Mapping the KO Community

Knowledge organization (KO) is considered a distinctive disciplinary focus of information science, with strong connections to other intellectual domains such as philosophy, computer science, psychology, sociology, and more. Given its inherent interdisciplinarity, we ask what might a map of the physical, cultural and intellectual geography of the KO community look like? Who is participating in this discipline’s scholarly discussion, and from what locations, both geographically and intellectually? Using the unit of authorship in the journal Knowledge Organization, where is the nexus of KO activity, and what patterns of authorship can be identified? What indices can be generated to describe the KO community of researchers as it has evolved? Cultural characteristics were applied as a lens to explore who is and is not participating in the international conversation about KO. World Bank GNI per capita estimates were used to compare relative wealth of countries and Hofstede’s Individualism dimension was identified as a way of understanding attributes of countries whose scholars are participating in this dialog. Descriptive statistics were generated through Excel, and data visualizations were rendered through Tableau Public and TagCrowd. The current project offers one method for examining an international and interdisciplinary field of study, but also suggests potential for analyzing other interdisciplinary areas within the larger discipline of information science

North Africa: Implications for Information Creation and Access

© 2017, Published with license by Taylor & Francis. Column Editor\u27s Notes: The “Advances in Library Data and Access” column examines technological advances internal and external to libraries. The focus is on how library data is created and used. The strength of the column is its broad, international focus and contributors are encouraged to explore issues and recent advances in information technology relevant to their geographical region, as well as the larger, global audience. Interested authors are invited to submit proposals and articles to the column editor at [email protected]. Please include “IILR Submission” in the subject line of the email

Developing an OER textbook : the fun, the frustrations, and the progress

Presentation slides (50 slides)Presentation made at the March 2021 Missouri Affordable & Open Educational Resources Symposium held virtually March 3-5, 2021, sponsored by the University of Missouri--Kansas City, University of Missouri--St. Louis, and the University of Missouri--Columbia.Hoping to improve on available options with a high quality, locally created free resource, the presenters received UM system funding and support to coordinate the creation of an open educational resource (OER) textbook. The OER would be for use in the graduate level class Organization of Information at the MU iSchool, the School of Information Science and Learning Technologies. The presentation begins by discussing the project’s initial goals and slow start, including practical limitations such as challenges of determining a platform and restricted performance of available options. The presenters will also describe the help they received through the MU office of Course Design & Technology, and additional support they might need. The OER textbook was partially rolled out during the spring 2020 semester. A complete Version 1.0 of the OER entirely replaced the commercially produced textbook in fall 2020, with additional edits to follow. This presentation will demonstrate the OER as it currently stands, providing a concrete look at how the authors interpreted OER functionalities and what might be done differently going forward. Finally, the presenters will also assess the use of the OER so far, including student reactions and subsequent edits, and they will describe future plans for its future rollout as a stand alone OER

Data and digital objects : Manual and automated analysis to improve DMPs

Moulaison-Sandy, H., & Pham, N.-M. (2022, June 20). Data and digital objects: Manual and automated analysis to improve DMPs. In Neish, P., Kim, J., Bats, R., Million, A.J., Carlson, J., Moulaison-Sandy, H., & Bishop, B. Data Management Plan Assessments and Evaluations: Implications and Recommendations Lessons Learned [Panel: B. W. Bishop]. SciDataCon (International Data Week) 2022, Seoul, Republic of Korea.Heather Moulaison-Sandy and Ngoc-Minh Pham (iSchool, University of Missouri

Authorship Metadata for Video Games: "Collaborator", "Creator", or "Auteur"?

Author information is the one of the primary access points for information users to find relevant items. While this information is straightforward in most cases, it is not easy to identify and conceptualize who the “author” or “creator” is for collaborative creative works, such as video games. In this exploratory study, we review and compare current practices of authorship representations in knowledge organization systems, focusing on video games as a case study. We find that a video game publisher’s name is often used in the author/contributor fields in library records. As we discuss how video game creators’ information should be recorded in knowledge organization systems, we also explore the applicability of the auteur theory from film studies to solve the collaborative authorship representation problems in video games

Keeping up with scholarly identity : networks, identifiers, and metrics

Poster presented at the 2018 Annual Conference of the Missouri Library Association.A host of resources and tools are used to organize research, demonstrate value, and build communities. Researchers and librarians need to understand the pros and cons of each. This poster gives an overview of some options

Discovery systems as convergence : a systematic review of the research literature on an emerging library technology

Discovery systems were developed in 2009 and bring together the results from disparate databases such as the library catalog, electronic article databases, and ebook packages (Open Discovery Initiative Working Group, 2014). ... Significance: Given the focus on academic settings, not all library types or users are represented in the literature, which points to a need for further research. This study demonstrates that the scholarly communications surrounding discovery systems are evolving, moving from technologists to a merging or converging of general responsibilities and concerns

LGBTQ+ Catalog Users: A Brief Survey

To promote social justice, recent work in knowledge organization (KO) has focused on providing access for members of marginalized groups including LGBTQ+ persons. Expanding on this work, the current project explores demographics and library usage as well as the participant-provided identity terms of LGBTQ+ library catalog users. Using a survey methodology that collected 141 respondents’ information, researchers found that LGBTQ+ catalog users who responded were primarily young, educated, and identified as either Black or White. The majority of respondents reported regular use of the library catalog, though also found materials in a variety of other ways, including social media. When analyzed using facet analysis, terms used by respondents to express their identities were communicated in a range of ways with facets representing gender identity, gender alignment, gender expression, gender modality, physical attraction, emotional attraction, pronouns, and sociocultural identity all represented. Implications for the creation and application of specialized controlled vocabularies are discussed, with concerns about presumed simplicity of these approaches being questioned