Knowledge Organization: A Sociohistorical Analysis and Critique

Andersen, Jack; Skouvig, Laura

doi:10.1086/511139

Cited by 41 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Jack Anderson and Laura Skouvig [30] refer to the idea of truth in their historical analysis and critique of knowledge organization as an emerging academic discipline. The authors base their analysis of knowledge organization on the sociocultural theories of Jü rgen Habermas and Michel Foucault.…”

Section: Examinations Of Truth In Librarianshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Philosophical Problem of Truth in Librarianship

Labaree¹,

Scimeca²

2008

The Library Quarterly

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Library Quarterly.The authors develop a framework for addressing the question of truth in librarianship and in doing so attempt to move considerations of truth closer to the core of philosophical debates within the profession. After establishing ways in which philosophy contributes to social scientific inquiry in library science, the authors examine concepts of truth currently found in the literature. Analysis reveals that only scattered attention has been given to this issue. As a result, there is a lack of clarity about the relationship between theories of truth and the practice of librarianship. The authors review the three prevailing theories of truth in philosophy and then introduce a new construct of truth rooted in an early version of historicism. The authors conclude that this theoretical framework offers a new method for understanding how the objective practices of librarianship only can be adequately explained by considering their place within a contextualized process of historical development.

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Section: Examinations Of Truth In Librarianshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Philosophical Problem of Truth in Librarianship

Labaree¹,

Scimeca²

2008

The Library Quarterly

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“…As Egan and Shera (1952) maintain, bibliography is part of social communication. Andersen and Skouvig (2006) echo this view by claiming that “knowledge organization is a social and political activity” (p. 316). To understand knowledge organization as such, it is thus methodologically critical to place the target classification in its own social, historical, political, and even technological context.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Organizing knowledge the Chinese way

Lee

2010

Proc. Am. Soc. Info. Sci. Tech.

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This paper examines an approach to knowledge organization that is fundamentally different from the analytic model evolved from ancient Greek philosophy. The classification being studied is the scheme used in a catalog, entitled the Seven Epitomes (Qilue), for organizing the Chinese imperial library collection in the Former Han dynasty over 2,000 years ago. Its knowledge organization model influenced almost all bibliographic classifications throughout imperial China. By applying a multidimensional framework to place the target scheme in its own cultural and historical context, the study identifies and discusses three key aspects of the Chinese classificatory approach. First, the scheme purposefully embraces a ru classicist ideology as its guiding principle. Second, it presents the knowledge universe as an integrated whole. Third, it applies correlative, rather than analytic, thinking to organizing textual categories, with the so-called ru Classics in the center of all major relationships. In conclusion, suggestions are made to identify additional aspects of the Chinese tradition in knowledge organization, to incorporate this way of thinking and test how it can work in constantly evolving information environments, and to understand categories and relationships in cultural contexts.

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“…This is in line with recent research in knowledge organization acknowledging how tools and practices that manage and organize documents and artefacts in institutional settings, also carry social meaning. Such research picks up bibliographical tools and discusses them as documents, or texts, each with a particular story to tell, and considers them as biased instruments that potentially embody and mediate particular discourses and institutional identities (Andersen and Skouvig, 2006;Bowker and Star, 1999;Dahlström, 2006;Frohmann, 2004;Hansson, 2006;Hanson, 2010;Hjørland, 2000;Kjellman, 2006;Olson, 2002). This means conceiving of cultural heritage digitization as a remediating practice, affecting the library in several ways.…”

Section: Digitization As a Mediating Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

‘As We May Digitize’ — Institutions and Documents Reconfigured

Dahlström¹,

Hansson²,

Kjellman³

2012

LIBER

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This article frames digitization as a knowledge organization practice in libraries and museums. The primarily discriminatory practices of museums are compared with the non-discriminatory practices of libraries when managing their respective cultural heritage collections. Digitization of cultural heritage brings new practices, tools and arenas that reconfigure and reinterpret not only the collections, but the memory institutions themselves as well as the roles they respectively play on a societal level. The development of digitization promises to bridge some gaps between libraries and museums, either by redefining their respective identity, or by forming new ground where the interests of the respective institutions naturally meet or even converge, or by neglecting particular tasks and roles that do not seem to find a natural home in the new territory. Two poles along a digitization strategy scale, mass digitization and critical digitization, are distinguished in the article. As memory institutions are redefined in their development of digitized document collections, e.g., by increasingly emphasizing a common 'As We May Digitize' -Institutions and Documents Reconfigured 456 Liber Quarterly Volume 21 Issue 3/4 2012trans-national rather than national cultural heritage, mass digitization and critical digitization represent alternative avenues. Museums, libraries and archives (MLA) endeavour aiming for joint tools and practices in digitizing cultural heritage collections need a thorough understanding of such mechanisms. The article re-contextualizes current digitization discourse: a) historically, by suggesting that digitization brings ancient practices back to life rather than invents entirely new ones from scratch; b) conceptually, by presenting a new label (critical digitization) for a digitization strategy that has hitherto been downplayed in digitization discourse; and c) theoretically, by exploring the relations between the values of different digitization strategies, the reconfiguration of collections as they are digitized, and the redefinition of MLA institutions through those processes. The arguments in the article are drawn from examples of digitization in different library contexts on both a national (Swedish) level and a European level.

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Knowledge Organization: A Sociohistorical Analysis and Critique

Cited by 41 publications

References 16 publications

The Philosophical Problem of Truth in Librarianship

The Philosophical Problem of Truth in Librarianship

Organizing knowledge the Chinese way

‘As We May Digitize’ — Institutions and Documents Reconfigured

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