Search (29 results, page 2 of 2)

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Abstract

Knowledge Organization (KO) is about activities such as document description, indexing and classification performed in libraries, databases, archives etc. These activities are done by librarians, archivists, subject specialists as well as by computer algorithms. KO as a field of study is concerned with the nature and quality of such knowledge organizing processes (KOP) as well as the knowledge organizing systems (KOS) used to organize documents, document representations and concepts. There exist different historical and theoretical approaches to and theories about KO, which are related to different views of knowledge, cognition, language, and social organization. Each of these approaches tends to answer the question: "What is knowledge organization?" differently. LIS professionals have often concentrated on applying new technology and standards, and may not have seen their work as involving interpretation and analysis of meaning. That is why library classification has been criticized for a lack of substantive intellectual content. Traditional human-based activities are increasingly challenged by computer-based retrieval techniques. It is appropriate to investigate the relative contributions of different approaches; the current challenges make it imperative to reconsider this understanding. This paper offers an understanding of KO based on an explicit theory of knowledge.

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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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Content

"Bias" is normally understood as a negatively loaded word, as something to be avoided or minimized, for example, in statistics or in knowledge organization. Recently Melanie Feinberg suggested, however, that "if we cannot eliminate bias, then we should instead attempt to be more responsible about it and explicitly decide on and defend the perspectives represented in information systems". This view is linked to related views: That knowledge organization is too much concerned with information retrieval and too much described in the mode of scientific discovery, as opposed to the mode of artifact design: "From the literary warrant of Hulme to the terminological warrant of the Classification Research Group (CRG), to Hjorland's domain analysis, the classificationist seems like one who documents and compiles, and not one who actively shapes design." This paper examines these claims, which may be understood as questions about subjectivity and objectivity in classification and about positivism versus pragmatism in research. Is KO an objective and neutral activity? Can it be? Should it be? A dominant view has been that knowledge and KO should be understood as a passive reflection øf an external order. This has been termed the mirror metaphor of knowledge and is related to empiricism and positivism. The opposite view which is in accordance with both Feinberg and Hjorland - states that knowledge organization should be functional and thus reflecting given goals, purposes and values. It is related to pragmatism in philosophy.

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Abstract

In 1975 Tefko Saracevic declared the subject knowledge view to be the most fundamental perspective of relevance. This paper examines the assumptions in different views of relevance, including the system's view and the user's view and offers a reinterpretation of these views. The paper finds that what was regarded as the most fundamental view by Saracevic in 1975 has not since been considered (with very few exceptions). Other views, which are based on less fruitful assumptions, have dominated the discourse on relevance in information retrieval and information science. Many authors have reexamined the concept of relevance in information science, but have neglected the subject knowledge view, hence basic theoretical assumptions seem not to have been properly addressed. It is as urgent now as it was in 1975 seriously to consider the subject knowledge view of relevance (which may also be termed the epistemological view). The concept of relevance, like other basic concepts, is influenced by overall approaches to information science, such as the cognitive view and the domain-analytic view. There is today a trend toward a social paradigm for information science. This paper offers an understanding of relevance from such a social point of view.

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Abstract

Concept theory is an extremely broad, interdisciplinary and complex field of research related to many deep fields with very long historical traditions without much consensus. However, information science and knowledge organization cannot avoid relating to theories of concepts. Knowledge organizing systems (e.g., classification systems, thesauri, and ontologies) should be understood as systems basically organizing concepts and their semantic relations. The same is the case with information retrieval systems. Different theories of concepts have different implications for how to construe, evaluate, and use such systems. Based on a post-Kuhnian view of paradigms, this article put forward arguments that the best understanding and classification of theories of concepts is to view and classify them in accordance with epistemological theories (empiricism, rationalism, historicism, and pragmatism). It is also argued that the historicist and pragmatist understandings of concepts are the most fruitful views and that this understanding may be part of a broader paradigm shift that is also beginning to take place in information science. The importance of historicist and pragmatic theories of concepts for information science is outlined.

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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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Date

22. 3.2009 18:13:27