Jonathan Furner

Spatial querying for image retrieval: a user-oriented evaluation

Epic is an image retrieval system that implements a novel spatial-querying mechanism. A usercentred, task-oriented, comparative evaluation of Epic was undertaken in which two versions of the system--one set up to enable spatial queries only, the other allowing textual queries only-were compared. Use was made of the two systems by design professionals in simulated work task situations, and quantitative and qualitative data collected as indicators of the levels of users’ satisfaction. Re sults demonstrated that users often had a ‘mental image’ of a potentially satisfying picture in mind, that they were happy to express this need in visual terms, and that in doing so they preferred to have access to Epic’s spatialquerying facility. Success in obtaining statistically significant results appears to support validation of the novel methodological framework adopted.

Digital Museums and Diverse Cultural Knowledges: Moving Past the Traditional Catalog

Web 2.0 technologies have introduced increasingly participatory practices to creating content, and museums are becoming interested in the potentials of “Museum 2.0” for reaching and engaging with new audiences. As technological advances are opening up the ways in which museums share information about the objects in their collections, the means by which museums create, handle, process, and transmit knowledge has become more transparent. For this to be done effectively, however, some underlying contradictions must be resolved between museum practices, which privilege the account of the “expert,” and distributed social technology practices, whose strengths lie in allowing for many, sometimes contradictory, perspectives. This article presents a theoretical position and framework for the adaptation of Web 2.0 technologies within the traditional work of the museum, in ways that support the generation and representation of knowledge in, by, and for diverse communities. We then expand on this theoretical perspective by discussing several case studies of exploratory work in this area, and close the article by presenting a few tactical, bottom-up initiatives that museums and distributed communities can take to facilitate the diffusion of this new conceptual framework. Though the subject of this article is online museums, the issues are relevant to all online collections, in particular portals, online public access catalogs (OPAC), and content management systems.

On recommending

The core of any document retrieval system is a mechanism that ranks the documents in a large collection in order of the likelihood with which they match the preferences of any person who interacts with the system. Given a broader interpretation of recommending than is commonly accepted, such a preference ordering may be viewed as a recommendation, made by the system to the information seeker, that is itself typically derived through synthesis of multiple preference orderings expressed as recommendations by indexers, information seekers, and document authors. The ERIn (Evaluation-Recommendation-Information) model, a decision-theoretic framework for understanding information-related activity, highlights the centrality of recommending in the document retrieval process, and may be used to clarify the respects in which indexing, rating, and citation may be considered analogous, as well as to make explicit the points at which content-based, collaboration-based, and context-based flavors of document retrieval systems vary.

Dewey Deracialized : A Critical Race-Theoretic Perspective

Critical race theory is introduced as a potentially useful approach to the evaluation of bibliographic classification schemes. An overview is presented of the essential elements of critical race theory, including clarifications of the meanings of some important terms such as “race” and “social justice.” On the basis of a review of existing conceptions of the just and the antiracist library service, a rationale is presented for hypothesizing that critical race theory may be of use to the library and information sciences. The role of classification schemes as information institutions in their own right is established, and the Dewey Decimal Classification is introduced as the case to be studied. The challenges faced by classification-scheme designers in the construction and/or reconstruction of race-related categories are reviewed; and an analysis is presented of one sense in which it might be suggested that recent (2003) revisions in one of the DDC’s tables appear not to meet those challenges wholly successfully. An account is given of a further sense in which adoption of a critical race-theoretic approach has the more radical effect of calling into question a fundamental decision recently taken to “deracialize” the DDC. In conclusion, an assessment is made of critical race theory as a framework for evaluating library classification schemes.

In search of the unknown user: indexing, hypertext and the world wide web

For the purposes of this article, the indexing of information is interpreted as the pre‐processing of information in order to enable its retrieval. This definition thus spans a dimension extending from classification‐based approaches (pre‐co‐ordinate) to keyword searching (post‐co‐ordinate). In the first section we clarify our use of terminology, by briefly describing a framework for modelling IR systems in terms of sets of objects, relationships and functions. In the following three sections, we discuss the application of indexing functions to document collections of three specific types: (1) ‘conventional’ text databases; (2) hypertext databases; and (3) the World Wide Web, globally distributed across the Internet.

Little Book, Big Book Before and After Little Science, Big Science: A Review Article, Part II

Since its publication in 1963, Derek Price’s Little science, big science (LSBS) has achieved ‘citation classic’ status. Examination of the genesis of LSBS and the state of the discipline of the history of science in the UK and the USA in the late 1950s demonstrates that Price’s ideas were formulated during a pivotal period in the development of socio-historical studies of science. Price’s talent for innovation and synthesis at an unsettled but highly charged time, and his appreciation of the pioneering work in science studies of the crystallographer J.D. Bernal, are reflected in the uniquely profound and wide-ranging respects in which LSBS has contributed to the development of scientometric and sociological theory.

The Representation and Comparison of Hypertext Structures Using Graphs

Gamma-butyrolactones are prepared by the reaction of carbon monoxide with a 3-alkene-1-ol in the presence of a platinum group metal compound.

Shera's social epistemology recast as psychological bibliology

Shera, the library scientist, is often credited with introducing the term and concept of social epistemology; but his idea is most profitably viewed not as a contribution to epistemology or even to the sociology of knowledge, but rather as the forerunner of a document-focused strain of socio-cognitive psychology influential in the information sciences from the 1970s onwards. In turn, the work of Shera and his colleague Egan is itself reminiscent of the psychological bibliology defined by the documentalists Otlet and Rubakin in the early 20th century.

Information Without Information Studies

A method is suggested of conducting a meta-analysis of contributions to the literature on the nature of information—one that involves identification of authors’ ontological commitments. A framework is proposed for defining the range of ontological possibilities for things that have been called “information”; the ontological commitments of some of those whose work may be less familiar to the Library and Information Science (LIS) community are examined; and some residual confusion about the nature of the relationships among different conceptions of information is cleared up. It is tentatively concluded that any approach to conceptualizing information that downplays the contributions of LIS—i.e., information without information studies—is needlessly impoverished, not least on account of the range of ontological possibilities that it misses.

Information Science Is Neither

Information science is not a science, nor is it primarily about information. In this paper, an argument is developed in support of the latter claim. A working definition of information is proposed, and doubts are raised about the extent to which each of five core subfields of information science/studies (information behavior, information retrieval, infometrics, information organization, and information ethics) has to do with information as defined. Several alternative candidates for the primary phenomenon of interest shared by those working in all five subfields are considered: these include data studies; knowledge studies; metadata studies; representation studies; relevance studies; and (as a branch of cultural studies) collection, preservation, and access studies. A prime candidate is identified, and some implications of such a reading for the application of philosophical approaches to information science/studies are highlighted.