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Abstract

Epistemological theories of information science have a fundamental impact on theories about users, their cognition and information seeking behaviour, on subject analysis, and on classification. They also have a fundamental impact on information retrieval, on the understanding of 'information', on the view of documents and their role in communication, on information selection, on theories about the functions of information systems and on the role of information professionals. Asserts that information science must be based on epistemological knowledge, which avoids blind alleys and is not outdated. Shows limitations in the dominant approaches to information science and proposes alternative viewpoints

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Abstract

This article presents a brief history of the term "information" and its different meanings, which are both important and difficult because the different meanings of the term imply whole theories of knowledge. The article further considers the relation between "information" and the concepts "matter and energy", "data", "sign and meaning", "knowledge" and "communication". It presents and analyses the influence of information in information studies and knowledge organization and contains a presentation and critical analysis of some compound terms such as "information need", "information overload" and "information retrieval", which illuminate the use of the term information in information studies. An appendix provides a chronological list of definitions of information.

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Abstract

The concept of information as we use it in everyday English, in the sense of knowledge communicated, plays a central role in contemporary society. The development and widespread use of computer networks since the end of World War II, and the emergence of information science as a discipline in the 1950s, are evidence of this focus. Although knowledge and its communication are basic phenomena of every human society, it is the rise of information technology and its global impacts that characterize ours as an information society. It is commonplace to consider information as a basic condition for economic development together with capital, labor, and raw material; but what makes information especially significant at present is its digital nature. The impact of information technology an the natural and social sciences in particular has made this everyday notion a highly controversial concept. Claude Shannon's (1948) "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" is a landmark work, referring to the common use of information with its semantic and pragmatic dimensions, while at the same time redefining the concept within an engineering framework. The fact that the concept of knowledge communication has been designated by the word information seems, prima facie, a linguistic happenstance. For a science like information science (IS), it is of course important how fundamental terms are defined; and in IS, as in other fields, the question of how to define information is often raised. This chapter is an attempt to review the status of the concept of information in IS, with reference also to interdisciplinary trends. In scientific discourse, theoretical concepts are not true or false elements or glimpses of some element of reality; rather, they are constructions designed to do a job in the best possible way. Different conceptions of fundamental terms like information are thus more or less fruitful, depending an the theories (and in the end, the practical actions) they are expected to support. In the opening section, we discuss the problem of defining terms from the perspective of the philosophy of science. The history of a word provides us with anecdotes that are tangential to the concept itself. But in our case, the use of the word information points to a specific perspective from which the concept of knowledge communication has been defined. This perspective includes such characteristics as novelty and relevante; i.e., it refers to the process of knowledge transformation, and particularly to selection and interpretation within a specific context. The discussion leads to the questions of why and when this meaning was designated with the word information. We will explore this history, and we believe that our results may help readers better understand the complexity of the concept with regard to its scientific definitions.
Discussions about the concept of information in other disciplines are very important for IS because many theories and approaches in IS have their origins elsewhere (see the section "Information as an Interdisciplinary Concept" in this chapter). The epistemological concept of information brings into play nonhuman information processes, particularly in physics and biology. And vice versa: the psychic and sociological processes of selection and interpretation may be considered using objective parameters, leaving aside the semantic dimension, or more precisely, by considering objective or situational parameters of interpretation. This concept can be illustrated also in physical terms with regard to release mechanisms, as we suggest. Our overview of the concept of information in the natural sciences as well as in the humanities and social sciences cannot hope to be comprehensive. In most cases, we can refer only to fragments of theories. However, the reader may wish to follow the leads provided in the bibliography. Readers interested primarily in information science may derive most benefit from the section an "Information in Information Science," in which we offer a detailed explanation of diverse views and theories of information within our field; supplementing the recent ARIST chapter by Cornelius (2002). We show that the introduction of the concept of information circa 1950 to the domain of special librarianship and documentation has in itself had serious consequences for the types of knowledge and theories developed in our field. The important question is not only what meaning we give the term in IS, but also how it relates to other basic terms, such as documents, texts, and knowledge. Starting with an objectivist view from the world of information theory and cybernetics, information science has turned to the phenomena of relevance and interpretation as basic aspects of the concept of information. This change is in no way a turn to a subjectivist theory, but an appraisal of different perspectives that may determine in a particular context what is being considered as informative, be it a "thing" (Buckland, 1991b) or a document. Different concepts of information within information science reflect tensions between a subjective and an objective approach. The concept of interpretation or selection may be considered to be the bridge between these two poles. It is important, however, to consider the different professions involved with the interpretation and selection of knowledge. The most important thing in IS (as in information policy) is to consider information as a constitutive forte in society and, thus, recognize the teleological nature of information systems and services (Braman, 1989).

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Abstract

This article presents a theoretical investigation of the concept of 'subject' or 'subject matter' in library and information science. Most conceptions of 'subject' in the literature are not explicit but implicit. Various indexing and classification theories, including automatic indexing and citation indexing, have their own more or less implicit concepts of subject. This fact puts the emphasis on making the implicit theorie of 'subject matter' explicit as the first step. ... The different conceptions of 'subject' can therefore be classified into epistemological positions, e.g. 'subjective idealism' (or the empiric/positivistic viewpoint), 'objective idealism' (the rationalistic viewpoint), 'pragmatism' and 'materialism/realism'. The third and final step is to propose a new theory of subject matter based on an explicit theory of knowledge. In this article this is done from the point of view of a realistic/materialistic epistemology. From this standpoint the subject of a document is defined as the epistemological potentials of that document

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Abstract

Different approaches to the classification of a knowledge field include empiristic, rationalistic, historistic, and pragmatic methods. This paper demonstrates how these different methids have been applied to the classification of psychology. An etymological apporach is insufficient to define the subject matter of psychology, because other terms can be used to describe the same domain. To define the subject matter of psychology from the point of view of its formal establishment as a science and academic discipline (in Leipzig, 1879) it is also insufficient because this was done in specific historical circumstances, which narrowed the subject matter to physiologically-related issues. When defining the subject area of a scientific field it is necessary to consider how different ontological and epistemological views have made their influences. A subject area and the approaches by which this subject area has been studied cannot be separated from each other without tracing their mutual historical interactions. The classification of a subject field is theory-laden and thus cannot be neutral or ahistorical. If classification research can claim to have a method that is more general than the study of concrete developments in the single knowledge fields the key is to be found in the general epistemological theories. It is shown how basic epistemological assumptions have formed the different approaches to psychology during the 20th century. The progress in the understanding of basic philosophical questions is decisive both for the development of a knowledge field and as the point of departure of classification. The theoretical principles developed in this paper are applied in a brief analysis of some concrete classification systems, including the one used by PsycINFO / Psychologcal Abstracts. The role of classification in modern information retrieval is also briefly discussed

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Abstract

This article is organized in 10 sections: (1) Knowledge Organization (KO) is a wide interdisciplinary field, muck broader than Library and Information Science (LIS). (2) Inside LIS there have been many different approaches and traditions of KO with little mutual influence. These traditions have to a large extent been defined by new technology, for which reason the theoretical integration and underpinning has not been well considered. The most important technology-driven traditions are: a) Manual indexing and classification in libraries and reference works, b) Documentation and scientific communication, c) Information storage and retrieval by computers, d) Citation based KO and e) Full text, hypertext and Internet based approaches. These traditions taken together define very muck the special LIS focus an KO. For KO as a field of research it is important to establish a fruitful theoretical frame of reference for this overall field. This paper provides some suggestions. (3) One important theoretical distinction to consider is the one between social and intellectual forms of KO. Social forms of KO are related to professional training, disciplines and social groups while intellectual organization is related to concepts and theories in the fields to be organized. (4) The social perspective includes in addition the systems of genres and documents as well as the social system of knowledge Producers, knowledge intermediaries and knowledge users. (5) This social system of documents, genres and agents makes available a very complicated structure of potential subject access points (SAPs), which may be used in information retrieval (IR). The basic alm of research in KO is to develop knowledge an how to optimise this system of SAPs and its utilization in IR. (6) SAPs may be seen as signs, and their production and use may be understood from a social semiotic point of view. (7) The concept of paradigms is also helpful because different groups and interests tend to be organized according to a paradigm and to develop different criteria of relevance, and thus different criteria of likeliness in KO. (8) The basic unit in KO is the semantic relation between two concepts, and such relations are embedded in theories. (9) In classification like things are grouped together, but what is considered similar is not a trivial question. (10) The paper concludes with the considering of methods for KO. Basically the methods of any field are connected with epistemological theories. This is also the case with KO. The existing methods as described in the literature of KO fit into a classification of basic epistemological views. The debate about the methods of KO at the deepest level therefore implies an epistemological discussion.

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Abstract

The basic realist claim is that a mind-independent reality exists. It should be common sense knowledge to accept this claim, just as any theories that try to deny it soon become inconsistent because reality strikes back. In spite of this, antirealist philosophies flourish, not only in philosophy but also in the behavioral and cognitive sciences and in information science. This is highly problematic because it removes the attention from reality to subjective phenomena with no real explanatory power. Realism should not be confused with the view that all scientific claims are true or with any other kind of naiveté concerning knowledge claims. The opposite of realism may be termed antirealism, idealism, or nominalism. Although many people confuse empiricism and positivism with realism, these traditions are by nature strongly antirealist, which is why a sharp distinction should be made between empiricism and realism. Empirical research should not be founded on assumptions about "the given" of observations, but should recognize the theory-laden nature of observations. Domain analysis represents an attempt to reintroduce a realist perspective in library and information science. A realist conception of relevance, information seeking, information retrieval, and knowledge organization is outlined. Information systems of all kinds, including research libraries and public libraries, should be informed by a realist philosophy and a realist information science.

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Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate that semantic issues underlie all research questions within Library and Information Science (LIS, or, as hereafter, IS) and, in particular, the subfield known as Knowledge Organization (KO). Further, it seeks to show that semantics is a field influenced by conflicting views and discusses why it is important to argue for the most fruitful one of these. Moreover, the chapter demonstrates that IS has not yet addressed semantic problems in systematic fashion and examines why the field is very fragmented and without a proper theoretical basis. The focus here is on broad interdisciplinary issues and the long-term perspective. The theoretical problems involving semantics and concepts are very complicated. Therefore, this chapter starts by considering tools developed in KO for information retrieval (IR) as basically semantic tools. In this way, it establishes a specific IS focus on the relation between KO and semantics. It is well known that thesauri consist of a selection of concepts supplemented with information about their semantic relations (such as generic relations or "associative relations"). Some words in thesauri are "preferred terms" (descriptors), whereas others are "lead-in terms." The descriptors represent concepts. The difference between "a word" and "a concept" is that different words may have the same meaning and similar words may have different meanings, whereas one concept expresses one meaning.

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Abstract

It is with very great pleasure that we introduce this special issue of Knowledge Organization on Domain Analysis (DA). Domain analysis is an approach to information science (IS) that emphasizes the social, historical, and cultural dimensions of information. It asserts that collective fields of knowledge, or "domains," form the unit of analysis of information science (IS). DA, elsewhere referred to as a sociocognitive (Hjoerland, 2002b; Jacob & Shaw, 1998) or collectivist (Talja et al, 2004) approach, is one of the major metatheoretical perspectives available to IS scholars to orient their thinking and research. DA's focus an domains stands in contrast to the alternative metatheories of cognitivism and information systems, which direct attention to psychological processes and technological processes, respectively. The first comprehensive international formulation of DA as an explicit point of view was Hjoerland and Albrechtsen (1995). However, a concern for information in the context of a community can be traced back to American library historian and visionary Jesse Shera, and is visible a century ago in the earliest practices of special librarians and European documentalists. More recently, Hjoerland (1998) produced a domain analytic study of the field of psychology; Jacob and Shaw (1998) made an important interpretation and historical review of DA; while Hjoerland (2002a) offered a seminal formulation of eleven approaches to the study of domains, receiving the ASLIB 2003 Award. Fjordback Soendergaard; Andersen and Hjoerland (2003) suggested an approach based an an updated version of the UNISIST-model of scientific communication. In fall 2003, under the conference theme of "Humanizing Information Technology" DA was featured in a keynote address at the annual meeting of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (Hjorland, 2004). These publications and events are evidence of growth in representation of the DA view. To date, informal criticism of domain analysis has followed two tracks. Firstly, that DA assumes its communities to be academic in nature, leaving much of human experience unexplored. Secondly, that there is a lack of case studies illustrating the methods of domain analytic empirical research. Importantly, this special collection marks progress by addressing both issues. In the articles that follow, domains are perceived to be hobbies, professions, and realms of popular culture. Further, other papers serve as models of different ways to execute domain analytic scholarship, whether through traditional empirical methods, or historical and philosophical techniques. Eleven authors have contributed to this special issue, and their backgrounds reflect the diversity of interest in DA. Contributors come from North America, Europe, and the Middle East. Academics from leading research universities are represented. One writer is newly retired, several are in their heyday as scholars, and some are doctoral students just entering this field. This range of perspectives enriches the collection. The first two papers in this issue are invited papers and are, in our opinion, very important. Anders Oerom was a senior lecturer at the Royal Scbool of 'Library and Information Science in Denmark, Aalborg Branch. He retired from this position an March 1, 2004, and this paper is his last contribution in this position. We are grateful that he took the time to complete "Knowledge Organization in the Domain of Art Studies - History, Transition and Conceptual Changes" in spite of many other duties. Versions of the paper have previously been presented at a Ph.D-course in knowledge organization and related versions have been published in Danish and Spanish. In many respects, it represents a model of how a domain could, or should, be investigated from the DA point of view.
It uncovers the main theoretical influences that have affected the representation of art in systems of knowledge organization such as LCC, DDC, UDC and the Art & Architecture Thesaurus, and it provides a deep basis for evaluating such systems. Knut Tore Abrahamsen's "Indexing of Musical Genres. An Epistemological Perspective" is a modified version of a thesis written at the Royal School of Library and Information Science in Copenhagen. As a thesis it is a major achievement which successfully combines knowledge of music, epistemology, and knowledge organization. This paper may also be seen as an example of how domains can be analyzed and how knowledge organization may be improved in practice. We would like to thank Sanna Talja of the University of Tampere, among other people, for Input an this piece. And now to the rest of the issue: Olof Sundin's "Towards an Understanding of Symbolic Aspects of Professional Information: an Analysis of the Nursing Knowledge Domain" contributes to DA by introducing a deeper understanding of the notion of professions and by uncovering how in some domains, "symbolic" functions of information may be more important than instrumental functions. Rich Gazan's: "Metadata as a Realm of Translation: Merging Knowledge Domains in the Design of an Environmental Information System" demonstrates the problems of merging data collections in interdisciplinary fields, rohen the perceived informational value of different access points varies with disciplinary membership. This is important for the design of systems of metadata. Joe Tennis': "Two Axes of Domains for Domain Analysis" suggests that the notion of domain is underdeveloped in DA. Tennis states, "Hjoerland has provided a hammer, but rohere are the nails?" In addition he raises a question concerning the degree of specialization within a domain. He resolves these issues by proposing two new "axes" to DA. Chaim Zins & David Guttmann's: "Domain Analysis of Social Work: An Example of an Integrated Methodological Approach" represents an empirical approach to the construction of knowledge maps based an representative samples of the literature an social work. In a way, this paper is the most traditional or straightforward approach to knowledge organization in the issue: It suggests a concrete classification based an scientific norms of representation and objectivity.
Hanne Albrechtsen & Annelise Mark Pejtersen's: "Cognitive Work Analysis and Work Centered Design of Classification Schemes" is also based an empirical studies, but focuses an work groups rather than literatures. It claims that deep semantic structures relevant to classification evolve dynamically in work groups. Its empirical method is different from Zins & Guttmann's. Future research must further uncover the relative strengths and weaknesses of literatures versus people in the construction of knowledge organizing systems. Jenna Hartel's: "The Serious Leisure Frontier in Library and Information Science: Hobby Domains" expands DA to the field of "everyday information use" and demonstrates that most of the approaches suggested by Hjoerland (2002a) may also be relevant to this field. Finally, Birger Hjoerland & Jenna Hartel's After-word: Some Basic Issues Related to the Notion of a Domain" suggests that the notions of ontology, epistemology, and sociology may be three fundamental dimensions of domains and that these perspectives may clarify what domains are and the dynamics of their development. While this special issue marks great progress, and the zenith of DA to date, the approach remains emergent and there is still much work to be done. We see the need for ongoing domain analytic research along two paths. Remarkably, to our knowledge no domain has been thoroughly studied in the domain analytic view. The first order, then, is rigorous application of DA to multiple domains. Second, theoretical and methodological gaps presently exist; these are opportunities for creative inventors to contribute original extensions to the approach. We warmly invite all readers to seriously engage with these articles, whether as critics, spectators, or participants in the domain analytic project.

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Abstract

This paper takes a second look at three prevailing main themes in knowledge organization: i) the academic disciplines as the main structural principle; ii) the fiction/non-fiction distinction; and iii) the appropriate unit of analysis in online retrieval systems. The history and origin of bibliographic classification [Dewey, Bliss, Mills, Beghtol] are discussed from the perspective of pragmatist philosophy and social studies of science [Kuhn, Merton, Reich]. Choices of structural principles in different schemes are found to rely on more or less implicit philosophical foundations, ranging from rationalism to pragmatism. It is further shown how the increasing application of faceted structures as basic structural principles in universal classification schemes [DDC, UDC] impose rationalistic principles and structures for knowledge organization which are not in alignment with the development of knowledge in the covered disciplines. Further evidence of rationalism in knowledge organization is the fiction/non-fiction distinction, excluding the important role of artistic resources for, in particular, humanistic research. Finally, for the analysis of appropriate bibliographic unit, it is argued that there is a need to shift towards a semiotic approach, founded on an understanding of intertextuality, rather than applying standard principles of hierarchical decomposition of documents. It is concluded that a change in classification research is needed, founded on a more historical and social understanding of knowledge

Type

a

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Abstract

Bradfordrsquos law of scattering is said to be about subject scattering in information sources. However, in spite of a corpus of writings about the meaning of the word ldquosubjectrdquo and equivalent terms such as ldquoaboutnessrdquo or ldquotopicalityrdquo, the meaning of ldquosubjectrdquo has never been explicitly addressed in relation to Bradfordrsquos law. This paper introduces a distinction between Lexical scattering, Semantic scattering, and Subject scattering. Neither Bradford himself nor any follower has explicitly considered the differences between these three and the implications for the practical applications of Bradfordrsquos law. Traditionally, Bradfordrsquos law has been seen as a neutral and objective tool for the selection of the most central information sources in a field. However, it is hard to find actual reports that describe how Bradfordrsquos law has been applied in practical library and information services. Theoretical as well as historical evidence suggest that the selection of journals based on Bradford-distributions tend to favorite dominant theories and views while suppressing views other than the mainstream at a given time.

Type

a

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Abstract

Much of the literature of information science and knowledge organization has accepted and built upon Elaine Svenonius's (2004) claim that "paradigmatic relationships are those that are context-free, definitional, and true in all possible worlds" (p. 583). At the same time, the literature demonstrates a common understanding that paradigmatic relations are the kinds of semantic relations used in thesauri and other knowledge organization systems (including equivalence relations, hierarchical relations, and associative relations). This understanding is problematic and harmful because it directs attention away from the empirical and contextual basis for knowledge-organizing systems. Whether A is a kind of X is certainly not context-free and definitional in empirical sciences or in much everyday information. Semantic relations are theory-dependent and, in biology, for example, a scientific revolution has taken place in which many relations have changed following the new taxonomic paradigm named "cladism." This biological example is not an exception, but the norm. Semantic relations including paradigmatic relations are not a priori but are dependent on subject knowledge, scientific findings, and paradigms. As long as information scientists and knowledge organizers isolate themselves from subject knowledge, knowledge organization cannot possibly progress.

Type

a

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Abstract

Theories of aboutness and theories of subject analysis and of related concepts such as topicality are often isolated from each other in the literature of information science (IS) and related disciplines. In IS it is important to consider the nature and meaning of these concepts, which is closely related to theoretical and metatheoretical issues in information retrieval (IR). A theory of IR must specify which concepts should be regarded as synonymous concepts and explain how the meaning of the nonsynonymous concepts should be defined

Type

a

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Type

a

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Abstract

Information science has for a long time been drawing on the knowledge produced in psychology and related fields. This is reasonable, for the central issue in information science concerns individual users navigating information spaces such as libraries, databases, and the Internet, Thus, informations seeking is the fundamental problem in information science, while other problems, such as document representation, are subordinate. This book proposes a general theory of information seeking as a theoretical basis for information science

Content

Introduction - information seeking and subject representation - subject searching and subject representation data - subject analysis and knowledge organization - the concept of subject or subject matter and basic epistemological positions - methodological consequences for information science - science, discipline, and subject field as a framework for information seeking - information needs and cognitive and scientific development

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Abstract

The term 'the bibliographic paradigm' is used in the literature of library and information science, but is a very seldom term and is almost always negatively described. This paper reconsiders this concept. Method. The method is mainly 'analytical'. Empirical data concerning the current state of the UDC-classification system are also presented in order to illuminate the connection between theory and practice. Analysis. The bibliographic paradigm is understood as a perspective in library and information science focusing on documents and information resources, their description, organization, mediation and use. This perspective is examined as one among other metatheories of library and information science and its philosophical assumptions and implications are outlined. Results. The neglect and misunderstanding of 'the bibliographic paradigm' as well as the quality of the new UDC-classification indicate that both the metatheoretical discourses on library and information science and its concrete practice seem to be in a state of crisis.

Type

a

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Abstract

It is argued that concepts are the building blocks of knowledge organizing systems (KOS). Objections to this view are considered and answers are provided. By implication the theory of concepts constitutes the foundation for knowledge organization (KO). The theory of concepts is understood as related to and derived from theories of knowledge. Different theories of knowledge such as empiricism, rationalism, historicism and pragmatism imply different theories of concepts. Such different epistemologies and their associated theories of concepts represent different methodological ideals which probably compete in all knowledge domains. Different approaches to KO are also in fundamental ways associated with different theories of concepts. The paper holds that the historicist and pragmatic theory of concept should be considered most valuable. By implication is it is necessary to know about competing theories in the fields being organized. A further implication of the pragmatic view is that the construction of a KOS must be understood as a way of participating in the discourses in the domain that is being represented.

Type

a