Are traditions of facet theory geographically bounded or transcendent?

[Abstract] By drawing on a variety of sources, including personal correspondence with Brian Vickery, this paper draws upon a socio-historical approach in order to provide a platform for continued conversations among facet theorists and those who seek to create faceted applications. Once common ground is established, it is but a small step to the creation of operational definitions and functional requirements as Slavic (2008) and others have discussed. With variant terminology under control, facet theorists can move quickly to identify and promote exemplars of best practice for those seeking to implement facets as search and discovery structures in contemporary information spaces

The Heritage of Facet Analysis in North America: Past Lessons as Pathways for Contemporary Exploration

This paper will contrast the broad contours of Ranganathan’s legacy in North America with a general assessment of contemporary North American facet applications. It will also offer a potential model for contemporary researchers that outlines heritage facet-analytical protocols currently in use

Faceted navigation and browsing features in new OPACs: A more robust solution to problems of information seekers?

In November, 2005, James Billington, the Librarian of Congress, proposed the creation of a “World Digital Library” of manuscripts and multimedia materials in order to “bring together online, rare and unique cultural materials.” Google became the first private sector partner for this project with a pledge of 3 million dollars (http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2005/05- 250.html). One month later, the Bibliographic Services Task Force of the University of California Libraries released a report: Rethinking how we provide bibliographic services for the University of California. (Bibliographic Services Task Force, 2005). Key proposals included the necessity of enhancing search and retrieval, redesigning the library catalog or OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog), encouraging the adoption of new cataloguing practices, and supporting continuous improvements to digital access. By mid-January, 2006, the tenor of discussion reached fever pitch. On January 12, 2006, the North Carolina State University (NCSU) Library announced the deployment of a revolutionary implementation for their OPAC of Endeca’s ProFind™, which until now had only been used in commercial e-commerce or other business applications. NCSU made the bold claim that “the speed and flexibility of popular online search engines” had now entered the world of the online catalog through the use of faceted navigation and browsing (NCSU, online)

Coral Reef Biodiversity in the Face of Climatic Changes

Loss of marine biodiversity seems inevitable in the 21st century. In benthic marine systems, survivors will have to acclimatize to seawater constantly increasing in temperature and evolving chemically, while also needing to out-compete new opportunistic neighbors and possibly facing increased predation pressure. Last but not the least, with a metabolis

Special interest groups 1959 - 1980: Uneasy détente or collegial cold war?

An exploration of the events leading to the leading to the formation of the ASIST Special Interest Group/ Classification Research (SIG/CR) - one of the first of the American Documentation Institute’s SIGs, with context about other SIGs that formed during this same period

Returning the (faceted) gaze: Reflections on representation, meaning and form

This brief position paper is the central narrative in a theoretic-historical triptych. The first two documents: A (Faceted) Semantic Web? (La Barre, 2011) and Traditions of Facet Theory or a Garden of Forking Paths? (La Barre, forthcoming) amplify a question Brian Vickery posed to the author in 2005. The current proposal, deeply entwined in the same narrative, seeks to continue the agenda of articulation for a primarily North American audience. Instead of description and comparison, a starkly different analytical framework – Walter Benjamin’s notion of ‘aura’ – is deployed to interrogate facet theory along the core dimensions of tradition, uniqueness, and authenticity. The final aspect of this proposal will be an investigation of the aesthetic of redemption that may well serve as the bedrock for operational definitions and functional requirements for facet theory

Marine Biodiversity and Chemodiversity — The Treasure Troves of the Future

This Open Access book should have been published in January 2014, it still is under typesetting processInternational audienceFrom cyanobacteria and bacteria to the largest metazoans, chemistry is the preferred mode of aquatic communication, thanks to the extraordinary solvation properties of water. Bacteria create biofilms inside which they communicate using their own chemical repertoire before colonizing new media, substrates or organisms. Microalgae form blooms which are maintained by releasing semiochemicals for cell-cell recognition. Fish rely on their extraordinary sense of smell to hunt or to migrate to some specific breeding spot. The extraordinary biodiversity of coral reefs is maintained by a highly complex chemical network of toxins and pheromones, some soluble, some dispersed with a mucus carrier or surface-coated. But not only: the amazing colors used for warning or for camouflage, the bioluminescence used in the dark correspond to very sophisticated assemblages of pigments, small metabolites or proteins, each organism having its own strategy to be visually recognized or to blend into the background. Humans have only recently been aware of the extraordinary potential marine molecules for the design of new drugs, cosmetics and nutraceutics. Well over 20000 natural molecules have been studied so far, and several have responded to the need for novel anticancer, antibiotic, anti-inflammatory or anti-pain agents etc. To-date, very little is said or written on the fate of natural chemodiversity within the context of local or general biodiversity collapse, both terrestrial and marine. After a brief historical account of the intricate connections between chemodiversity and biodiversity since life appeared on our planet, this chapter attempts to demonstrate that natural molecular diversity, both mineral and organic, is a treasure to preserve for future generations, using a series of marine examples

Novel Tools for the Evaluation of the Health Status of Coral Reefs Ecosystems and for the Prediction of Their Biodiversity in the Face of Climatic Changes

International audienceTropical reefs concentrate between one quarter and one third of the total marine biodiversity, though they only cover about 0.1% of the global oceanic surface and are confined to warmer latitudes. Half a billion humans depend partly or totally on the goods and services provided by coral reef ecosystems. However, coral reefs are now recognized as being among the most fragile of all environments in the face of localized anthropic pressures and of their climatic consequences of planetary dimensions. Today less than 20% can still be regarded as unharmed. Research scientists continue to explore natural biodiversity in remote pristine environments (especially biodiversity hotspots, a very useful conservation-promoting concept) and to observe its lossesin degrading habitats. Programs on bioremediation of impacted sites are attracting funds, and classification of natural habitats as protected sites is gaining public support. Yet the scientific community has very little leverage on the decision-making of potentially impacting industrial, commercial and urban development projects, and on the say-so broadcast by their promoters in the media. In this chapter, a holistic concept is proposed that (i) integrates cutting-edge molecular research and standard technologies with field sampling and laboratory simulations of natural habitats (ii) using holobiont-based sentinel systems, (iii) into a single tool that "shows evidence" of ongoing degradation rather than aftermath "score loss". Corrective action can then be taken in specific directions before no-return limits have been reached and total ecosystem collapse is on the way

Festiva vigilância (e seus descontentes): o Rio dos megaeventos

Há um debate público em curso em torno dos potenciais efeitos negativos dos mega-eventos acontecendo no Rio de Janeiro. Neste post, Jorge de La Barre contribui nesse debate discutindo a retórica dos mega-eventos na cidade e sua relação com os protestos recentes no Brasil