using professional labour.
Results. The metrics proved sufficient to differentiate between instances of different languages and to enable the identification of term-set patterns associated with indexing languages produced by different kinds of information system. In particular, distinct groups of term-set features appear to distinguish folksonomies from the other languages.
Conclusions. The metrics organized here and embodied in freely available programs provide an empirical lens useful in beginning to understand the relationships that hold between different, controlled and uncontrolled indexing languages.
Method. Metrics for term set characterization and comparison were identified and programs for their computation implemented. These programs were then used to identify descriptive features of term sets from twenty-two different indexing languages and to measure the direct overlap between the terms.
Analysis. The computed data were analysed using manual and automated techniques including visualization, clustering and factor analysis. Distinct subsets of the metrics were sought that could be used to distinguish between the uncontrolled languages produced by social tagging systems (folksonomies) and the controlled languages produced using professional labour.
Results. The metrics proved sufficient to differentiate between instances of different languages and to enable the identification of term-set patterns associated with indexing languages produced by different kinds of information system. In particular, distinct groups of term-set features appear to distinguish folksonomies from the other languages.
Conclusions. The metrics organized here and embodied in freely available programs provide an empirical lens useful in beginning to understand the relationships that hold between different, controlled and uncontrolled indexing languages.
Research Interests:
Describes three tensions in the theoretical literature of indexing: chief sources of evidence indexing, process of indexing (rubrics and methods), and philosophical position of indexing scholarship. Following this exposition, we argue for... more
Describes three tensions in the theoretical literature of indexing: chief sources of evidence indexing, process of indexing (rubrics and methods), and philosophical position of indexing scholarship. Following this exposition, we argue for a change in perspective in Knowledge Organization research. Using the difference between prescriptive and descriptive linguistics as a metaphor, we advocate for a shift to a more descriptive, rather than the customary prescriptive, approach to the theoretical and empirical study of indexing, and by extension Knowledge Organization.
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This paper proposes a preliminary classification of knowledge organization research, divided amongepistemology, theory, and methodology plus three spheres of research: design, study, and critique. Thiswork is situated in a metatheoretical... more
This paper proposes a preliminary classification of knowledge organization research, divided amongepistemology, theory, and methodology plus three spheres of research: design, study, and critique. Thiswork is situated in a metatheoretical framework, drawn from sociological thought. Example works are presented along with preliminary classification. The classification is then briefly described as a comparisontool which can be used to demonstrate overlap and divergence in cognate discourses of knowledgeorganization (such as ontology engineering).
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In this article, we describe the development of an extension to the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) to accommodate the needs of vocabulary development applications (VDA) managing metadata schemes and requiring close tracking... more
In this article, we describe the development of an extension to the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) to accommodate the needs of vocabulary development applications (VDA) managing metadata schemes and requiring close tracking of change to both those schemes and their member concepts. We take a neo- pragmatic epistemic stance in asserting the need for an entity in SKOS modeling to mediate between the abstract concept and the concrete scheme. While the SKOS model sufficiently describes entities for modeling the current state of a scheme in support of indexing and search on the Semantic Web, it lacks the expressive power to serve the needs of VDA needing to maintain scheme historical continuity. We demonstrate preliminarily that conceptualizations drawn from empirical work in modeling entities in the bibliographic universe, such as works, texts, and exemplars, can provide the basis for SKOS extension in ways that support more rigorous demands of capturing concept evolution in VDA.
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This paper describes a conceptual framework and methodology for managing scheme versioning for the Semantic Web. The first part of the paper introduces the concept of vocabulary encoding schemes, distinguished from metadata schemas, and... more
This paper describes a conceptual framework and methodology for managing scheme versioning for the Semantic Web. The first part of the paper introduces the concept of vocabulary encoding schemes, distinguished from metadata schemas, and discusses the characteristics of changes in schemes. The paper then presents a proposal to use a value record–similar to a term record in thesaurus management techniques–to manage scheme versioning challenges for the Semantic Web. The conclusion identifies future research directions.
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What theoretical framework can help in building, maintaining and evaluating networked knowledge organization resources? Specifically, what theoretical framework makes sense of the semantic prowess of ontologies and peer-to-peer systems,... more
What theoretical framework can help in building, maintaining and evaluating networked knowledge organization resources? Specifically, what theoretical framework makes sense of the semantic prowess of ontologies and peer-to-peer systems, and by extension aids in their building, maintenance, and evaluation? This paper posits that a theoretical work that weds both formal and associative (structural and interpretive) aspects of knowledge organization systems provides that framework. This paper lays out the terms and the intellectual constructs that serve as the foundation for investigative work into experientialist classification theory, a theoretical framework of embodied, infrastructural, and reified knowledge organization. This paper builds on the interpretive work of scholars in information studies, cognitive semantics, sociology, and science studies. With the terms and the framework in place, this paper then outlines classification theory’s critiques of classificatory structures. In order to address these critiques with an experientialist approach an experientialist semantics is offered as a design commitment for an example: metadata in peer-to-peer network knowledge organization structures.
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This paper adds two analytical devices to domain analysis. It claims that in order for domain analysis to work cumulatively transferable definitions of domains must be written. In order to establish this definition the author provides two... more
This paper adds two analytical devices to domain analysis. It claims that in order for domain analysis to work cumulatively transferable definitions of domains must be written. In order to establish this definition the author provides two axes to consider: Areas of Modulation and Degrees of Specialization. These axes may serve as analytical devices for the domain analyst to delineate what is being studied and what is not being studied in a domain analysis.
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Subject ontogeny, the study of how subjects change or do not change during revisions of indexing languages, has added to our understanding of indexing languages through case studies. However, subject ontogeny research to date has been... more
Subject ontogeny, the study of how subjects change or do not change during revisions of indexing languages, has added to our understanding of indexing languages through case studies. However, subject ontogeny research to date has been unable to examine key functionality of indexing languages at scale. For example, how do large-scale changes to social and literary warrant affect the utility of indexing languages over time? This paper discusses concrete progress made towards studying subject ontogeny at scale and the challenges presented by studying a large-scale polyhierarchical indexing language, Wikipedia Categories. The paper presents early findings, argues for continued research on subject ontogeny at scale, and suggests possible paths forward for this research.
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Research Interests:
The MARS (Media Asset Retrieval System) Project is a collaboration between public broadcasters, libraries and schools in the Puget Sound region to assess the needs of their constituents and pool resources to develop solutions to meet... more
The MARS (Media Asset Retrieval System) Project is a collaboration between public broadcasters, libraries and schools in the Puget Sound region to assess the needs of their constituents and pool resources to develop solutions to meet those needs. The Projects ultimate goal is to create a digital online resource that will provide access to content produced by public broadcasters and libraries. The MARS Project is funded by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) Television Future Fund. Convergence Consortium The Convergence Consortium is a model for community collaboration, including representatives from public broadcasting, libraries and schools in the Puget Sound region. They meet regularly to consider collaborative efforts that will be mutually beneficial to their institutions and constituents. Specifically, the archives of public broadcasters have been identified as significant resources that can be accessed through libraries and used by schools, and integrated with text and photographic archives from other partners. Using the work-centered framework, we collected data through interviews with nine engineers and observation of their searching while they performed their regular, job-related searches on the Web. The framework was used to analyze the data on two levels: 1) the activities and organizational relationships and constrains of work domains, and 2) users cognitive and social activities and their subjective preferences during searching. ♦ Methodology The methodology we are using is the work-centered conceptual framework that has been developed by Rasmussen & Pejtersen [1] as a general approach to help information system designers analyze and understand the complex interaction between (a) the activities and organizational relationships and constraints of work domains, and (b) users cognitive and social activities and their subjective preferences during task performance [1]. The framework is the result of generalizations of experiences from field studies that led to the design of support systems for a variety of modern work domains, such as process plants, manufacturing, hospitals, and libraries. This work-centered approach to the evaluation and design of information systems assumes that information interaction is determined by a number of dimensions. To facilitate an evaluation, a framework for cognitive work analysis is constructed first. This analysis addresses dimensions such as: • the actual work environment • the work domain • task situation in terms of (a) work domain, (b) decision making, and (c) mental strategies that can be used the organization in terms of division of work and social organization • user characteristics, resources and values. Each dimension is analyzed according to four abstraction levels: goals and constraints, priorities, work process, and physical resources. The framework for system evaluation, which is based on the cognitive work analysis, answers questions such as: Does system support cooperative work and coordination? Does system support task repertoire of a work situation? Does system support relevant decision task? Are all relevant strategies supported? Does presentation match sensory characteristics? The answers to these questions are based on the data collected during the cognitive work analysis, which is primarily descriptive. Thus, cognitive work analysis is the framework for data collection, and the system evaluation is the framework for data analysis. ♦ Data Collection Web-based Questionnaire To gain an understanding of the current state of art in public radio and TV stations with regard to systems for the organization and retrieval of media assets, the Information School MARS team developed a web-based questionnaire that was sent to public broadcasting stations across the country. Walkthroughs In order to understand both the structure of a broadcast and the lifecycle of a broadcast, the MARS team visited KCTS and KUOW on multiple occasions. The objective of these meetings was to map out the steps that a media asset takes from production to broadcast to archiving, and thereby create an understanding of the lifecycle of a broadcast. These meetings provided insights into the complexity of modern broadcasting stations. They gave context to the proposed system, and prepared us for the individual interviews with KCTS and KUOW personnel. KCTS Lifecycle of a Broadcast Interviews at KCTS and KUOW We identified thirteen key people at KCTS and KUOW to interview for the project. The interviews were open-ended using an interview guide developed according to the cognitive work analysis framework. All interviews were audio taped and transcribed for subsequent analysis. Teachers One of the primary user groups identified for the proposed system is teachers in public schools. To understand the needs and requirements that teachers would have of the system, we conducted a focus group interview with six teachers. These teachers are experts in Information Technology and in a subject area, e.g., science, and their main job is to work with teachers in schools and train/help them with the use of technology in instruction. The purpose of the interview was to understand: § the level of technology used in public schools • how technology is used to support classroom instruction • how broadcast media is presently incorporated into the learning environment • how broadcasts could be used in the future when the proposed system becomes available. Further information about the MARS project is available at: We are currently in the process of analyzing the collected data from the KCTS, KUOW, and teacher interviews using the cognitive work analysis framework. The framework is used to analyze the data on two levels: 1) The activities and organizational relationships and constraints of work domains. 2) Users' cognitive and social activities and their subjective preferences during searching.
Research Interests:
The MARS (Media Asset Retrieval System) Project is the collaborative effort of public broadcasters, libraries and schools in the Puget Sound region to create a digital online resource that provides access to content produced by public... more
The MARS (Media Asset Retrieval System) Project is the collaborative effort of public broadcasters, libraries and schools in the Puget Sound region to create a digital online resource that provides access to content produced by public broadcasters via the public libraries. Convergence Consortium The Convergence Consortium is a model for community collaboration, including organizations such as public broadcasters, libraries, museums, and schools in the Puget Sound region to assess the needs of their constituents and pool resources to develop solutions to meet those needs. Specifically, the archives of public broadcasters have been identified as significant resources for the local communities and nationally. These resources can be accessed on the broadcasters websites, and through libraries and used by schools, and integrated with text and photographic archives from other partners. MARS goal Create an online resource that provides effective access to the content produced locally by KCTS (Seattle PBS affiliate) and KUOW (Seattle NPR affiliate). The broadcasts will be made searchable using the CPB Metadata Element Set (under development) and controlled vocabularies (to be developed). This will ensure a user friendly search and navigation mechanism and user satisfaction. Furthermore, the resource can search the local public library's catalog concurrently and provide the user with relevant TV material, radio material, and books on a given subject. The ultimate goal is to produce a model that can be used in cities around the country. The current phase of the project assesses the community's need, analyzes the current operational systems, and makes recommendations for the design of the resource.
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Introduction The work of knowledge organization requires a particular set of tools. For instance we need standards of content description like Anglo-American Cataloging Rules Edition 2, Resource Description and Access (RDA), Cataloging... more
Introduction The work of knowledge organization requires a particular set of tools. For instance we need standards of content description like Anglo-American Cataloging Rules Edition 2, Resource Description and Access (RDA), Cataloging Cultural Objects, and Describing Archives: A Content Standard. When we intellectualize the process of knowledge organization – that is when we do basic theoretical research in knowledge organization we need another set of tools. For this latter exercise we need constructs.
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As the universe of knowledge and subjects change over time, indexing languages like classification schemes, accommodate that change by restructuring. Restructuring indexing languages affects indexer and cataloguer work. Subjects may split... more
As the universe of knowledge and subjects change over time, indexing languages like classification schemes, accommodate that change by restructuring. Restructuring indexing languages affects indexer and cataloguer work. Subjects may split or lump together. They may disappear only to reappear later. And new subjects may emerge that were assumed to be already present, but not clearly articulated (Miksa, 1998). In this context we have the complex relationship between the indexing language, the text being described, and the already described collection (Tennis, 2007). It is possible to imagine indexers placing a document into an outdated class, because it is the one they have already used for their collection. However, doing this erases the semantics in the present indexing language. Given this range of choice in the context of indexing language change, the question arises, what does this look like in practice? How often does this occur? Further, what does this phenomenon tell us about subjects in indexing languages? Does the practice we observe in the reaction to indexing language change provide us evidence of conceptual models of subjects and subject creation? If it is incomplete, but gets us close, what evidence do we still require?
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Presents constructs from classification theory and relates them to the study of hashtags and other forms of tags in social media data. Argues these constructs are useful to the study of the intersectionality of race, gender, and... more
Presents constructs from classification theory and relates them to the study of hashtags and other forms of tags in social media data. Argues these constructs are useful to the study of the intersectionality of race, gender, and sexuality. Closes with an introduction to an historical case study from Amazon.com.
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This poster presents the authors’ work to date on developing an application profile for authenticity metadata (the IPAM, or InterPARES Authenticity Metadata), including (1) the functional requirements, (2) metadata elements derived from... more
This poster presents the authors’ work to date on developing an application profile for authenticity metadata (the IPAM, or InterPARES Authenticity Metadata), including (1) the functional requirements,
(2) metadata elements derived from the Chain of Preservation model from the InterPARES research project, (3) a crosswalk of a sample of IPAM elements to Dublin Core, PREMIS, and MoReq2010,
(4) those elements deemed essential to presume the authenticity of a record as it moves from creation to permanent preservation, and (5) next steps, integrating the application profile into the Archivematica preservation system the core elements of the application profile relating to maintaining the presumption of authenticity through preservation and access.
(2) metadata elements derived from the Chain of Preservation model from the InterPARES research project, (3) a crosswalk of a sample of IPAM elements to Dublin Core, PREMIS, and MoReq2010,
(4) those elements deemed essential to presume the authenticity of a record as it moves from creation to permanent preservation, and (5) next steps, integrating the application profile into the Archivematica preservation system the core elements of the application profile relating to maintaining the presumption of authenticity through preservation and access.
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Research Interests:
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Abstract 2003 Dublin Core Metadata Initiative Proceedings appear in both print and online form. In order to aid search and retrieval of this growing body of research a researchers at the University of Washington and Siderean Software have... more
Abstract 2003 Dublin Core Metadata Initiative Proceedings appear in both print and online form. In order to aid search and retrieval of this growing body of research a researchers at the University of Washington and Siderean Software have started a metadata thesaurus. This poster reports on those efforts.
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In this position paper, we describe how analogue recording artifacts stemming from digitalized vhs tapes such as grainy noises, ghosting, or synchronization issues can be identified at Web-scale via crowdsourcing in order to identify... more
In this position paper, we describe how analogue recording artifacts stemming from digitalized vhs tapes such as grainy noises, ghosting, or synchronization issues can be identified at Web-scale via crowdsourcing in order to identify adult content digitalized by amateurs.
The panel presents approaches to information science that are grounded in humanities, and argues that the field could be richer if it embraces humanistic approaches to information science. While the field has broadened and changed... more
The panel presents approaches to information science that are grounded in humanities, and argues that the field could be richer if it embraces humanistic approaches to information science. While the field has broadened and changed significantly since ASIST was founded 75 years ago, it is suggested that information science continues to be committed to objectivistic understandings of what is most properly involved in social scientific inquiry.
C. Vickery and S. R. Ranganathan both advanced methods of creating schemes for classification and facet analysis of documents. In his accessible and well-written 1960 text, Vickery acknowledges his debt, and indeed the debt owed by the... more
C. Vickery and S. R. Ranganathan both advanced methods of creating schemes for classification and facet analysis of documents. In his accessible and well-written 1960 text, Vickery acknowledges his debt, and indeed the debt owed by the CRG, to Ranganathan’s work. Yet, because of the time of this writing, and its purpose, we see a very different view of the theory of faceted classification from Vickery, when compared to the overall oeuvre of S. R. Ranganathan (beyond the 1967 Prolegomena). And it is Vickery’s 1960 and 1966 works, not Ranganathan’s, that are often used as the introduction to (and often the end of the education in) faceted classification and facet analysis. The question surfaces, is there more than one conception of faceted analysis and faceted classification? We must take as an assumption that neither Vickery nor Ranganathan are wrong in their conception, but what if they differ? Others have examined the question of the definition of faceted classification, often with an eye to contemporary interpretations of facet analysis, not as an explicit comparison between these two bodies of thought (e.g., La Barre, 2004; see also Axiomathes 18(2)).
There are several commonalities that obtain between Vickery and Ranganathan which can be discerned by the informed reader. For instance, there are commonalities in how Vickery and Ranganathan talk about citation order. However, Vickery’s discussion omits many details contained in Ranganathan’s. This brings us to our question. What does Vickery’s theory of faceted classification look like compared to Ranganathan’s? Does Vickery create a different theory, and hence lineage, of faceted classification in the 1960s?
In an effort to make sense of both Ranganathan’s work and Vickery’s we modeled the process involved in classification using the IDEF0 (Integrated Definition for Function Modeling) formalism. This allows us to see five distinct parts of the classification process: actions, inputs, outputs, mechanisms, and constraints. When we model theories of classification this way we can then compare them by asking whether or not they contain the same actions, inputs, outputs, mechanisms, and constraints. This allows us to see how the conceptions held by Vickery and by Ranganathan are similar, and how they are different.
This work is ongoing, but preliminary analysis shows that while there is some cross-over, Vickery’s exposition of faceted classification and facet analysis were more parsimonious than Ranganathan’s. This leaves us with questions about decision-making when proceeding through the process of facet analysis and creating schemes for faceted classification. Similarly, Ranganathan’s work is left undone (primarily with rules for interpreting postulates and principles, but there are other places as well).
We will present the findings on the modeling of these two conceptions of faceted classification and facet analysis. We propose two ways to frame this discussion: by describing 1) what commitments we make when we assume a common model of facet analysis and classification, and 2) what we assume from identifying distinct theories of faceted classification and facet analysis. We will also identify gaps in our understanding of these two conceptions, as well as, strengths and weaknesses of the modeling technique.
There are several commonalities that obtain between Vickery and Ranganathan which can be discerned by the informed reader. For instance, there are commonalities in how Vickery and Ranganathan talk about citation order. However, Vickery’s discussion omits many details contained in Ranganathan’s. This brings us to our question. What does Vickery’s theory of faceted classification look like compared to Ranganathan’s? Does Vickery create a different theory, and hence lineage, of faceted classification in the 1960s?
In an effort to make sense of both Ranganathan’s work and Vickery’s we modeled the process involved in classification using the IDEF0 (Integrated Definition for Function Modeling) formalism. This allows us to see five distinct parts of the classification process: actions, inputs, outputs, mechanisms, and constraints. When we model theories of classification this way we can then compare them by asking whether or not they contain the same actions, inputs, outputs, mechanisms, and constraints. This allows us to see how the conceptions held by Vickery and by Ranganathan are similar, and how they are different.
This work is ongoing, but preliminary analysis shows that while there is some cross-over, Vickery’s exposition of faceted classification and facet analysis were more parsimonious than Ranganathan’s. This leaves us with questions about decision-making when proceeding through the process of facet analysis and creating schemes for faceted classification. Similarly, Ranganathan’s work is left undone (primarily with rules for interpreting postulates and principles, but there are other places as well).
We will present the findings on the modeling of these two conceptions of faceted classification and facet analysis. We propose two ways to frame this discussion: by describing 1) what commitments we make when we assume a common model of facet analysis and classification, and 2) what we assume from identifying distinct theories of faceted classification and facet analysis. We will also identify gaps in our understanding of these two conceptions, as well as, strengths and weaknesses of the modeling technique.
In this paper we discuss the temporal aspects of indexing and classification in information systems. Basing this discussion off of the three sources of research of scheme change: of indexing: (1) analytical research on the types of scheme... more
In this paper we discuss the temporal aspects of indexing and classification in information systems. Basing this discussion off of the three sources of research of scheme change: of indexing: (1) analytical research on the types of scheme change and (2)empirical data on scheme change in systems and (3) evidence of cataloguer decision-making in the context of scheme change.From this general discussion we propose two constructs along which we might craft metrics to measure scheme change: collocative integrity and semantic gravity. The paper closes with a discussion of these constructs.
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In this poster, we describe a new way of conceptualizing relationships between systems for information dissemination throughout history, based on a set of basic attributes or facets. This poster illustrates one way in which these... more
In this poster, we describe a new way of conceptualizing relationships between systems for information dissemination throughout history, based on a set of basic attributes or facets. This poster illustrates one way in which these attribute-based relationships might be visualized, as a step toward illuminating novel perspectives on and comparisons between these phenomena.
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In our contemporary networked information landscape we have many different regimes of descriptive practice. Many, but not all, come from the information fieldcomprising Library and Information Science, Archival Science, Semantic Web, and... more
In our contemporary networked information landscape we have many different regimes of descriptive practice. Many, but not all, come from the information fieldcomprising Library and Information Science, Archival Science, Semantic Web, and the like. Others grow out of other forms of communication, both formal and informal. Examples of other forms include social tagging, wikis, ambient metadata given off by location based technology, and search behavior logs on our devices as informal communication cum description.
Describes four waves of Ranganathan’s dynamic theory of classification. Outlines components that distinguish each wave, and proposes ways in which this understanding can inform systems design in the contemporary environment, particularly... more
Describes four waves of Ranganathan’s dynamic theory of classification. Outlines components that distinguish each wave, and proposes ways in which this understanding can inform systems design in the contemporary environment, particularly with regard to interoperability and scheme versioning. Ends with an appeal to better understanding the relationship between structure and semantics in faceted classification schemes and similar indexing languages.
We find ourselves, after the close of the twentieth century, looking back at a mass of responses to the knowledge organization problem. Many institutions, such as the Dewey Decimal Classification (Furner, 2007), have grown up to address... more
We find ourselves, after the close of the twentieth century, looking back at a mass of responses to the knowledge organization problem. Many institutions, such as the Dewey Decimal Classification (Furner, 2007), have grown up to address it. Increasingly, many diverse discourses are appropriating the problem and crafting a wide variety of responses. This includes many artistic interpretations of the act and products of knowledge organization. These surface as responses to the expressive power or limits of the Library and Information Studies institutions (e.g., DDC) and their often primarily utilitarian gaze.
One way to make sense of this diversity is to approach the study from a descriptive stance, inventorying the population of types of KOS. This population perspective approaches the phenomenon of types and boundaries of Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS) as one that develops out of particular discourses, for particular purposes. For example, both DDC and Martianus Capella, a 5th Century encyclopedist, are KOS in this worldview. Both are part of the population of KOS. Approaching the study of KOS from the population perspective allows the researcher a systematic look at the diversity emergent at the constellation of different factors of design and implementation. However, it is not enough to render a model of core types, but we have to also consider the borders of KOS. Fringe types of KOS inform research, specifically to the basic principles of design and implementation used by others outside of the scholarly and professional discourse of Library and Information Studies.
Four examples of fringe types of KOS are presented in this paper. Applying a rubric developed in previous papers, our aim here is to show how the conceptual anatomy of these fringe types relates to more established KOS, thereby laying bare the definitions of domain, purpose, structure, and practice. Fringe types, like Beghtol’s examples (2003), are drawn from areas outside of Library and Information Studies proper, and reflect the reinvention of structures to fit particular purposes in particular domains. The four fringe types discussed in this paper are (1) Roland Barthes’ text S/Z which “indexes” a text of an essay with particular “codes” that are meant to expose the literary rhythm of the work; (2) Mary Daly’s Wickedary, a reference work crafted for radical liberation theology – and specifically designed to remove patriarchy from the language used by what the author calls “wild women”; (3) Luigi Serafini’s Codex Seraphinianus a work of book art that plays on the trope of universal encyclopedia and back-of- the book index; and (4) Martinaus Capella – and his Marriage of Mercury and Philology, a fifth century encyclopedia. We compared these using previous analytic taxonomies (Wright, 2008; Tennis, 2006; Tudhope, 2006, Soergel, 2001, Hodge, 2000).
One way to make sense of this diversity is to approach the study from a descriptive stance, inventorying the population of types of KOS. This population perspective approaches the phenomenon of types and boundaries of Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS) as one that develops out of particular discourses, for particular purposes. For example, both DDC and Martianus Capella, a 5th Century encyclopedist, are KOS in this worldview. Both are part of the population of KOS. Approaching the study of KOS from the population perspective allows the researcher a systematic look at the diversity emergent at the constellation of different factors of design and implementation. However, it is not enough to render a model of core types, but we have to also consider the borders of KOS. Fringe types of KOS inform research, specifically to the basic principles of design and implementation used by others outside of the scholarly and professional discourse of Library and Information Studies.
Four examples of fringe types of KOS are presented in this paper. Applying a rubric developed in previous papers, our aim here is to show how the conceptual anatomy of these fringe types relates to more established KOS, thereby laying bare the definitions of domain, purpose, structure, and practice. Fringe types, like Beghtol’s examples (2003), are drawn from areas outside of Library and Information Studies proper, and reflect the reinvention of structures to fit particular purposes in particular domains. The four fringe types discussed in this paper are (1) Roland Barthes’ text S/Z which “indexes” a text of an essay with particular “codes” that are meant to expose the literary rhythm of the work; (2) Mary Daly’s Wickedary, a reference work crafted for radical liberation theology – and specifically designed to remove patriarchy from the language used by what the author calls “wild women”; (3) Luigi Serafini’s Codex Seraphinianus a work of book art that plays on the trope of universal encyclopedia and back-of- the book index; and (4) Martinaus Capella – and his Marriage of Mercury and Philology, a fifth century encyclopedia. We compared these using previous analytic taxonomies (Wright, 2008; Tennis, 2006; Tudhope, 2006, Soergel, 2001, Hodge, 2000).
This paper outlines a formal and systematic approach to explication of the role of structure in information organization. It presents a preliminary set of constructs that are useful for understanding the similarities and differences that... more
This paper outlines a formal and systematic approach to explication of the role of structure in information organization. It presents a preliminary set of constructs that are useful for understanding the similarities and differences that obtain across information organization systems. This work seeks to provide necessary groundwork for development of a theory of structure that can serve as a lens through which to observe patterns across systems of information organization.
With the advent of Internet-based technologies for information organization, many groups have constructed their own indexing languages. Biologists, Library and Information Science practitioners, and now social taggers have worked together... more
With the advent of Internet-based technologies for information organization, many groups have constructed their own indexing languages. Biologists, Library and Information Science practitioners, and now social taggers have worked together to create large and many times complex indexing languages. In this environment of diversity, two questions surface: (1) what are the measurable characteristics of these indexing languages, and (2) do measurements of these indexing languages speciate along these characteristics? This poster presents data from this exploratory work.
Research Interests:
Many years have passed since Berners-Lee envisioned the Web as it should be (1999), but still many information professionals do not know their precise role in its development, especially concerning ontologies –considered one of its main... more
Many years have passed since Berners-Lee envisioned the Web as it should be (1999), but still many information professionals do not know their precise role in its development, especially concerning ontologies –considered one of its main elements. Why? May it still be a lack of under- standing between the different academic communities involved (namely, Computer Science, Linguistics and Library & Information Science), as reported by Soergel (1999)? The idea behind the Semantic Web is that of several technologies working together to get optimum information retrieval performance, which is based on proper resource description in a machine-understandable way, by means of metadata and vocabularies (Greenberg, Sutton & Campbell, 2003). This is obviously something that Library & Information Science professionals can do very well, but, are we doing enough? When computer scientists put on stage the ontology paradigm they were asking for semantically richer vocabularies that could support logical inferences in artificial intelligence as a way to improve information retrieval systems. Which direction should vocabulary development take to contribute better to that common goal? The main objective of this paper is twofold: 1) to identify main trends, issues and problems concerning ontology research and 2) to identify possible contributions from the Library & Information Science area to the development of ontologies for the semantic web. To do so, our paper has been structured in the following manner. First, the methodology followed in the paper is reported, which is based on a thorough literature review, where main contributions are analysed. Then, the paper presents a discussion of the main trends, issues and problems concerning ontology re- search identified in the literature review. Recommendations of possible contributions from the Library & Information Science area to the development of ontologies for the semantic web are finally presented.
When we examine how and why decisions get made in the indexing enterprise writ large, we see that two factors shape the outcome: economics and aesthetics. For example, the Library of Congress has reduced the time and effort it has spent... more
When we examine how and why decisions get made in the indexing enterprise writ large, we see that two factors shape the outcome: economics and aesthetics. For example, the Library of Congress has reduced the time and effort it has spent on creating bibliographic records, while the Library and Archives Canada has begun coordinating the work of librarians and archivists in describing the documentary heritage of Canada (Oda and Wilson, 2006; LAC, 2006). Both of these initiatives aim at reducing costs of the work of description. They are decisions based on economic considerations. When engaged in deciding what fields, tags, and indicators to use in cataloguing, librarians consider the cost of labour and whether or not the system will use that work for display and retrieval.
On the other hand, international bodies craft standards that are designed to shape the indexing enterprise. For example, we see the form of controlled vocabularies in ANSI/NISO Z39.19 in its varied manifestations from 1974-2005. I argue we make aesthetic interpretations when we evaluate such vocabularies as to whether or not they comport with that form. We can take this further and look at indexing theory and, for example the work of Ranganathan and the CRG, and compare instantiations of classification schemes as to whether or not they are truly faceted.
Classification schemes, as examples of the outcome of this work, result from designers and implementers of description and identification systems asking: What is good enough? When is my framework for information organization good enough? Though each of these acts is governed by a different purpose (sometimes pragmatic, sometimes idealistic), the acts involved, the identification and description of resources, is measured against both economic and aesthetic concerns, i.e., how much does it cost, and how well does it comply with an abstract form?
Information organization frameworks, like those mentioned above, comprise structures, work practices, and discourses. Examples of structure would be: the bibliographic record, the archival description of a fonds. Work practices enable, result in, and evaluate structures, and the discourse shapes how priorities and purposes are aligned in both work practices and structures. This paper argues that all examples of information organization frameworks and their constituent components grow out of often conflicting considerations of cost on one hand, and compliance with abstract form (standardization or design), on the other.
This paper argues that in order to systematically comprehend the diversity of information organization frameworks, we must look at how aesthetic concerns and economic concerns manifest in decisions made about designing and deploying work practices, structures, and discourse. In order to do this I construct an analytical rubric borne by a definition of aesthetic and economics pertinent to indexing regimes. I take the position that we need to move into a more descriptive stance on practices of knowledge organization, not only in documentary heritage institutions (libraries, archives, and museums), but also into the cultural and artistic realms. By expanding the scope of inquiry we can interrogate the integrity of my assertion above, namely, that a chief concern in systematically understanding information organization frameworks, lies in understanding how such frameworks wrestle with, and manifest along a spectrum drawn from economic to aesthetic decision-making.
On the other hand, international bodies craft standards that are designed to shape the indexing enterprise. For example, we see the form of controlled vocabularies in ANSI/NISO Z39.19 in its varied manifestations from 1974-2005. I argue we make aesthetic interpretations when we evaluate such vocabularies as to whether or not they comport with that form. We can take this further and look at indexing theory and, for example the work of Ranganathan and the CRG, and compare instantiations of classification schemes as to whether or not they are truly faceted.
Classification schemes, as examples of the outcome of this work, result from designers and implementers of description and identification systems asking: What is good enough? When is my framework for information organization good enough? Though each of these acts is governed by a different purpose (sometimes pragmatic, sometimes idealistic), the acts involved, the identification and description of resources, is measured against both economic and aesthetic concerns, i.e., how much does it cost, and how well does it comply with an abstract form?
Information organization frameworks, like those mentioned above, comprise structures, work practices, and discourses. Examples of structure would be: the bibliographic record, the archival description of a fonds. Work practices enable, result in, and evaluate structures, and the discourse shapes how priorities and purposes are aligned in both work practices and structures. This paper argues that all examples of information organization frameworks and their constituent components grow out of often conflicting considerations of cost on one hand, and compliance with abstract form (standardization or design), on the other.
This paper argues that in order to systematically comprehend the diversity of information organization frameworks, we must look at how aesthetic concerns and economic concerns manifest in decisions made about designing and deploying work practices, structures, and discourse. In order to do this I construct an analytical rubric borne by a definition of aesthetic and economics pertinent to indexing regimes. I take the position that we need to move into a more descriptive stance on practices of knowledge organization, not only in documentary heritage institutions (libraries, archives, and museums), but also into the cultural and artistic realms. By expanding the scope of inquiry we can interrogate the integrity of my assertion above, namely, that a chief concern in systematically understanding information organization frameworks, lies in understanding how such frameworks wrestle with, and manifest along a spectrum drawn from economic to aesthetic decision-making.
In this panel we investigate the relation between social capital and methods of populist, post-coordinate knowledge management which has popularly been termed “Web 2.0” or “Library 2.0.” We include in this examination the management of... more
In this panel we investigate the relation between social capital and methods of
populist, post-coordinate knowledge management which has popularly been termed
“Web 2.0” or “Library 2.0.” We include in this examination the management of
persons and groups, as matrixes and agents of knowledge, and we center our
examination upon the ways that documentary forms and social organization can
give rise to social capital as embodied by producers and their expressions rather
than occurring as the result of the managerial “precoordination” of personnel and
documents. In the historical and social shifts from a managerial to a user or worker
perspective, we may note, as well, a possible change in the notion of “information”
from that of the supposed effect of documentary forms to social networks and their
expressive productions, that is, a shift from a documentary to a post-documentary
notion of “information” and a shift from a “managerial” to a “post-managerial”
notion of organizational culture. Such shifts may require us to shift our foci and
methods, as well, from an epistemology and a practice that emphasizes “content”
and content management to that of social constructivism and viewing “content” as
the expressive product of cultural forms, social situations, and personal interactions
(and with this, a need for greater ethnographic, philosophical, “critical,” aesthetic,
and historical methods of research).
populist, post-coordinate knowledge management which has popularly been termed
“Web 2.0” or “Library 2.0.” We include in this examination the management of
persons and groups, as matrixes and agents of knowledge, and we center our
examination upon the ways that documentary forms and social organization can
give rise to social capital as embodied by producers and their expressions rather
than occurring as the result of the managerial “precoordination” of personnel and
documents. In the historical and social shifts from a managerial to a user or worker
perspective, we may note, as well, a possible change in the notion of “information”
from that of the supposed effect of documentary forms to social networks and their
expressive productions, that is, a shift from a documentary to a post-documentary
notion of “information” and a shift from a “managerial” to a “post-managerial”
notion of organizational culture. Such shifts may require us to shift our foci and
methods, as well, from an epistemology and a practice that emphasizes “content”
and content management to that of social constructivism and viewing “content” as
the expressive product of cultural forms, social situations, and personal interactions
(and with this, a need for greater ethnographic, philosophical, “critical,” aesthetic,
and historical methods of research).
Research Interests:
This paper outlines a model of conceptual change in indexing languages. Findings from this modeling effort point to three ways meaning and relationships are established and then change in an indexing language. These ways: structural,... more
This paper outlines a model of conceptual change in indexing languages. Findings from this modeling effort point to three ways meaning and relationships are established and then change in an indexing language. These ways: structural, terminological, and textual point to ways indexing language metadata can aid in managing conceptual change in indexing languages.
This paper outlines three information organization frameworks: library classification,social tagging, and boundary infrastructures. It then outlines functionality of these frameworks. The paper takes a neo-pragmatic approach. The paper... more
This paper outlines three information organization frameworks: library classification,social tagging, and boundary infrastructures. It then outlines functionality of these frameworks. The paper takes a neo-pragmatic approach. The paper finds that these frameworks are complementary, and by understanding the differences and similarities that obtain between them, researchers and developers can begin to craft a vocabulary of evaluation.
This paper outlines the purposes, predications, functions, and contexts of information organization frameworks; including: bibliographic control, information retrieval, resource discovery, resource description, open access scholarly... more
This paper outlines the purposes, predications, functions, and contexts of information organization frameworks; including: bibliographic control, information retrieval, resource discovery, resource description, open access scholarly indexing, personal information management protocols, and social tagging in order to compare and contrast those purposes, predications, functions, and contexts. Information organization frameworks, for the purpose of this paper, consist of information organization systems (classification schemes, taxonomies, ontologies, bibliographic descriptions, etc.), methods of conceiving of and creating the systems,and the work processes involved in maintaining these systems. The paper first outlines the theoretical literature of these information organization frameworks. In conclusion, this paper establishes the first part of an evaluation rubric for a function, predication, purpose, and context analysis.
Social tagging, as a particular type of indexing, has thrown into question the nature of indexing. Is it a democratic process? Can we all benefit from user-created tags? What about the value added by professionals? Employing an evolving... more
Social tagging, as a particular type of indexing, has thrown into question the nature of indexing. Is it a democratic process? Can we all benefit from user-created tags? What about the value added by professionals? Employing an evolving framework analysis, this paper addresses the question: what is next for indexing? Comparing social tagging and subject cataloguing; this paper identifies the points of similarity and difference that obtain between these two kinds of information organization frameworks. The subsequent comparative analysis of the parts of these frameworks points to the nature of indexing as an authored, personal, situational, and referential act, where differences in discursive placement divide these two species. Furthermore, this act is contingent on implicit and explicit understanding of purpose and tools available. This analysis allows us to outline desiderata for the next steps in indexing.
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Suggests extensions to SKOS Core to make explicit where concepts have changed from one version to another.
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In order to facilitate subject access interoperability a mechanism must be built that allows the different controlled vocabularies to communicate meaning, relationships, and levels of extension and intension so that different user groups... more
In order to facilitate subject access interoperability a mechanism must be built that allows the different controlled vocabularies to communicate meaning, relationships, and levels of extension and intension so that different user groups using different controlled vocabularies could access collections across the network. Switching languages, the tools of controlled vocabulary compatibility, consist of a single layer that does not allow for a flexible control of the semantic levels of meaning, relationships, and extension or intension. This paper proposes a multilayered conceptual framework wherein the levels of meaning, relationships and extension and intension are each controlled as individual parameters, rather than in a single switching language.
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Three paths of interdisciplinary work shape the future of classification research. emergence, encyclopedism, and ecology. Each of these, in method, approach, and in substantive inquiry outline both the boundaries and the intersections of... more
Three paths of interdisciplinary work shape the future of classification research.
emergence, encyclopedism, and ecology. Each of these, in method, approach, and in substantive inquiry outline both the boundaries and the intersections of the many fields that contribute to our overall understanding of classification research. This paper outlines some high level claims of this work, ties it to current research and offers some theoretical applications of these paths.
emergence, encyclopedism, and ecology. Each of these, in method, approach, and in substantive inquiry outline both the boundaries and the intersections of the many fields that contribute to our overall understanding of classification research. This paper outlines some high level claims of this work, ties it to current research and offers some theoretical applications of these paths.
Research Interests:
Examines two commitments inherent in Resource Description Framework (RDF): intertextuality and rationalism. After introducing how rationalism has been studied in knowledge organization, this paper then introduces the concept of... more
Examines two commitments inherent in Resource Description Framework (RDF): intertextuality and rationalism. After introducing how rationalism has been studied in knowledge organization, this paper then introduces the concept of bracketed-rationalism. This paper closes with a discussion of ramifications of intertextuality and bracketed rationalism on evaluation of RDF.
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Knowledge organization in the networked environment is guided by standards. Standards in knowledge organization are built on principles. For example, NISO Z39.19-1993 Guide to the Construction of Monolingual Thesauri (now undergoing... more
Knowledge organization in the networked environment is guided by standards. Standards in knowledge organization are built on principles. For example, NISO Z39.19-1993 Guide to the Construction of Monolingual Thesauri (now undergoing revision) and NISO Z39.85-2001 Dublin Core Metadata Element Set are two standards used in many implementations.Both of these standards were crafted with knowledge organization principles in mind.Therefore it is standards work guided by knowledge organization principles which can affect design of information services and technologies. This poster outlines five threads of thought that inform knowledge organization principles in the networked environment. An understanding of each of these five threads informs system evaluation. The evaluation of knowledge organization systems should be tightly linked to a rigorous understanding of the principles of construction. Thus some foundational evaluation questions grow from an understanding of standards and principles: on what principles is this knowledge organization system built? How well does this implementation meet the ideal conceptualization of those principles? How does this tool compare to others built on the same principles?
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Classification schemes undergo revision. However, in a networked environment revisions can be used to add dimensionality to classification. This dimensionality can be used to help explain conceptual warrant, explain the shift from... more
Classification schemes undergo revision. However, in a networked environment revisions can be used to add dimensionality to classification. This dimensionality can be used to help explain conceptual warrant, explain the shift from disciplinary to multidisciplinary knowledge production, and as a component method of domain analysis. Further, subject ontogeny might be used in cooperative networked projects like digital preservation, online access tools, and interoperability frameworks.
Research Interests:
The traditions of archival arrangement and description and bibliographic description are emblematic of the work of the archivist and the librarian, and are well developed. Furthermore, we understand the purposes and products of the... more
The traditions of archival arrangement and description and bibliographic description are emblematic of the work of the archivist and the librarian, and are well developed. Furthermore, we understand the purposes and products of the regimes of these two lineages (Svenonius, 2000; MacNeil 1995; InterPARES 2007). Yet there are questions that surface about the degree and level of interaction that can obtain between two regimes.
In this paper I will address some of the similarities and differences that obtain between two descriptive regimes. On the one hand we have archival arrangement and description and diplomatics. On the other we have bibliographic description, which includes subject analysis. The points of similarities include providing access points, capturing the form and extent of resources at hand, and sharing these in databases using encodings like Machine Readable Cataloguing (MARC) or Extensible Markup Language (XML).
The differences, perhaps are more interesting, and furthermore, provide us with a view of how we might cross-pollinate research and theory. In this paper I will 1) introduce the two lineages, 2) identify their purposes, which belie their differences and then 3) point to potential areas of future collaborative research at the intersections of these areas. The future of description, if it is to be a collaboration between these lineages is going to be description writ large.
In this paper I will address some of the similarities and differences that obtain between two descriptive regimes. On the one hand we have archival arrangement and description and diplomatics. On the other we have bibliographic description, which includes subject analysis. The points of similarities include providing access points, capturing the form and extent of resources at hand, and sharing these in databases using encodings like Machine Readable Cataloguing (MARC) or Extensible Markup Language (XML).
The differences, perhaps are more interesting, and furthermore, provide us with a view of how we might cross-pollinate research and theory. In this paper I will 1) introduce the two lineages, 2) identify their purposes, which belie their differences and then 3) point to potential areas of future collaborative research at the intersections of these areas. The future of description, if it is to be a collaboration between these lineages is going to be description writ large.
Research Interests:
In contemporary practice, metadata application profiles define which metadata properties (sometimes called elements) are used in a particular instance. The rationale for this is the wide range and variety of metadata schema standards. We... more
In contemporary practice, metadata application profiles define which metadata properties (sometimes called elements) are used in a particular instance. The rationale for this is the wide range and variety of metadata schema standards. We can think of a metadata application profile as a mixing of only those relevant properties from different (and perhaps diverse) standard metadata schemas, combined for the purpose of describing resources (records, documents, etc.) in a particular context.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan's theory of classification spans a number of works over a number of decades. And while he was devoted to solving many problems in the practice of librarianship, and is known as the father of library science... more
Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan's theory of classification spans a number of works over a number of decades. And while he was devoted to solving many problems in the practice of librarianship, and is known as the father of library science in India (Garfield, 1984), his work in classification revolves around one central concern. His classification research addressed the problems that arose from introducing new ideas into a scheme for classification, while maintaining a meaningful hierarchical and systematically arranged order of classes. This is because hierarchical and systematically arranged classes are the defining characteristic of useful classification. To lose this order is to through the addition of new classes is to introduce confusion, if not chaos, and to move toward a useless classification – or at least one that requires complete revision. In the following chapter, I outline the stages, and the elements of those stages, in Ranganathan's thought on classification from 1926-1972, as well as posthumous work that continues his agenda. And while facets figure prominently in all of these stages; but for Ranganathan to achieve his goal, he must continually add to this central feature of his theory of classification. I will close this chapter with an outline of persistent problems that represent research fronts for the field. Chief among these are what to do about scheme change and the open question about the rigor of information modeling in light of semantic web developments.
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The InterPARES 2 Terminology Cross-Domain has created three terminological instruments in service to the project, and by extension, Archival Science. Over the course of the five-year project this Cross-Domain has collected words,... more
The InterPARES 2 Terminology Cross-Domain has created three terminological instruments in service to the project, and by extension, Archival Science. Over the course of the five-year project this Cross-Domain has collected words, definition, and phrases from extant documents, research tools, models, and direct researcher submission and discussion. From these raw materials, the Cross-Domain has identified a systematic and pragmatic way establishing a coherent view on the concepts involved in dynamic, experiential, and interactive records and systems in the arts, sciences, and e-government.
The three terminological instruments are the Glossary, Dictionary, and Ontologies. The first of these is an authoritative list of terms and definitions that are core to our understanding of the evolving records creation, keeping, and preservation environments. The Dictionary is a tool used to facilitate interdisciplinary communication. It contains multiple definitions for terms, from multiple disciplines. By using this tool, researchers can see how Archival Science deploys terminology compared to Computer Science, Library and Information Science, or Arts, etc. The third terminological instrument, the Ontologies, identify explicit relationships between concepts of records. This is useful for communicating the nuances of Diplomatics in the dynamic, experiential, and interactive environment.
All three of these instruments were drawn from a Register of terms gathered over the course of the project. This Register served as a holding place for terms, definitions, and phrases, and allowed researchers to discuss, comment on, and modify submissions. The Register and the terminological instruments were housed in the Terminology Database. The Database provides searching, display, and file downloads – making it easy to navigate through the terminological instruments.
Terminology used in InterPARES 1 and the UBC Project was carried forward to this Database. In this sense, we are building on our past knowledge, and making it relevant to the contemporary environment.
The three terminological instruments are the Glossary, Dictionary, and Ontologies. The first of these is an authoritative list of terms and definitions that are core to our understanding of the evolving records creation, keeping, and preservation environments. The Dictionary is a tool used to facilitate interdisciplinary communication. It contains multiple definitions for terms, from multiple disciplines. By using this tool, researchers can see how Archival Science deploys terminology compared to Computer Science, Library and Information Science, or Arts, etc. The third terminological instrument, the Ontologies, identify explicit relationships between concepts of records. This is useful for communicating the nuances of Diplomatics in the dynamic, experiential, and interactive environment.
All three of these instruments were drawn from a Register of terms gathered over the course of the project. This Register served as a holding place for terms, definitions, and phrases, and allowed researchers to discuss, comment on, and modify submissions. The Register and the terminological instruments were housed in the Terminology Database. The Database provides searching, display, and file downloads – making it easy to navigate through the terminological instruments.
Terminology used in InterPARES 1 and the UBC Project was carried forward to this Database. In this sense, we are building on our past knowledge, and making it relevant to the contemporary environment.
Research Interests:
Things change. Words change, meaning changes and use changes both words and meaning. In information access systems this means concept schemes such as thesauri or classification schemes change. They always have. Concept schemes that have... more
Things change. Words change, meaning changes and use changes both words and meaning. In information access systems this means concept schemes such as thesauri or classification schemes change. They always have. Concept schemes that have survived have evolved over time, moving from one version, often called an edition, to the next. If we want to manage how words and meanings - and as a consequence use - change in an effective manner, and if we want to be able to search across versions of concept schemes, we have to track these changes. This paper explores how we might expand SKOS, a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) draft recommendation in order to do that kind of tracking.
The Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) Core Guide is sponsored by the Semantic Web Best Practices and Deployment Working Group. The second draft, edited by Alistair Miles and Dan Brickley, was issued in November 2005. SKOS is a “model for expressing the basic structure and content of concept schemes such as thesauri, classification schemes, subject heading lists, taxonomies, folksonomies, other types of controlled vocabulary and also concept schemes embedded in glossaries and terminologies” in RDF. How SKOS handles version in concept schemes is an open issue. The current draft guide suggests using OWL and DCTERMS as mechanisms for concept scheme revision.
As it stands an editor of a concept scheme can make notes or declare in OWL that more than one version exists. This paper adds to the SKOS Core by introducing a tracking system for changes in concept schemes. We call this tracking system vocabulary ontogeny. Ontogeny is a biological term for the development of an organism during its lifetime. Here we use the ontogeny metaphor to describe how vocabularies change over their lifetime. Our purpose here is to create a conceptual mechanism that will track these changes and in so doing enhance information retrieval and prevent document loss through versioning, thereby enabling persistent retrieval.
The Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) Core Guide is sponsored by the Semantic Web Best Practices and Deployment Working Group. The second draft, edited by Alistair Miles and Dan Brickley, was issued in November 2005. SKOS is a “model for expressing the basic structure and content of concept schemes such as thesauri, classification schemes, subject heading lists, taxonomies, folksonomies, other types of controlled vocabulary and also concept schemes embedded in glossaries and terminologies” in RDF. How SKOS handles version in concept schemes is an open issue. The current draft guide suggests using OWL and DCTERMS as mechanisms for concept scheme revision.
As it stands an editor of a concept scheme can make notes or declare in OWL that more than one version exists. This paper adds to the SKOS Core by introducing a tracking system for changes in concept schemes. We call this tracking system vocabulary ontogeny. Ontogeny is a biological term for the development of an organism during its lifetime. Here we use the ontogeny metaphor to describe how vocabularies change over their lifetime. Our purpose here is to create a conceptual mechanism that will track these changes and in so doing enhance information retrieval and prevent document loss through versioning, thereby enabling persistent retrieval.
Little is known about the contemporary practice of subject analysis. However, there exists a rich theoretical literature on the interpretation of documents for their subject matter. This dissertation compares ten theoretical oeuvres... more
Little is known about the contemporary practice of subject analysis. However, there exists a rich theoretical literature on the interpretation of documents for their subject matter. This dissertation compares ten theoretical oeuvres (works) in order to create a lens for fieldwork. Each of these ten theoretical oeuvres represents a conception of the concept of subject analysis. Further, these conceptions of subject analysis have attributes that may be common or not. This metatheoretical investigation compares and contrasts those attributes across the conceptions, as embodied in these ten oeuvres. Taking a hermeneutic approach to these oeuvres, this dissertation analyzes them by reading them line by line, coding the attributes. These coded attributes then serve as the building blocks for the metatheory of conceptions of subject analysis. The metatheory is made of a Codebook for studying subject analysis the field, a Prototype of subject analysis work, used as a comparison point between the ideal and the observed practice of subject analysis work, and a Critique, that reflects on the theory presented in these ten oeuvres, and which frames the field research questions in terms of components of theoretical research in subject analysis. The dissertation closes with a discussion of the limitations of the study, a conclusion, and an outline of future theoretical and empirical research.
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In knowledge technology work, as expressed by the scope of this conference, there are a number of communities, each uncovering new methods, theories, and practices. The Library and Information Science (LIS) community is one such... more
In knowledge technology work, as expressed by the scope of this conference, there are a number of communities, each uncovering new methods, theories, and practices. The Library and Information Science (LIS) community is one such community. This community, through tradition and innovation, theories and practice, organizes knowledge and develops knowledge technologies formed by iterative research hewn to the values of equal access and discovery for all. The Information Modeling community is another contributor to knowledge technologies. It concerns itself with the construction of symbolic models that capture the meaning of information and organize it in ways that are computer-based, but human understandable. A recent paper that examines certain assumptions in information modeling builds a bridge between these two communities, offering a forum for a discussion on common aims from a common perspective.
In a June 2000 article, Parsons and Wand separate classes from instances in information modeling in order to free instances from what they call the “tyranny” of classes. They attribute a number of problems in information modeling to inherent classification – or the disregard for the fact that instances can be conceptualized independent of any class assignment. By faceting instances from classes, Parsons and Wand strike a sonorous chord with classification theory as understood in LIS. In the practice community and in the publications of LIS, faceted classification has shifted the paradigm of knowledge organization theory in the twentieth century. Here, with the proposal of inherent classification and the resulting layered information modeling, a clear line joins both the LIS classification theory community and the information modeling community. Both communities have their eyes turned toward networked resource discovery, and with this conceptual conjunction a new paradigmatic conversation can take place.
Parsons and Wand propose that the layered information model can facilitate schema integration, schema evolution, and interoperability. These three spheres in information modeling have their own connotation, but are not distant from the aims of classification research in LIS. In this new conceptual conjunction, established by Parsons and Ward, information modeling through the layered information model, can expand the horizons of classification theory beyond LIS, promoting a cross-fertilization of ideas on the interoperability of subject access tools like classification schemes, thesauri, taxonomies, and ontologies.
This paper examines the common ground between the layered information model and faceted classification, establishing a vocabulary and outlining some common principles. It then turns to the issue of schema and the horizons of conventional classification and the differences between Information Modeling and Library and Information Science. Finally, a framework is proposed that deploys an interpretation of the layered information modeling approach in a knowledge technologies context. In order to design subject access systems that will integrate, evolve and interoperate in a networked environment, knowledge organization specialists must consider a semantic class independence like Parsons and Wand propose for information modeling.
In a June 2000 article, Parsons and Wand separate classes from instances in information modeling in order to free instances from what they call the “tyranny” of classes. They attribute a number of problems in information modeling to inherent classification – or the disregard for the fact that instances can be conceptualized independent of any class assignment. By faceting instances from classes, Parsons and Wand strike a sonorous chord with classification theory as understood in LIS. In the practice community and in the publications of LIS, faceted classification has shifted the paradigm of knowledge organization theory in the twentieth century. Here, with the proposal of inherent classification and the resulting layered information modeling, a clear line joins both the LIS classification theory community and the information modeling community. Both communities have their eyes turned toward networked resource discovery, and with this conceptual conjunction a new paradigmatic conversation can take place.
Parsons and Wand propose that the layered information model can facilitate schema integration, schema evolution, and interoperability. These three spheres in information modeling have their own connotation, but are not distant from the aims of classification research in LIS. In this new conceptual conjunction, established by Parsons and Ward, information modeling through the layered information model, can expand the horizons of classification theory beyond LIS, promoting a cross-fertilization of ideas on the interoperability of subject access tools like classification schemes, thesauri, taxonomies, and ontologies.
This paper examines the common ground between the layered information model and faceted classification, establishing a vocabulary and outlining some common principles. It then turns to the issue of schema and the horizons of conventional classification and the differences between Information Modeling and Library and Information Science. Finally, a framework is proposed that deploys an interpretation of the layered information modeling approach in a knowledge technologies context. In order to design subject access systems that will integrate, evolve and interoperate in a networked environment, knowledge organization specialists must consider a semantic class independence like Parsons and Wand propose for information modeling.
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Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan's theory of classification spans a number of works over a number of decades. And while he was devoted to solving many problems in the practice of librarianship, and is known as the father of library... more
Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan's theory of classification spans a number of works over a number of decades. And while he was devoted to solving many problems in the practice of librarianship, and is known as the father of library science in India (Garfield, 1984), his work in classification revolves around one central concern. His classification research addressed the problems that arose from introducing new ideas into a scheme for classification, while maintaining a meaningful hierarchical and systematically arranged order of classes. This is because hierarchical and systematically arranged classes are the defining characteristic of useful classification. To lose this order is to through the addition of new classes is to introduce confusion, if not chaos, and to move toward a useless classification – or at least one that requires complete revision. In the following chapter, I outline the stages, and the elements of those stages, in Ranganathan's thought on classification from 1926-1972, as well as posthumous work that continues his agenda. And while facets figure prominently in all of these stages; but for Ranganathan to achieve his goal, he must continually add to this central feature of his theory of classification. I will close this chapter with an outline of persistent problems that represent research fronts for the field. Chief among these are what to do about scheme change and the open question about the rigor of information modeling in light of semantic web developments.
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Social tagging, as a particular type of indexing, has thrown into question the nature of indexing. Is it a democratic process? Can we all benefit from user-created tags? What about the value added by professionals? Employing an evolving... more
Social tagging, as a particular type of indexing, has thrown into question the nature of indexing. Is it a democratic process? Can we all benefit from user-created tags? What about the value added by professionals? Employing an evolving framework analysis, this paper addresses the question: what is next for indexing? Comparing social tagging and subject cataloguing; this paper identifies the points of similarity and difference that obtain between these two kinds of information organization frameworks. The subsequent comparative analysis of the parts of these frameworks points to the nature of indexing as an authored, personal, situational, and referential act, where differences in discursive placement divide these two species. Furthermore, this act is contingent on implicit and explicit understanding of purpose and tools available. This analysis allows us to outline desiderata for the next steps in indexing
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Every indexing language is made up of terms. Those terms have morphological characteristics. These include terms made up of single words, two words, or more. We can also take into account the total number of terms.We can assemble these... more
Every indexing language is made up of terms. Those terms have morphological characteristics. These include terms made up of single words, two words, or more. We can also take into account the total number of terms.We can assemble these measures, normalize them, and then cluster indexing languages based on this common set of measures [1].Cluster analysis reviews discrete groups based on term morphology that comport with traditional design assumptions that separate ontologies, from thesauri, and folksonomies
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In the context of the International Society for Knowledge Organization, we often consider knowledge organization systems to comprise catalogues, thesauri, and bibliothecal classification schemes ??? schemes for library arrangement. In... more
In the context of the International Society for Knowledge Organization, we often consider knowledge organization systems to comprise catalogues, thesauri, and bibliothecal classification schemes ??? schemes for library arrangement. In recent years we have added ontologies and folksonomies to our sphere of study. In all of these cases it seems we are concerned with improving access to information. We want a good system.And much of the literature from the late 19th into the late 20th century took that as their goal ??? to analyze the world of knowledge and the structures of representing it as its objects of study; again, with the ethos for creating a good system. In most cases this meant we had to be correct in our assertions about the universe of knowledge and the relationships that obtain between its constituent parts. As a result much of the literature of knowledge organization is prescriptive ??? instructing designers and professionals how to build or use the schemes correctly ???...
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Subtheme: Foundations and methods for Knowledge Organization Title: Intellectual History, History of Ideas, and Subject Ontogeny Objectives: Outline methodological stances in subject ontogeny research through examination of work in... more
Subtheme: Foundations and methods for Knowledge Organization Title: Intellectual History, History of Ideas, and Subject Ontogeny Objectives: Outline methodological stances in subject ontogeny research through examination of work in intellectual history, history of ideas, and in the philosophical commitments of realism and nominalism Methods: Comparative analysis and construct creation and naming, logical argumentation. Main results and conclusions: A rich vocabulary is available to us through this comparative work and we can begin to differentiate kinds of subject ontogeny work through these descriptions of methodologies. Keywords: Nature of Subjects; Subject Ontogeny; Comparative Work; Foundations in Knowledge Organization Intellectual History, History of Ideas, and Subject Ontogeny Joseph T. Tennis University of Washington In the context of subject ontogeny research, that is, the study of how subjects change or do not change through revision of indexing languages, there a number o...
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In contemporary practice, metadata application profiles define which metadata properties (sometimes called elements) are used in a particular instance. The rationale for this is the wide range and variety of metadata schema standards. We... more
In contemporary practice, metadata application profiles define which metadata properties (sometimes called elements) are used in a particular instance. The rationale for this is the wide range and variety of metadata schema standards. We can think of a metadata application profile as a mixing of only those relevant properties from different (and perhaps diverse) standard metadata schemas, combined for the purpose of describing resources (records, documents, etc.) in a particular context. One of the most common metadata schema standard comes from the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. Originally designed to be parsimonious with only fifteen metadata properties, the concept of “core” was an attempt to be lightweight and versatile. The intention was to allow anyone to describe anything and put that description on the web so that anyone using the web could find anything. However, the one-size fits all appearance of the schema has been a source of criticism (Harper, 2011). One amelioration...
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Subject ontogeny is the life of the subject in an indexing language (e.g., classification scheme like the DDC). Examining how a subject is treated over time tells us about the anatomy of an indexing language. For example, gypsies as a... more
Subject ontogeny is the life of the subject in an indexing language (e.g., classification scheme like the DDC). Examining how a subject is treated over time tells us about the anatomy of an indexing language. For example, gypsies as a subject has been handled differently in different editions of the DDC
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Research poster about indexing theor
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Indexing languages appear in multiple versions. This is because they are revised. For example, the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) is in its 23rd edition. This means that the editors of this particular indexing language felt they had... more
Indexing languages appear in multiple versions. This is because they are revised. For example, the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) is in its 23rd edition. This means that the editors of this particular indexing language felt they had to make changes to the classes, their numbers, and what they are called. Elsewhere I have looked at a particular subject in the DDC and charted its life through the various editions from its first appearance to the present day. The subject I examined was EUGENICS; and it has, what I might call, a strange life in the DDC (Tennis, 2012). When it first appears as a subject in DDC, in 1911, it is named a biological science by virtue of the number assigned to the subject, 575.6. Because of revision it is no longer possible, via Dewey’s guidance, to class books on Eugenics in the 500s, the natural sciences. The classifier is guided to other disciplines in the scheme. This life of EUGENICS is what I call its ontogeny. Ontogeny is a term borrowed from biolog...
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The InterPARES 2 Terminology Cross-Domain has created three terminological instruments in service to the project, and by extension, Archival Science. Over the course of the five-year project this Cross-Domain has collected words,... more
The InterPARES 2 Terminology Cross-Domain has created three terminological instruments in service to the project, and by extension, Archival Science. Over the course of the five-year project this Cross-Domain has collected words, definition, and phrases from extant documents, research tools, models, and direct researcher submission and discussion. From these raw materials, the Cross-Domain has identified a systematic and pragmatic way establishing a coherent view on the concepts involved in dynamic, experiential, and interactive records and systems in the arts, sciences, and e-government.The three terminological instruments are the Glossary, Dictionary, and Ontologies. The first of these is an authoritative list of terms and definitions that are core to our understanding of the evolving records creation, keeping, and preservation environments. The Dictionary is a tool used to facilitate interdisciplinary communication. It contains multiple definitions for terms, from multiple disciplines. By using this tool, researchers can see how Archival Science deploys terminology compared to Computer Science, Library and Information Science, or Arts, etc. The third terminological instrument, the Ontologies, identify explicit relationships between concepts of records. This is useful for communicating the nuances of Diplomatics in the dynamic, experiential, and interactive environment.All three of these instruments were drawn from a Register of terms gathered over the course of the project. This Register served as a holding place for terms, definitions, and phrases, and allowed researchers to discuss, comment on, and modify submissions. The Register and the terminological instruments were housed in the Terminology Database. The Database provides searching, display, and file downloads – making it easy to navigate through the terminological instruments.Terminology used in InterPARES 1 and the UBC Project was carried forward to this Database. In this sense, we are building on our past knowledge, and making it relevant to the contemporary environment
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This chapter discusses conceptual provenance, the phenomenon of conceptual change in indexing languages through the introduction of the author’s previous work. Observations from looking at large classification schemes, like ontogeny,... more
This chapter discusses conceptual provenance, the phenomenon of conceptual change in indexing languages through the introduction of the author’s previous work. Observations from looking at large classification schemes, like ontogeny, semantic gravity, and collocative integrity, are introduced. The chapter closes with a discussion of key challenges in the methodology and outlines future research.
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There is potential disconnect between a view of classification as historically and culturally contingent and the ethics of KO. For instance, Mai (2011) urges a shift away from the ‘modernity’ of received classification theory, towards a... more
There is potential disconnect between a view of classification as historically and culturally contingent and the ethics of KO. For instance, Mai (2011) urges a shift away from the ‘modernity’ of received classification theory, towards a more pluralistic view that acknowledges the social, political, and historical contingency of classification as a practice. While this is a view shared by many, it is not evident how such an approach can support an ethics which prioritizes a commitment to truth, fairness, democracy, and the common good. A view of such values as merely contingent factors in classification activities would seem to undermine their use as ethical ideals, posing a choice between abandoning modernist tendencies and a workable ethics of KO. An ethics that is consonant with core methodological commitments is critical if we seek to preserve both disciplinary rigor and claim to serve the common good. Rorty's thought is presented as an ethics compatible with a view of classi...
Research Interests: Sociology, Epistemology, Library Science, Information Ethics, Knowledge organization, and 11 moreRichard Rorty, Pragmatism (Philosophy), Information Studies, Pluralism, Solidarity, Library and Information Studies, Social Science Research Network, Classification, Universalism, Contingency, and Meta Ethics
Classification is of interest to many disciplines. It is a fascinating phenomenon, though it might not be obvious to researchers in classification theory and knowledge organization with our intimate association meetings, however many... more
Classification is of interest to many disciplines. It is a fascinating phenomenon, though it might not be obvious to researchers in classification theory and knowledge organization with our intimate association meetings, however many groups are interested in it. For everyone who comes to it, classification is a profoundly abstract and complex process, riddled with problems of contradictions, universality, semantics, and provincialism - heady and important topics for social science. In the first 50 pages of the May 2006 issue of Theory, Culture, & Society, a journal of cultural sociology, theory, and interdisciplinary social science (Sage 2006) - the contributors address questions of definition and scope of classification. This is only part of a larger 616-page project called the New Encyclopedia project.
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HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-entific research documents, whether they are pub-lished or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad,... more
HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-entific research documents, whether they are pub-lished or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et a ̀ la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. 1
HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-entific research documents, whether they are pub-lished or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad,... more
HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-entific research documents, whether they are pub-lished or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et a ̀ la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. 1
References 1. Tennis, J. T. (2011). Forms, Knowledge, and Forms of Knowing. Talk given at ISKO-Brazil 2. Tennis, J. T. (2011). Precepts for an Engaged Knowledge Organization. Talk given at UNESP, Brazil 3. Loori, J. D. Eight Gates of Zen.... more
References 1. Tennis, J. T. (2011). Forms, Knowledge, and Forms of Knowing. Talk given at ISKO-Brazil 2. Tennis, J. T. (2011). Precepts for an Engaged Knowledge Organization. Talk given at UNESP, Brazil 3. Loori, J. D. Eight Gates of Zen. Dharma Comm. 4. Suzuki, S. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. Shambhala. 5. Loori, J. D. The True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's Three Hundred Koans. Dharma Comm. FORM, FOUNDATIONS, AND THE ETHOS OF FOREMOST: Zen Practice, Epistemology, and Ontology in Reflective Knowledge Organization
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References 1. Tennis, J. T. (2011). Forms, Knowledge, and Forms of Knowing. Talk given at ISKO-Brazil 2. Tennis, J. T. (2011). Precepts for an Engaged Knowledge Organization. Talk given at UNESP, Brazil 3. Loori, J. D. Eight Gates of Zen.... more
References 1. Tennis, J. T. (2011). Forms, Knowledge, and Forms of Knowing. Talk given at ISKO-Brazil 2. Tennis, J. T. (2011). Precepts for an Engaged Knowledge Organization. Talk given at UNESP, Brazil 3. Loori, J. D. Eight Gates of Zen. Dharma Comm. 4. Suzuki, S. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. Shambhala. 5. Loori, J. D. The True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's Three Hundred Koans. Dharma Comm. FORM, FOUNDATIONS, AND THE ETHOS OF FOREMOST: Zen Practice, Epistemology, and Ontology in Reflective Knowledge Organization
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Metatheory is meta-analytic work that comes from sociology and its purpose is the analysis of theory. Metatheory is a common form of scholarship in knowledge organization (KO). This paper presents an analysis of five papers that are... more
Metatheory is meta-analytic work that comes from sociology and its purpose is the analysis of theory. Metatheory is a common form of scholarship in knowledge organization (KO). This paper presents an analysis of five papers that are metatheoretical investigations in KO. The papers were published between 2008 and 2015 in the journal Knowledge Organization. The preliminary findings from this paper are that though the authors do metatheoretical work it is not made explicit by the majority of the authors. Of the four types of metatheoretical work, metatheorizing in order to better understand theory (Mu) is most popular. Further, the external/intellectual approach, which imports analytical lenses from other fields, was applied in four of the five papers. And, the use of metatheory as a method of analysis is closely related to these authors’ concern about epistemological, theoretical and methodological issues in the KO domain. Metatheory, while not always explicitly acknowledged as a meth...
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Metatheory is meta-analytic work that comes from sociology and its purpose is the analysis of theory. Metatheory is a common form of scholarship in knowledge organization (KO). This paper presents an analysis of five papers that are... more
Metatheory is meta-analytic work that comes from sociology and its purpose is the analysis of theory. Metatheory is a common form of scholarship in knowledge organization (KO). This paper presents an analysis of five papers that are metatheoretical investigations in KO. The papers were published between 2008 and 2015 in the journal Knowledge Organization. The preliminary findings from this paper are that though the authors do metatheoretical work it is not made explicit by the majority of the authors. Of the four types of metatheoretical work, metatheorizing in order to better understand theory (Mu) is most popular. Further, the external/intellectual approach, which imports analytical lenses from other fields, was applied in four of the five papers. And, the use of metatheory as a method of analysis is closely related to these authors’ concern about epistemological, theoretical and methodological issues in the KO domain. Metatheory, while not always explicitly acknowledged as a meth...
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The work of knowledge organization requires a particular set of tools. For instance we need standards of content description like Anglo-American Cataloging Rules Edition 2, Resource Description and Access (RDA), Cataloging Cultural... more
The work of knowledge organization requires a particular set of tools. For instance we need standards of content description like Anglo-American Cataloging Rules Edition 2, Resource Description and Access (RDA), Cataloging Cultural Objects, and Describing Archives: A Content Standard. When we intellectualize the process of knowledge organization – that is when we do basic theoretical research in knowledge organization we need another set of tools. For this latter exercise we need constructs. Constructs are ideas with many conceptual elements, largely considered subjective. They allow us to be inventive as well as allow us to see a particular point of view in knowledge organization. For example, Patrick Wilson’s ideas of exploitative control and descriptive control, or S. R. Ranganathan’s fundamental categories are constructs. They allow us to identify functional requirements or operationalizations of functional requirements, or at least come close to them for our systems and schemes...
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The work of knowledge organization requires a particular set of tools. For instance we need standards of content description like Anglo-American Cataloging Rules Edition 2, Resource Description and Access (RDA), Cataloging Cultural... more
The work of knowledge organization requires a particular set of tools. For instance we need standards of content description like Anglo-American Cataloging Rules Edition 2, Resource Description and Access (RDA), Cataloging Cultural Objects, and Describing Archives: A Content Standard. When we intellectualize the process of knowledge organization – that is when we do basic theoretical research in knowledge organization we need another set of tools. For this latter exercise we need constructs. Constructs are ideas with many conceptual elements, largely considered subjective. They allow us to be inventive as well as allow us to see a particular point of view in knowledge organization. For example, Patrick Wilson’s ideas of exploitative control and descriptive control, or S. R. Ranganathan’s fundamental categories are constructs. They allow us to identify functional requirements or operationalizations of functional requirements, or at least come close to them for our systems and schemes...
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Research Interests: Psychology and Autism
Research Interests: Psychology and Autism
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As the universe of knowledge and subjects change over time, indexing languages like classification schemes, accommodate that change by restructuring. Restructuring indexing languages affects indexer and cataloguer work. Subjects may split... more
As the universe of knowledge and subjects change over time, indexing languages like classification schemes, accommodate that change by restructuring. Restructuring indexing languages affects indexer and cataloguer work. Subjects may split or lump together. They may disappear only to reappear later. And new subjects may emerge that were assumed to be already present, but not clearly articulated (Miksa, 1998). In this context we have the complex relationship between the indexing language, the text being described, and the already described collection (Tennis, 2007). It is possible to imagine indexers placing a document into an outdated class, because it is the one they have already used for their collection. However, doing this erases the semantics in the present indexing language. Given this range of choice in the context of indexing language change, the question arises, what does this look like in practice? How often does this occur? Further, what does this phenomenon tell us about ...
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Describes the effect of scheme change on the semantics in faceted classification. Two types of change are identified: ecological change and lexical change. Examples from different editions of the Colon Classification are used to... more
Describes the effect of scheme change on the semantics in faceted classification. Two types of change are identified: ecological change and lexical change. Examples from different editions of the Colon Classification are used to illustrate change.
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This article presents an inventory what theorists describe as the definition of domain analysis. Survey writings on and of domain analyses for their distinct attributes and arguments. Compile these components and attributes, linking them... more
This article presents an inventory what theorists describe as the definition of domain analysis. Survey writings on and of domain analyses for their distinct attributes and arguments. Compile these components and attributes, linking them to their function, and from there. Describe a proposed ideal form of domain analysis. Evidence that while the debate about the substance and form of the epistemic and ontological character of domain analysis will continue, some might find it useful to give shape to their ideas using a particular form that follows function. If our purpose is to delineate and communicate what it is that we are analyzing when we engage in domain analysis, then I hope this small contribution can be of use.
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This article presents an inventory what theorists describe as the definition of domain analysis. Survey writings on and of domain analyses for their distinct attributes and arguments. Compile these components and attributes, linking them... more
This article presents an inventory what theorists describe as the definition of domain analysis. Survey writings on and of domain analyses for their distinct attributes and arguments. Compile these components and attributes, linking them to their function, and from there. Describe a proposed ideal form of domain analysis. Evidence that while the debate about the substance and form of the epistemic and ontological character of domain analysis will continue, some might find it useful to give shape to their ideas using a particular form that follows function. If our purpose is to delineate and communicate what it is that we are analyzing when we engage in domain analysis, then I hope this small contribution can be of use.
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The MARS (Media Asset Retrieval System) Project is the collaborative effort of public broadcasters, libraries and schools in the Puget Sound region to create a digital online resource that provides access to content produced by public... more
The MARS (Media Asset Retrieval System) Project is the collaborative effort of public broadcasters, libraries and schools in the Puget Sound region to create a digital online resource that provides access to content produced by public broadcasters via the public libraries. Convergence Consortium The Convergence Consortium is a model for community collaboration, including organizations such as public broadcasters, libraries, museums, and schools in the Puget Sound region to assess the needs of their constituents and pool resources to develop solutions to meet those needs. Specifically, the archives of public broadcasters have been identified as significant resources for the local communities and nationally. These resources can be accessed on the broadcasters websites, and through libraries and used by schools, and integrated with text and photographic archives from other partners. MARS goal Create an online resource that provides effective access to the content produced locally by KCTS (Seattle PBS affiliate) and KUOW (Seattle NPR affiliate). The broadcasts will be made searchable using the CPB Metadata Element Set (under development) and controlled vocabularies (to be developed). This will ensure a user friendly search and navigation mechanism and user satisfaction. Furthermore, the resource can search the local public library's catalog concurrently and provide the user with relevant TV material, radio material, and books on a given subject. The ultimate goal is to produce a model that can be used in cities around the country. The current phase of the project assesses the community's need, analyzes the current operational systems, and makes recommendations for the design of the resource.
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Objective: Study about the epistemic stances that influence the knowledge organization domain by analyzing its scholarly literature. It aims to describe the conception of epistemology in the journal Knowledge Organization through... more
Objective: Study about the epistemic stances that influence the knowledge organization domain by analyzing its scholarly literature. It aims to describe the conception of epistemology in the journal Knowledge Organization through metatheory. Methods: It is an exploratory and descriptive research that develops a metatheoretical study based on Ritzer’s metatheory. In the analysis stage, two grounded theory tools were used, coding and memoing. Results: Three attribute families arose from the coding and memoing processes: the concept of epistemology in knowledge organization, the purpose of epistemology of knowledge organization and, epistemic stances influencing the knowledge organization domain. The third attribute family is analyzed in this paper. Empiricism, rationalism, historicism and pragmatism are described as the mains epistemic stances influencing the domain. The pragmatist stance is prominent in the analysis, followed by critical theories and historicism. Conclusions: The stu...
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There is potential disconnect between a view of classification as historically and culturally contingent and the ethics of KO. For instance, Mai (2011) urges a shift away from the 'modernity' of received classification theory, towards a... more
There is potential disconnect between a view of classification as historically and culturally contingent and the ethics of KO. For instance, Mai (2011) urges a shift away from the 'modernity' of received classification theory, towards a more pluralistic view that acknowledges the social, political, and historical contingency of classification as a practice. While this is a view shared by many, it is not evident how such an approach can support an ethics which prioritizes a commitment to truth, fairness, democracy, and the common good. A view of such values as merely contingent factors in classification activities would seem to undermine their use as ethical ideals, posing a choice between abandoning modernist tendencies and a workable ethics of KO. An ethics that is consonant with core methodological commitments is critical if we seek to preserve both disciplinary rigor and claim to serve the common good. Rorty's thought is presented as an ethics compatible with a view of classification as contingent. His suggestion of an ironic ethics is presented and distinguished from cynicism, which is a common misinterpretation of this aspect of his thought. Finally, his ethical principle of solidarity is shown to be broadly compatible with the traditional values of the field of LIS, while approaching it from a philosophical standpoint that doesn't demand or encourage the universalizing tendencies which Mai and others have exhorted us to abandon. In short, this paper attempts to preserve the baby of a workable ethics while discarding the bathwater of universalism in knowledge organization.
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Aboutness ranks amongst our field's greatest bugbears. What is a work about? How can this be known? This mirrors debates within the philosophy of language, where the concept of representation has similarly evaded satisfactory definition.... more
Aboutness ranks amongst our field's greatest bugbears. What is a work about? How can this be known? This mirrors debates within the philosophy of language, where the concept of representation has similarly evaded satisfactory definition. This paper proposes that we abandon the strong sense of the word aboutness, which seems to promise some inherent relationship between work and subject, or between word and world. Instead, we seek an etymological reset to the sense of aboutness of "in the vicinity, nearby; in some place or various places nearby; all over a surface." To distinguish this sense, we introduce the term episemantics. The authors have each independently applied this term in slightly different contexts and scales (Hauser 2018a; J. T. Tennis 2016) , and this article presents a unified definition of the term and guidelines for applying it at the scale of both words and works. The resulting weak concept of aboutness is pragmatic, in Star's sense of a focus on consequences over antecedents, while reserving space for the critique and improvement of aboutness determinations within various contexts and research programs. The paper finishes with a discussion of the implication of the concept of episemantics and methodological possibilities it offers for knowledge organization research and practice. This paper discusses and synthesizes two conceptions of the term episematics developed independently by the authors in prior work. Both conceptions deny that meaning is an inherent property of language, but take distinct approaches in relating this idea to the field of KO, and information studies more broadly. Tennis (2016) proposes episemantics as a potential new field of study, analogous to epigenetics, just recently possible due to the advent of new technologies and research methods. Hauser (2018a) asks what it might mean to remove aboutness as a core component of our understanding of information at all. After discussing both proposals, we present a synthesis of each that connects Tennis's methodological proposal with Hauser's theoretical approach via a shared pragmatism, in Star's sense of "consequences, not antecedents." The result is discussed in relation to classification theory, and particularly in light of Melvil Dewey's pragmatic approach to his first classification system.