The makers and maintainers of classifications, thesauri and other tools for indexing and arranging human knowledge have to tread a delicate balance. On the one hand, they want to keep things stable as much as possible; users are annoyed if major changes are made too often, particularly if it means that hapless librarians have to… Continue reading The case for Pluto
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Portrait of the Author as a Young Information Scientist
I try not to talk too much about myself in this blog, but make an exception here. This post gives a brief account of how I came into the library/information professions, as a contribution to the excellent Library Routes project. When I was young, I was fascinated by science, and science fiction, and imagined I… Continue reading Portrait of the Author as a Young Information Scientist
Bush, Goldberg, Memex and the revision of history
This is a version of an editorial to appear in the Journal of Documentation. Vannevar Bush gets a mixed press these days. Once he was hailed as a 'father of information science' - some called him our 'Godfather' – on the basis of his 1945 Atlantic Monthly vision of Memex. This was, and in some… Continue reading Bush, Goldberg, Memex and the revision of history
Canoeing fox, kayaking hedgehog
Speculating on the future, and spotting trends, is always fun, and I indulge myself quite a lot in this blog in ruminating about these things from an information viewpoint. I find myself quite outdone, however, by the Edge web forum, which examines new trends and concepts, particularly in science and technology . Each year, the… Continue reading Canoeing fox, kayaking hedgehog
Brian Vickery (and the uneasy information scientists)
At the start of the 2010, we heard the sad news of the death of Brian Vickery in October last year. He was one of the leading lights of British information science over many years. This post is an expanded version of a short appreciation which I wrote as an editorial for Journal of Documentation.… Continue reading Brian Vickery (and the uneasy information scientists)
New year, old idea ?
A new year always provokes thoughts of what has gone and what is to come. The news media, feeding our liking for the comfort of the repetition of the annual cycle, devote much space in January to this kind of reflection, which often seems not to change much from one year to the next. I… Continue reading New year, old idea ?
Documenting Babel – languages in information science
Musing on the continuing place of language issues in both research and practice in the information sciences, following my participation in the Zagreb InFuture meeting, I wrote an editorial on the topic for the Journal of Documentation. This post is an amended version. Languages, in one guise or another, have been a constant feature of… Continue reading Documenting Babel – languages in information science
INFuture2009, Zagreb
I attended the second of the INFuture conferences, organised by the Department of Information Sciences at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, in early November. The general theme of the conference series is 'The Future of Information Sciences', and the focus for this conference was 'Digital Resources and Knowledge Sharing'. By comparison with the first of… Continue reading INFuture2009, Zagreb
The House of Wisdom
A new book by Jonathan Lyons, The House of Wisdom: how the Arabs transformed Western civilisation, has a few surprising insights on developments in the recording and transmission of knowledge in the period. Lyons focuses on the contribution of Abbasid rulers of Baghdad, from the founding of the dynasty in 762 to its overthrow by… Continue reading The House of Wisdom
English public libraries; needing new leadership ?
A report on governance and leadership in the English public library service has been published, following an enquiry by the grandly-named All-Party Parliamentary Group on Libraries, Literacy and Information Management. Cynics have pointed out that this group is not quite the impartial assembly of the great and the good that its title might suggest; it… Continue reading English public libraries; needing new leadership ?
The Occasional Informationist 