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  • × author_ss:"Hjoerland, B."
  • × theme_ss:"Information"
  1. Hjoerland, B.: ¬The controversy over the concept of information : a rejoinder to Professor Bates (2009) 0.03
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    Content
    "This letter considers some main arguments in Professor Bates' article (2008), which is part of our former debate (Bates, 2005,2006; Hjoerland, 2007). Bates (2008) does not write much to restate or enlarge on her theoretical position but is mostly arguing about what she claims Hjorland (2007) ignored or misinterpreted in her two articles. Bates (2008, p. 842) wrote that my arguments did not reflect "a standard of coherence, consistency, and logic that is expected of an argument presented in a scientific journal." My argumentation below will refute this statement. This controversy is whether information should be understood as a subjective phenomenon (alone), as an objective phenomenon (alone), or as a combined objective and a subjective phenomenon ("having it both ways"). Bates (2006) defined "information" (sometimes, e.g., termed "information 1," p. 1042) as an objective phenomenon and "information 2" as a subjective phenomenon. However, sometimes the term "information" is also used as a synonym for "information 2," e.g., "the term information is understood to refer to one or both senses" (p. 1042). Thus, Professor Bates is not consistent in using the terminology that she herself introduces, and confusion in this controversy may be caused by Professor Bates' ambiguity in her use of the term "information." Bates (2006, p. 1033) defined information as an objective phenomenon by joining a definition by Edwin Parker: "Information is the pattern of organization of matter and energy." The argument in Hjoerland (2007) is, by contrast, that information should be understood as a subjective phenomenon all the way down: That neither the objective definition of information nor "having it both ways" is fruitful. This is expressed, for example, by joining Karpatschof's (2000) definition of information as a physical signal relative to a certain release mechanism, which implies that information is not something objective that can be understood independently of an observer or independently of other kinds of mechanism that are programmed to be sensitive to specific attributes of a signal: There are many differences in the world, and each of them is potentially informative in given situations. Regarding Parker's definition, "patterns of organization of matter and energy" are no more than that until they inform somebody about something. When they inform somebody about something, they may be considered information. The following quote is part of the argumentation in Bates (2008): "He contrasts my definition of information as 'observer-independent' with his position that information is 'situational' and adds a list of respected names on the situational side (Hjoerland, 2007, p. 1448). What this sentence, and much of the remainder of his argument, ignores is the fact that my approach accounts for both an observer-independent and a contextual, situational sense of information." Yes, it is correct that I mostly concentrated on refuting Bates' objective definition of information. It is as if Bates expects an overall appraisal of her work rather than providing a specific analysis of the points on which there are disagreements. I see Bates' "having it both ways": a symptom of inconsistence in argumentation.
    Bates (2008, p. 843) further writes about her definition of information: "This is the objectivist foundation, the rock bottom minimum of the meaning of information; it informs both articles throughout." This is exactly the focus of my disagreement. If we take a word in a language, it is understood as both being a "pattern of organization of matter and energy" (e.g., a sound) and carrying meaning. But the relation between the physical sign and its meaning is considered an arbitrary relation in linguistics. Any physical material has the potential of carrying any meaning and to inform somebody. The physical stuff in itself is not information until it is used as a sign. An important issue in this debate is whether Bates' examples demonstrate the usefulness of her own position as opposed to mine. Her example about information seeking concerning navigation and how "the very layout of the ship and the design of the bridge promoted the smooth flow of information from the exterior of the ship to the crew and among the crewmembers" (Bates, 2006, pp. 1042-1043) does not justify Bates' definition of information as an objective phenomenon. The design is made for a purpose, and this purpose determines how information should be defined in this context. Bates' view on "curatorial sciences" (2006, p. 1043) is close to Hjorland's suggestions (2000) about "memory institutions," which is based on the subjective understanding of information. However, she does not relate to this proposal, and she does not argue how the objective understanding of information is related to this example. I therefore conclude that Bates' practical examples do not support her objective definition of information, nor do they support her "having it both ways." Finally, I exemplify the consequences of my understanding of information by showing how an archaeologist and a geologist might represent the same stone differently in information systems. Bates (2008, p. 843) writes about this example: "This position is completely consistent with mine." However, this "consistency" was not recognized by Bates until I published my objections and, therefore, this is an indication that my criticism was needed. I certainly share Professor Bates (2008) advice to read her original articles: They contain much important stuff. I just recommend that the reader ignore the parts that argue about information being an objective phenomenon."
    Date
    22. 3.2009 18:13:27
  2. Hjoerland, B.: ¬The special competency of information specialists (2002) 0.01
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    Content
    "In a new article published in Journal of Documentation, 2002, I claim that the special competency of information specialists and information scientists are related to "domain analysis." Information science grew out of special librarianship and documentation (cf. Williams, 1997), and implicit in its tradition has in my opinion been a focus an subject knowledge. Although domain analysis has earlier been introduced in JASIST (Hjoerland & Albrechtsen, 1995), the new article introduces 11 Specific approaches to domain analysis, which I Claim together define the Specific competencies of information specialists. The approaches are (I) Producing and evaluating literature guides and subject gateways, (2) Producing and evaluating special classifications and thesauri, (3) Research an and competencies in indexing and retrieving information specialties, (4) Knowledge about empirical user studies in subject areas, (5) Producing and interpreting bibliometrical studies, (6) Historical studies of information structures and Services in domains, (7) Studies of documents and genres in knowledge domains, (8) Epistemological and critical studies of different paradigms, assumptions, and interests in domains, (9) Knowledge about terminological studies, LSP (Languages for Special Purposes), and discourse analysis in knowledge fields, (10) Knowledge about and studies of structures and institutions in scientific and professional communication in a domain, (11) Knowledge about methods and results from domain analytic studies about professional cognition, knowledge representation in computer science and artificial intelligence. By bringing these approaches together, the paper advocates a view which may have been implicit in previous literature but which has not before been Set out systematically. The approaches presented here are neither exhaustive nor mutually exhaustve, but an attempt is made to present the state of the art. Specific examples and selective reviews of literature are provided, and the strength and drawback of each of these approaches are being discussed. It is my Claim that the information specialist who has worked with these 1 1 approaches in a given domain (e.g., music, sociology, or chemistry) has a special expertise that should not be mixed up with the kind of expertise taught at universities in corresponding subjects. Some of these 11 approaches are today well-known in schools of LIS. Bibliometrics is an example, Other approaches are new and represent a view of what should be introduced in the training of information professionals. First and foremost does the article advocates the view that these 1 1 approaches should be seen as supplementary. That the Professional identity is best maintained if Chose methods are applied to the same examples (same domain). Somebody would perhaps feel that this would make the education of information professionals too narrow. The Counter argument is that you can only understand and use these methods properly in a new domain, if you already have a deep knowledge of the Specific information problems in at least orte domain. It is a dangerous illusion to believe that one becomes more competent to work in any field if orte does not know anything about any domain. The special challenge in our science is to provide general background for use in Specific fields. This is what domain analysis is developed for. Study programs that allow the students to specialize and to work independent in the selected field (such as, for example, the Curriculum at the Royal School of LIS in Denmark) should fit well with the intentions in domain analysis. In this connection it should be emphasized that the 11 approaches are presented as general approaches that may be used in about any domain whatsoever. They should, however, be seen in connection. If this is not the case, then their relative strengths and weaknesses cannot be evaluated. The approaches do not have the same status. Some (e.g., empirical user studies) are dependent an others (e.g., epistemological studies).