Undiscovered public knowledge is a relatively unstudied phenomenon, and the few extended examples that have been published are intradisciplinary. This paper presents the concept…
Abstract
Undiscovered public knowledge is a relatively unstudied phenomenon, and the few extended examples that have been published are intradisciplinary. This paper presents the concept of ‘facet’ as an example of interdisciplinary undiscovered public knowledge. ‘Facets’ were central to the bibliographic classification theory of S.R. Ranganathan in India and to the behavioural research of L. Guttman in Israel. The term had the same meaning in both fields, and the concept was developed and exploited at about the same time in both, but two separate, unconnected literatures grew up around the term and its associated concepts. This paper examines the origins and parallel uses of the concept and the term in both fields as a case study of interdisciplinary knowledge that could have been, but was apparently not, discovered any time between the early 1950s and the present using simple, readily available information retrieval techniques.
Gives a comprehensive revue of the literature which marked the birth centenary of Dr S.R. Ranganathan, a prolific writer on librarianship and library science.
Abstract
Gives a comprehensive revue of the literature which marked the birth centenary of Dr S.R. Ranganathan, a prolific writer on librarianship and library science.
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To discuss the importance of S.R. Ranganathan's teachings for librarians in the 21st century.Design/methodology/approach – The article is a reflective piece examining Ranganathan's…
Abstract
Purpose
To discuss the importance of S.R. Ranganathan's teachings for librarians in the 21st century.Design/methodology/approach – The article is a reflective piece examining Ranganathan's five laws of library science in their modern context.Findings – That we owe as much of a debt to Ranganathan today as we did when he first published his five laws in the 1920s. His laws remain relevant in numerous areas of modern library and information practice, and will continue to be reinterpreted by the profession for a long time to come.Practical implication – The paper argues for a revisiting of the works of Ranganathan and a continued championing of them in the library world.Originality/value – The value of the paper is in examining traditional library values in the modern era
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ONE OF THE MOST remarkable developments of the past few decades has been the wide‐spread growth of literacy in the world. Literacy has worked a revolution in values, mental and…
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ONE OF THE MOST remarkable developments of the past few decades has been the wide‐spread growth of literacy in the world. Literacy has worked a revolution in values, mental and emotional attitudes, and consequently on the structure of society. While at first this revolution was confined to the western countries, in the past few years it has been extended to other parts of the world which have ancient civilizations but are handicapped by a very low proportion of literate persons. Literacy will help them to appreciate the problems of their own country in relation to world problems and vice versa.
OUR readers may be amused this month by the microfilm imaginings of our correspondent in “Letters on Our Affairs,” but there is undoubtedly a more marked disposition now than…
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OUR readers may be amused this month by the microfilm imaginings of our correspondent in “Letters on Our Affairs,” but there is undoubtedly a more marked disposition now than formerly to reduce to a mechanism many of the usual routines of libraries. We suppose routine is always mechanical, is repetitive and, for the enterprising ambitious library worker, a matter of boredom. How far the “electronic brain” and other more recent developments of science can be adapted to our simple processes remains to be seen, but all experiment is good even if it does not survive the initial stage. What is to be most feared in any profession is the standardizing inflexibly of its techniques ; that way lies its old age, perhaps its petrification. It is for this reason that we welcome such things as those we have already discussed at times in our pages—the central cataloguing experiment of Harrods, the punched‐card vouchers and other records sponsored (so far as libraries are concerned) by Mr. T. E. Callender, the highly mechanised method of classing propounded by Dr. Ranganathan, the placing of D.C. numbers on the title pages of the books they publish by Jonathan Cape and Harrap, the visible fines receiving box and many more such things. No one uses them all. They free librarians, it is urged, for more specifically library service. We hope that they do. We have always before us the undoubted truth that the good man scraps methods that are obsolescent and the librarian (if one now exists) who is not a business man—especially if he is charged with a large library—is a somewhat pathetic person.
Classification is so fundamental and pervasive an activity that care is needed to define its scope when discussing a particular application, such as information retrieval.
THE activity of librarianship during September was almost breathless. Visitors to Chaucer House in the third week of the month had possibly the most cosmopolitan experience of…
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THE activity of librarianship during September was almost breathless. Visitors to Chaucer House in the third week of the month had possibly the most cosmopolitan experience of their lives. It was, as our readers know, the assembly time of the International Federation of Librarians, which divided its London meetings between Chaucer House and the equally hospitable University College. The members, coming from a score or more of countries east and west, had, many of them, been present at the successful and crowded conference of Aslib at Ashorne, and were now conferring further, and being entertained by the Library Association, together with members of the Unesco Library School. That school spent its first week in Manchester, with a tour of Derby County libraries; its second week was in London. Amongst the guests at the reception given by the British Council at Portland Place, and at the L.A's own reception at Chaucer House three days later, many distinguished librarians were met, including Dr. Munthe, Dr. Sevensma, Dr. Ranganathan, the state librarian of Ankara, the University Librarians of Istanbul, Copenhagen, Trondhjem, of Alexandria; and many others, including those of England and Scotland, the Chief Keeper of the Printed Books, Bodley's Librarian, and the Librarian of the National Central Library. Moreover, as these gatherings coincided with the meeting of the Library Association Council, the official leaders of the profession were present, including the President (Mr. Nowell).
THE new President of the Library Association, a handsome portrait of whom appears in the December Library Association Record, brings to the office the influences of a career of…
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THE new President of the Library Association, a handsome portrait of whom appears in the December Library Association Record, brings to the office the influences of a career of fine public service. We, in common with every journal that speaks to and for librarians, assure him of loyalty and congratulate ourselves on this addition to the roll of distinguished men who have served librarianship. The Record is wise in reminding us that we are more than a librarians' association and the regular election of men of affairs as presidents is a policy that used to be followed and should now be continued. The policy need not exclude in normal circumstances an alternate librarian president.
ELSEWHERE in this number we list libraries which have Esent us copies of their annual reports which we are glad to have. Now and again we are able to elaborate on these, but in…
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ELSEWHERE in this number we list libraries which have Esent us copies of their annual reports which we are glad to have. Now and again we are able to elaborate on these, but in the present issue that has not been possible. We would say, however, that these reports are deserving of the attention of librarians generally, and of students at the library schools. They are records of work in progress, and they do suggest the development of library policy. The best of them are of textbook value.
Knowledge can be created by drawing inferences from what is already known. Often some of the requisite information is lacking and has to be gathered by whatever research…
Abstract
Knowledge can be created by drawing inferences from what is already known. Often some of the requisite information is lacking and has to be gathered by whatever research techniques are appropriate, e.g. experiments, surveys etc. Even if the information has all been published already, unless it is retrieved no inferences will be drawn from it and consequently there will exist some knowledge that is implicit in the literature and yet is not known by anyone. This ‘undiscovered public knowledge’, as it is termed by Swanson, may exist in the following forms: (i) a hidden refutation or qualification of a hypothesis; (ii) an undrawn conclusion from two or more premises; (iii) the cumulative evidence of weak, independent tests; (iv) solutions to analogous problems; (v) hidden correlations between factors. Methods of classification may also play a direct role in the creation of original knowledge. Novel solutions to problems may be discovered by generating different combinations of the basic features of the solutions, as is done in morphological analysis. Alternatively a natural classification may identify gaps in existing knowledge. This paper reviews previous work on producing knowledge by information retrieval or classification and describes techniques by which hidden knowledge may be retrieved, e.g. serendipity in browsing, use of appropriate search strategies and, possibly in the future, methods based on Farradane's relational indexing or artificial intelligence.