Invitation to Participate: SIG/CR Annual Workshop: Defining the Limits of Classification Research & Practice

ASIS&T 2010′s conference theme, “Navigating Streams in an Information Ecosystem,” refers to the increasingly wide-ranging and expansive nature of our field, and provides SIG/CR with a valuable opportunity to investigate the limits of current classification research and begin developing models for expansion. This workshop will give participants a chance to reflect on essential questions related to information classification, representation and organization while exploring the future of the field. This is a full-day workshop, with morning and afternoon sessions.

 

The morning session will include papers from theoreticians and practitioners in the field, including:

 

Molly Tighe, Time Capsules Project Cataloguer, the Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA. Ms. Tighe will describe her work at the Warhol Museum, where she is involved with a project to arrange and describe over 600 boxes of items contained in the Andy Warhol Time Capsules.

 

Grant Campbell, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario. Professor Campbell will present a paper "New Life for an Old Theory: Italo Calvino, the Future of the Web, and the Theory of Integrative Levels" This presentation will use Italo Calvino's analysis of creativity and cybernetics to suggest that the growth of sophisticated semantic networks in the Web of the future depends on a process that Feibleman identified years ago with his theory of integrative levels.

 

Joe Tennis, Assistant Professor at the School of Information at the University of Washington. His paper "Form, Intention, and Indexing: The Liminal and Integrated Conceptions Work in Knowledge Organization" will propose a dual conception of "the work" in knowledge organization. 

 

Tim Spalding, Founder of LibraryThing. In this presentation, Mr. Spalding will discuss the intersection of traditional and social cataloging, specifically how LibraryThing for Libraries allows librarians to harness the "wisdom of the crowd" in unprecedented ways. Traditional library OPACs currently lack the mechanisms for collecting the knowledge and preferences of library patrons. Although the traditional cataloging and classification model - where a small group of specialists describe materials for the general public - works well enough for the job for which it was designed, the expectations of users have changed with the advent of web 2.0 technologies like Wikipedia, flickr, and Amazon recommendation systems. (*Note: this is a change from the original speaker from LibraryThing)

 

The afternoon session will build on the ideas presented in the morning session and will be devoted to small group and general discussion regarding the limits of classification research. 

 

Specific questions include: 

 

- Where is classification research headed? 

- How can we best communicate our ideas and theories to researchers, students, and practitioners? 

- What are some of the strengths of our current research methods, and what are our weaknesses? 

- Are we working under any unexplored assumptions or biases? 

- What are the goals of classification research? 

 

Attendees will be asked to break into small groups in the afternoon to discuss these questions, then return for general discussion towards the end of the workshop. 

 

Important Information:

 

EARLY REGISTRATION ENDS: September 17, 2010 (register and make hotel reservations by this date) 

( http://www.asis.org/asist2010/index.html ) 

 

For more information: 

http://www.asis.org/asist2010/workshop-SIGCR.html

 

We hope to see you there!

 

On behalf of the workshop’s organizing committee,

Diane Neal, SIG CR Chair

Diane M. Neal, PhD
Assistant Professor
Faculty of Information and Media Studies
The University of Western Ontario
North Campus Building, Room 240
London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5B7
519-661-2111 ext. 81034
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www.fims.uwo.ca