Is there writing out there?

One wonders about the state of writing in society when there is truth in what is written here.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/building-a-nation-of-know-nothings/

your relationship to the written word

What is your relationship to the written word? What does recorded knowledge or the words chosen by another mean to your life? How does it become something to you? Why does it?

There are many stories of folks finding identity with others through the written word. There are also stories of folks rejecting dominant epistemologies present in the majority of recorded knowledge (e.g., Mary Daly [1]). Still others that were too busy with their own thoughts (So was Dorothy Wordsworth according to Gertrud Stein). We are also told by Eco, that some would rather die than share recorded knowledge - and we don't need fiction to know this to be the case.

If we focus on this and ask ourselves how and what part of the written word is accessible - beyond our current conceptions of our information institutions [2] - we might come to a new bibliography with a new set of requirements for knowledge organization.

References
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Daly#Works

[2] Furner, J. (2007). Dewey deracialized: A critical race-theoretic perspective. Knowledge Organization 34: 144-168. http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/jfurner/papers/furner-ko07-revised.pdf

Librarians and Sponsorship

National Post of Canada: "Even Libraries have been put on notice to ensure that they’re complying with all registered Olympic sponsors and partners. Librarians have been asked to help ensure corporate brands like Coke and McDonald’s get exclusive coverage during the Olympics.

“Do not have Pepsi or Dairy Queen sponsor your event,” read guidelines sent to VPL branch heads and supervisory staff last fall. “Coke and McDonald’s are the Olympic sponsors. If you are planning a kids’ event and approaching sponsors, approach McDonald’s and not another well-known fast-food outlet.”

Libraries have been instructed to “ensure all equipment/goods meets VANOC’s sponsorship brand requirements for things like food, clothing, merchandise.” So that means if a Telus employee is a speaker at a library event, he has to remove any symbols that identify Telus, since Bell is the official sponsor of the Games."

Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/01/13/adrian-macnair-with-glowing-hearts-olympics-kills-the-arts.aspx#ixzz0cbmIvpEb

Semantic Fight or Flight?

So just won(a)dering out loud - if we operate, at least on some level, with a fight or flight instinct (used loosely, if not metaphorically here), then what would a semantic fight or flight response be in classification or knowledge organization? Would flight be erasure and fight be argument or insult? Are there nuances here that require further elaboration? I'm actually sure there are. One wonders if the concept record, seen only by professionals dealing with KOS could account for the social interaction that might be semantic fight or flight in KOS.

In communication systems it might be different. Social tagging systems - which seem to be a hybrid of communication and knowledge organization tool might provide slices of this, but it would be a mirco-fight (with warring tags or tag wars), and I would think, and invisible erasure for flight.

Does this idea of the flight/flight dichotomy make sense? I'm inspired by some aboriginal thinkers (and thinkers working with aboriginal epistemologies and world-views) on classification, the tensions present in technologies of writing employed by colonizing forces in appropriation of concepts, and the subsequent reaction(s) specifically, but it could be explored in many contexts I think (tho' that's a neo-liberal perspective of mine!).

Coffee anyone?

Quote on Organizations and Individuals

"The tendency of organization is to kill out the spirit which gave it birth. Organizations do not protect the sacredness of the individual; their tendency is to sink the individual in the mass, to sacrifice his rights, and to immolate him on the altar of some fancied good."

Attribution:
Angelina Grimké (1805–1879), U.S. abolitionist and feminist. As quoted in The Grimke Sisters from South Carolina, ch. 18, by Gerda Lerner (1967).

In a letter to the 1852 Woman’s Rights Convention, held in Syracuse, New York. The major topic of the convention was to be the future organizational structure of the women’s rights movement, which was only a few years old.

Restart thanks to Brazil

Well, it's been an inspirational trip here to Brazil. Visiting UNESP in Marilia and a conference here in Joao Pessoa. I'm heading out today, but I'm now convinced that I should pick this blog back up. I'll be posting my talks on this topic here, and perhaps we should start collecting other resources on the topic. I also think I should start writing up a syllabus. Jose Augusto Guimaraes was a great host and inspiration with his syllabi and commitment to this area. His students and colleagues are doing equally interesting work. I look forward to coming back.

The Ethics of Information Organization – Conference Announcement and Call for Papers

The Ethics of Information Organization – Conference Announcement and Call for Papers

May 22-23, 2009, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Information organization (IO), like other major functions of the information profession, faces many ethical challenges. In the IO literature, ethical concerns have been raised with regard to, for example, the role of national and international IO standards, providing subject access to information, deprofessionalization and outsourcing of IO, education of IO professionals, and the effects of globalization. These issues, and others like them, have serious implications for quality and equity in information access. The Center for Information Policy Research and the Information Organization Research Group at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee join in presenting this conference to address the ethics of information organization.

The themes of the conference may include, but are not limited to, ethical aspects of and approaches to:

* The role of standards in IO

* Subject access to information

* Description and Metadata

* Folksonomies and social tagging as IO

* Day-to-day practice in IO

* Professionalism and IO

* Education for IO

* Culture and IO

* Economic, social and political factors in IO

* International, multicultural and multilingual aspects of IO

The keynote speakers will be:

Clare Beghtol, Professor, University of Toronto, Canada

José Augusto Chaves Guimarães, Professor, Universidade Estadual Paulista, Brazil

Janet Swan Hill, Professor, Associate Director for Technical Services, University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries, USA

We invite interested participants to submit proposals for papers to include: name(s) of presenter(s), title(s), affiliation(s), contact information and abstracts of 300-500 words. Presentations will be 30 minutes. Time will be set aside for questions as well as broader discussion. All abstracts will be published on the Web site of the UW-Milwaukee Center for Information Policy Research. Full papers will be further reviewed and selected for publication in a special issue of Cataloging and Classification Quarterly.

Abstracts due: January 1, 2009

Notification of acceptance by: February 1, 2009 Full papers due: April 3, 2009

Submit proposals electronically to: Hur-Li Lee, Chair of the Program Committee (hurli@uwm.edu)

The Program Committee:

Grant Campbell, Associate Professor, University of Western Ontario, Canada

Allyson Carlyle, Associate Professor, University of Washington

Clara M. Chu, Associate Professor, University of California, Los Angeles

Edwin Michael Cortez, Professor/Director, University of Tennessee

Birger Hjørland, Professor, The Royal School of Library and Information Science in Denmark

Hur-Li Lee, Chair, Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Steven J. Miller, Senior Lecturer, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Hope A. Olson, Professor, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Sandra Roe, Editor, Cataloging & Classification Quarterly and Bibliographic Services Librarian, Milner Library, Illinois State University

Richard P. Smiraglia, Professor, Long Island University

Michael Zimmer, Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Sponsors:

Center for Information Policy Research, UW-Milwaukee Information Organization Research Group at UW-Milwaukee University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries Milwaukee Public Libraries