283 research outputs found

    The Lifeworld in the Library\u27s Backroom: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study of the Cataloguer\u27s Lived Experience of Aboutness Determination

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    This research is interested in the cataloguer\u27s lived experience of aboutness determination. Aboutness determination, a part of subject cataloguing where the cataloguer attempts to identify the subject matter of a resource, is a process often taken for granted and largely neglected by the library community. Yet, aboutness determination is an essential stage in subject cataloguing worthy of greater attention. There is a need for a deeper understanding of the cataloguer\u27s relatedness to the resource in aboutness determination. This hermeneutic phenomenological study examines the lifeworld of three professional cataloguers. Through in-depth, semi-structured interviews and through talk-aloud analysis of resources, the interpreted findings provide access to the lived experience of cataloguers in aboutness determination, thus providing insight into this phenomenon. What is revealed is that aboutness determination involves a variable encounter, predisposed by systems and structures, in which the cataloguer acts as an intermediate agent in consideration of the resource and the user. The signification of this understanding is thoughtfulness. It is to give heed to the experience as it is, and to illuminate the essential qualities of that experience so that it may be understood more fully

    Demonstratives, referent identification and topicality in Wambon and some other Papuan languages

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    Abstract In Papuan languages like Wambon and Urim demonstrative forms are used both in contexts of referent identification, e.g. as demonstrative operators in noun phrases, and in topicality contexts, e.g. as topic markers with adverbial clauses and phrases, recapitulative clauses, new topic NPs and given topic NPs. Using notions from the Functional Grammar framework (Dik, 1989), I present a non-unified account of the demonstrative forms: helping the addressee to identify referents by giving deictic hints like ‘close to speaker’ and orienting the addressee about the topical cohesion of the discourse are two separate functional domains in language. This ‘two-domain’ hypothesis, which views the demonstrative forms as having two synchronically unrelated functions, explains the fact that in Wambon and Urim the demonstratives show important differences in form and behaviour depending on whether they are used for referent identification or for expressing topicality distinctions. The ‘two-domain’ hypothesis explains such formal differences but cannot explain the formal similarities between topic markers and demonstrative operators in Papuan languages like Wambon and Urim. To explain these formal similarities I suggest a diachronic development: in several Papuan languages topic markers developed from demonstrative operators. In the relatively well-documented Awyu-family of Papuan languages this process can be traced: in Wambon, the resumptive demonstrative pronoun- eve integrated in the preceding NP as a topic marker in stative clauses with a very transparant dichotomous topic-comment structure. In Korowai, also of the Awyu-family, the clitic -efè, function as a demonstrative operator and functions solely as a topic marker

    The Life and Times of Aboutness: A Review of the Library and Information Science Literature

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    Representing Aboutness: Automatically Indexing 19th- Century Encyclopedia Britannica Entries

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    Representing aboutness is a challenge for humanities documents, given the linguistic indeterminacy of the text. The challenge is even greater when applying automatic indexing to historical documents for a multidisciplinary collection, such as encyclopedias. The research presented in this paper explores this challenge with an automatic indexing comparative study examining topic relevance. The setting is the NEH-funded 19th-Century Knowledge Project, where researchers in the Digital Scholarship Center, Temple University, and the Metadata Research Center, Drexel University, are investigating the best way to index entries across four historical editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica (3rd, 7th, 9th, and 11th editions). Individual encyclopedia entry entries were processed using the Helping Interdisciplinary Vocabulary Engineering (HIVE) system, a linked-data, automatic indexing terminology application that uses controlled vocabularies. Comparative topic relevance evaluation was performed for three separate keyword extraction algorithms: RAKE, Maui, and Kea++. Results show that RAKE performed the best, with an average of 67% precision for RAKE, and 28% precision for both Maui and Kea++. Additionally, the highest-ranked HIVE results with both RAKE and Kea++ demonstrated relevance across all sample entries, while Maui’s highest-ranked results returned zero relevant terms. This paper reports on background information, research objectives and methods, results, and future research prospects for further optimization of RAKE’s algorithm parameters to accommodate for encyclopedia entries of different lengths, and evaluating the indexing impact of correcting the historical Long S

    Ranganathan’s elucidation of subject in the light of ‘Infinity (∞)’

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    This paper reviews Ranganathan’s description of subject from mathematical angle. Ranganathan was highly influenced by Nineteenth Century mathematician George Cantor and he used the concept of infinity in developing an axiomatic interpretation of subject. Majority of library scientists interpreted the concept of subject merely as a term or descriptor or heading to include the same in cataloguing and subject indexing. Some library scientists interpreted subject on the basis of document, i.e. from the angle of the concept of aboutness or epistemological potential of the document etc. Some people explained subject from the viewpoint of social, cultural or socio-cultural process. Attempts were made to describe subject from epistemological viewpoint. But S R Ranganathan was the first to develop an axiomatic concept of subject on its own. He built up an independent idea of subject that is ubiquitously pervasive with human cognition process. To develop the basic foundation of subject, he used the mathematical concepts of infinity and infinitesimal and construed the set of subjects or universe of subjects as continuous infinite universe. The subject may also exist in extremely micro-form, which was termed as spot subject and analogized with point, which is dimensionless having only an existence. The influence of Twentieth Century physicist George Gamow on Ranganathan’s thought has also been discussed

    Relevance, Rhetoric, and Argumentation: A Cross-Disciplinary Inquiry into Patterns of Thinking and Information Structuring

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    This dissertation research is a multidisciplinary inquiry into topicality, involving an in-depth examination of literatures and empirical data and an inductive development of a faceted typology (containing 227 fine-grained topical relevance relationships and 33 types of presentation relationship). This inquiry investigates a large variety of topical connections beyond topic matching, renders a closer look into the structure of a topic, achieves an enriched understanding of topicality and relevance, and induces a cohesive topic-oriented information architecture that is meaningful across topics and domains. The findings from the analysis contribute to the foundation work of information organization, intellectual access / information retrieval, and knowledge discovery. Using qualitative content analysis, the inquiry focuses on meaning and deep structure: Phase 1 : develop a unified theory-grounded typology of topical relevance relationships through close reading of literature and synthesis of thinking from communication, rhetoric, cognitive psychology, education, information science, argumentation, logic, law, medicine, and art history; Phase 2 : in-depth qualitative analysis of empirical relevance datasets in oral history, clinical question answering, and art image tagging, to examine manifestations of the theory-grounded typology in various contexts and to further refine the typology; the three relevance datasets were used for analysis to achieve variation in form, domain, and context. The typology of topical relevance relationships is structured with three major facets: Functional role of a piece of information plays in the overall structure of a topic or an argument; Mode of reasoning: How information contributes to the user's reasoning about a topic; Semantic relationship: How information connects to a topic semantically. This inquiry demonstrated that topical relevance with its close linkage to thinking and reasoning is central to many disciplines. The multidisciplinary approach allows synthesis and examination from new angles, leading to an integrated scheme of relevance relationships or a system of thinking that informs each individual discipline. The scheme resolving from the synthesis can be used to improve text and image understanding, knowledge organization and retrieval, reasoning, argumentation, and thinking in general, by people and machines

    In search of dimensions of subject from the standpoint of Ranganathan

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    This paper highlights a new interpretation of dynamic state of subject from the viewpoint of Ranganathan’s theory.Ranganathan introduced the following three concepts in order to describe the state of subject, viz., continuous infinite universe,spiral model of subject development and idea plane. These three concepts together depict four dimensions of a subject startingfrom its birth. The name given to these three concepts together is Ranganathan’s three-tier description of subject

    Assessing the relative value of domain knowledge for civil society's libraries: the role of core collections

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    Core collections were once at the heart of assessment of a public library's ability to meet users' needs. The commitment to valuable public knowledge has receded over time based upon postmodern readings of what this concept might mean and a move toward a user-centred paradigm within LIS. Working within a knowledge organisation framework that problematises how users' definitions of value are assessed, this paper looks to how core collections can still have relevance within a framework of knowledge that has become increasingly context-laden and contingently based. The question of how value across domains is conceptualised and implemented is investigated with an aim to contribute to a hermeneutically-grounded method of selection that can aid users in finding the best materials to support self-guided learning. This research aims to explicate why certain domains should be prioritised for civil society settings; what range and depth should be invoked in the process of selection and evaluation and what is the nature of subjective choice in delineating a balance between a core collection and the broader non-fiction collection. The research is grounded in hermeneutical phenomenology and a desire to see librarianship as, primarily, a human science, or at least a philosophically-informed humanistic endeavour. It looks to Betti's objectivist approach to interpretation of Geisteswissenschaften as a guide to understanding how library and information science balances one of its core assessment tasks: defining subject priority. This research outlines why scientific subjects should be apportioned a sublimated priority in civil society collections, but also that primarily the defining aspect of civil society collections is how they deal with the need to balance science, humanistic knowledge and the practical, technical and applied topicality that users require. The research reveals that the unravelling of these meta-categories is not as straightforward as might be supposed

    Subjective paradigm in subject indexing

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    Iako sadržajno označivanje pripada konceptualnoj jezgri informacijskih znanosti i knjižničarstva, ono je obilježeno dvojbama u teorijskim raspravama i praktičnim rješenjima. One proizlaze iz činjenice da je riječ o postupku koji je po svojoj prirodi subjektivan i podliježe interpretaciji, dok su istovremeno neutralnost, objektivnost, nepristranost i ujednačenost/dosljednost ugrađene u temeljna načela označivanja. Prevladavajući pristup označivanju u knjižnicama i drugim informacijskim ustanovama po svojoj je prirodi nomološki, utemeljen na objektivnim načelima i s dokumentom kao polazištem sadržajne analize. Ovaj će rad pregledom i analizom radova preispitati neke uvriježene teorijske okvire i praktična načela sadržajnog označivanja, kritički se osvrnuti na standarde i smjernice na kojima je utemeljena praksa u knjižnicama te ih promotriti u svjetlu novih tzv. korisničkih pristupa u označivanju, koji upućuju na konceptualni zaokret prema subjektivnim, korisničkim i kontekstualno usmjerenim pristupima sadržajnom označivanju.Although subject indexing is part of the conceptual core of library and information sciences, it is characterized by theoretical and practical ambiguities. These are a result of the fact that subject indexing is inherently a subjective and interpretative process, while at the same time, neutrality, objectivity and consistency are core principles of subject indexing. Libraries and other information institutions base their subject indexing on objective, nomological and document-centered principles. This paper, based on desk research and literature analysis, will re-examine common theoretical frameworks and practical principles in subject indexing, critically assess standards and guidelines used in libraries and analyse them in the light of user tagging, which implies a conceptual turn towards a subjective, user-oriented and contextual approach to subject indexing
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