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Everything old is new again: Finding a place for knowledge structures in a satisficing world
Get PDFThe authors use an exploratory project involving Web resources related to Alzheimer’s Disease to explore ways in RDF metadata can more effectively translate the virtues of the traditional vertical file to a Web environment form using Semantic Web descriptive standards. In so doing, they argue against the separation of “bibliographic control” from the socially-embedded institutional practices of reference work, collection development, and the management of information ephemera. Libraries of the future will use specific Web technologies that lend themselves to sophisticated and rigorous knowledge structures, and link them with librarians’ skills in information harvesting and evaluatio
See-also relationships in the Dewey Decimal Classification
Get PDFThis paper investigates the semantics of topical, associative see-also relationships in schedule and table entries of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system. Based on the see-also relationships in a random sample of 100 classes containing one or more of these relationships, a semi-structured inventory of sources of see-also relationships is generated, of which the most important are lexical
similarity, complementarity, facet difference, and relational configuration difference. The premise that see-also relationships based on lexical similarity may be language-specific is briefly examined. The paper concludes with recommendations on the continued use of see-also relationships in the DDC
Organization under digital inversion: A theory for cooperative librarian organizing practices for online textual artifacts
Get PDFTheories can provide frameworks with which to construct models for cooperative professional practices. The knowledge organization theorizing of Cutter, Dewey and others leading up to and following the 1876 first meeting of the American Library Association set this precedent for over 130 years of professional librarianship. With the relatively recent advent of the possibility for publishing texts online, librarians are potentially at another epochal time when basic theoretical frameworks for cooperative professional practice are due for re-examination and possible wholesale changes. This paper provides a preliminary theoretical investigation of a framework, digital inversion theory, for thinking about possible the cooperative knowledge organization practices for the existing network of librarians
Concretes, countries, and processes in Julius O. Kaiser's Theory of Systematic Indexing: A case study in the definition of general categories
Get PDFAlthough general categories are an important feature of many KOSs, they are difficult to define. If we are to understand the factors that render category definition difficult, we should consider how designers of past KOSs have defined the categories in their systems. This paper presents, as a case study, an analysis of the formulation of categories in J. Kaiser’s theory of systematic indexing, which was designed for the indexing of commercial literature. Kaiser’s theory posited three categories: concretes, countries, and processes. Close examination of his writings reveals semantic tensions in the definition of each category. Concretes were defined both in general terms as things-in-the-world and in domain specific terms as commodities; Countries were defined as political units but included geographical regions that were not politically unified; and Processes were defined alternately as conditions of concretes or actions associated with them. Tensions also appear in the categorial scheme comprising these categories, of which there were dyadic (Concrete-Process) and triadic (Concrete-Country-Process), the former of which was grounded on a theoretical model and the latter, on pragmatic, domain-specific considerations. Kaiser’s attempts to harmonize these models by deriving countries from concretes faltered because of his narrow construal of concretes. The tensions in Kaiser’s definition of categories are due to semantic overdetermination, while those associated with his categorial scheme are ascribable to the general tension between theory and practice
Applying the User-Centered Paradigm to Cataloging Standards in Theory and Practice: Problems and Prospects
Get PDFDervin and Nilan’s (1986) article, “Information needs and uses,” has been an influential article in Library and Information Science (LIS), because it calls for a paradigm shift in LIS away from research that focuses on systems and standards to research that focuses on users. This article also has been influential on library and information practice. Librarians and other information workers are called on to be user-centered and place users at the center of library programs and services. Conforming to the user-centered paradigm, however, has been problematic for broad representational systems, like library cataloging, that must meet the diverse needs of global users. Despite calls to focus on users, the cataloging field has not taken a user-centered approach in research or in the development of cataloging standards. Instead, the responsibility to meet users’ needs has been placed on cataloging practitioners, who are encouraged to customize bibliographic records to meet their local users’ needs. Dissertation research by Hoffman (2008) suggests that catalogers are limited in their ability to customize bibliographic records, because catalogers do not know who their users are and cannot identify their users’ needs. In addition, library administrators discourage customization in favor of efficient cataloging processes. There are limits to LIS’s user-centered paradigm in the area of cataloging, and perhaps it needs to examined and reconsidered. Is the user-centered paradigm still applicable to cataloging? How should cataloging meet users’ needs? This paper will examine the problems of the user-centered paradigm in cataloging
Have We Overlooked Something? Hafting Traces and Indications of Modern Traits in the Philippine Palaeolithic
Get PDFBehavioural modernity has been a widely neglected topic for Southeast Asia’s Prehistory. Evidence of modern packages or even traits is basically absent in the Palaeolithic assemblages. This absence has considerably influenced the discussion of hominid behaviour and their cultural and cognitive abilities. In a case study on terminal Pleistocene artefacts from Ille Cave on Palawan Island, indications of the presence of several items of the modern trait list, foremost the first evidence of hafted lithic tools and the use of adhesives in the Philippine Palaeolithic, were detected through microwear analysis. The results showed that unretouched and morphologically less characteristic flaked artefacts often considered as mere expedient tools could have served as hafted armatures of multicomponent tools. For the ongoing discussion on the development and expansion of modern behaviour, methods like microwear analysis can enhance the limitations of traditional technological and morphological analysis of lithic assemblages
Terminology development and organization in multi-community environments: The case of statistical information.
Get PDFIt is becoming commonplace to worry about the vast amount of information that is now available to people on the Web. Searches return thousands ofweb pages, most ofwhich are not useful, yet there is the underlying belief that the information must be "out there somewhere". While it is clear that inadequate document surrogates and search engines are major contributors to this situation, another is that end users often do not know what words to use to describe what they want: if you do not know what to call it, you cannot find itS. This can inhibit successful searching even within a single website. If the target concept is described using one term by the document author, and a different term by the end user, the document will not be retrieved unless support tools (e.g., thesauri) exist that can act as intermediaries, mapping between the terms. The problem is exacerbated when the end user and the document author do not think of the topic in the same way; when there is only partial overlapping between their concepts, or when a concept just does not exist in one oftheir worlds