To contribute to and evoke ongoing reflections on librarians' professional identity, i.e. librarianship. Inherent hereto is a questioning of the feasibility of collections and…
Abstract
Purpose
To contribute to and evoke ongoing reflections on librarians' professional identity, i.e. librarianship. Inherent hereto is a questioning of the feasibility of collections and collections control as basic constituents hereof. Instead, it is argued that an inquiry into proprieties of librarians' actual and potential tools allows for establishing firmer grounds for present and future librarianship.
Design/methodology/approach
In a number of analytical steps, the concept of librarianship is deconstructed.
Findings
Collections and collections control are shown to equal conceptual quicksand for librarianship at a time where access to information is largely outside librarians' control. Alternatively, an understanding of actual and potential librarians' tools may potentially provide firmer conceptual basis.
Practical implications
It is suggested that librarians are to reflect critically on the appropriateness of actual and potential tools applied.
Originality/value
Questions whether collections and collections control constitute a feasible primary constituent for librarianship. Suggests, instead, that firmer conceptual grounds for librarianship are to be established.
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Birger Hjørland and Karsten Nissen Pedersen
To suggest that a theory of classification for information retrieval (IR), asked for by Spärck Jones in a 1970 paper, presupposes a full implementation of a pragmatic…
Abstract
Purpose
To suggest that a theory of classification for information retrieval (IR), asked for by Spärck Jones in a 1970 paper, presupposes a full implementation of a pragmatic understanding. Part of the Journal of Documentation celebration, “60 years of the best in information research”.
Design/methodology/approach
Literature‐based conceptual analysis, taking Spärck Jones as its starting‐point. Analysis involves distinctions between “positivism” and “pragmatism” and “classical” versus Kuhnian understandings of concepts.
Findings
Classification, both manual and automatic, for retrieval benefits from drawing upon a combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques, a consideration of theories of meaning, and the adding of top‐down approaches to IR in which divisions of labour, domains, traditions, genres, document architectures etc. are included as analytical elements and in which specific IR algorithms are based on the examination of specific literatures. Introduces an example illustrating the consequences of a full implementation of a pragmatist understanding when handling homonyms.
Practical implications
Outlines how to classify from a pragmatic‐philosophical point of view.
Originality/value
Provides, emphasizing a pragmatic understanding, insights of importance to classification for retrieval, both manual and automatic.
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Keywords
This short note seeks to respond to Hjørland and Pederson's paper “A substantive theory of classification for information retrieval” which starts from Spärck Jones's, “Some…
Abstract
Purpose
This short note seeks to respond to Hjørland and Pederson's paper “A substantive theory of classification for information retrieval” which starts from Spärck Jones's, “Some thoughts on classification for retrieval”, originally published in 1970.
Design/methodology/approach
The note comments on the context in which the 1970 paper was written, and on Hjørland and Pedersen's views, emphasising the need for well‐grounded classification theory and application.
Findings
The note maintains that text‐based, a posteriori, classification, as increasingly found in applications, is likely to be more useful, in general, than a priori classification.
Originality/value
The note elaborates on points made in a well‐received earlier paper.