LIS section of phd601_2

Paul Kantor

 

  1. Assignments for the LIS component. I would like for us, each week, to consider several papers together.  We do this in a kind of "seminar format" in which one group plays the role of the leader, and must be very well prepared about the papers.  If you are in the leader group, you should read all the papers for the week carefully, and do additional outside reading related to the one that you will be presenting.   If you are not in the "leader group" you should read all the papers and try to formulate one or two intelligent questions about the papers, which you will pose to the leaders during the discussion.  As always, honesty and courtesy must guide the discussion.

 

 
  1. Forming groups.  Group 1  if your birthday is in Jan Feb Mar Apr May June

2                                                                Jun Jul Aug Sep

3                                                                Oct Nov  Dec

 

  1. Guiding questions for Dec 2. Group 3 will lead the discussion.

 

Visiting faculty member. Prof. Nina Wacholder from LIS will be visiting the class on Dec 2, to serve as a moderator, and to give you another perspective on the work of Information Science.

Please be sure all of the papers are covered. and each of you is reasonably happy with your assignment.

There seem to be only two papers left. But that means that, in leading the discussions, you will have the obligation to critically relate these two papers to the ones that you have already read, and lead your classmates into a critical review of the issues that they raise.

During your discussion bear in mind this metalevel question "Is the goal of information science to produce a wealth of different perspectives, or to converge on some broad ("universal") principles that define a paradigm for the discipline.

Hjorland and Albrechtsen take the position that the field lacks a unifying principle, which they propose to supply. How would Brooks respond to this? Would he claim that his fundamental equation represents a unifying principle? Is it in contradiction with "domain analysis" or is it compatible. How would Saracevic respond to their claim? Do you agree that it s not possible ot divide information (about a problem or a decision) into "relevant" and "irrelevant". In an often quoted passage by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, upon being told that the earth moves around the sun, said that he would try to forget it. It would, he thought, be of no use in capturing the criminals of London. Wasn't he right!. Is not some information truly irrelevant. Or was he being (implicitly) domain dependent. Does the question then reduce to the empty one of asserting that there is no information that is not relevant to *some* problem. Is the domain specific approach different from the problem of cataloging materials? How does it relate to Popper's three worlds, as interpreted by Brookes?

 

Jacob and Shaw provide a bibliographic, but informative survey of what they call "Socio-cognitive perspectives" on representation. What do they mean by representation? Do you think they summarize Shera accurately? Why is representation important in information science? Why cannot each entity" stand for itself" without requiring representation. How does Saracevic see the role of representation? Why is Wittgenstein's view brought into the discussion. What does he (W) mean by "word games" or "language games"? How would you apply sociocognitive perspectives to these two very different tasks (A) organize and represent the materials in a collection of hundreds of works of fiction, in dozens of genres. (B) organize a collection of works dealing with medical practice and principles, from two centuries (say, 19th and 20th) and the literatures of North America, China, India, Africa and Europe. What does the socio-cognitve perspective say about these two tasks?. Does it offer a unifying principle for approaching them? Do you find the unifying principle (if it exists) persuasive? Effective? What doe sit mean for a principle to be effective?.