Belle Époque in Europe: Organizing knowledge... , Mons (Belgium), 20-21 May 2010

Transcending Boundaries in Europe in the Period of the Belle Époque: Organizing Knowledge, Mobilizing Networks, and Effecting Social Change

VENUE: Mundaneum, Mons (Belgium), 20-21 May 2010
FEE: 70 EUR
TO REGISTER: conference website

The Belle Epoque is a turbulent period in Western European history between about 1880 and 1914 characterized by an emerging modernization in social and political organization, artistic and literary life and in the conduct and discoveries of the sciences.

Papers for the colloquium will explore aspects of network development, information creation, organization and exchange, and related “boundary spanning” activities of individuals and institutions and the scholarly tools and techniques that enabled them to develop during the period of the “Belle époque” in which the Western European world underwent extensive social, political and “epistemic” change.

PAPERS (PROGRAMME):

• Dave Muddiman: Imperialism, Trade and the Beginnings of Business Information: the Commercial Intelligence Bureau of the Imperial Institute, London, 1887-1903
• Alistair Black: An Information Management tool for the Dismantling of Internal Barries in Expanding and Internationalising Companies : The Staff Magazine in Britain before de First World War
• Heather Gaunt: Information, the archive, and the Australian colonies
• Hartman Frank: World Communication Cables and Ernst Kapp‘s Philosophy of Technology
• Volker Barth: World News Order: Structures and Conditions of International Communication, 1859-1940
• Christophe Verbruggen & Julie Carlier: The transcending advocacy network of Les Documents du Progrès (1907): a comparison of laboratories of social thought
• Noémie Goldamn: Art and Politics. The XX (1894-1914) and their transboundary cultural networks
• Wouter Van Acker: Paul Otlet and the International Sociology of Intellectual Work
• Mary Carroll & Sue Reynolds: The Great Classification Battle of 1910: A Tale of “Blunders and Bizzareries” at the Melbourne Public Library
• Damiano Matasci: Transnational Networks and School Reforms in France during the Belle Époque Period (1880-1914)
• Mary Niles Maack: From the Classified Catalog to Open Shelf Libraries: Americans in Paris
• Valérie Montens: The Royal Belgian Commission for International Exchanges: creation, organization and activities of an international artistic network (1871-1919)
• Jan Vandersmissen: How King Leopold II used Emile de Laveleye’s intellectual network for the benefit of his African project
• Françoise Levie: Punch-up at the Palais Mondial ; an analysis of the buried and contradictory tensions that came into conflict at the second Panafrican Congress in Brussels in 1921
• M. Herve Hasquin: Une Belgique avant-gardiste
• Bruno Notteboom: Paysage urbain. Louis Van der Swaelmen and the classification of the urban, rural and national problem in Préliminaires d’Art Civique
• Sophie Hochhäusl: From Mulhall to Brinton, From Number Charts to Picture Statistics
• Nader Vossoughian: Architecture, Type, and the Rethinking of the Humanist Tradition during the Belle Époque
• Geert Somsen: Uniting the World through Science: Pieter Eijkman’s World Capital in The Hague
• Jan Surman: Divided Space – Divided Science? The Variety of Boundaries in Habsburg Empire and their Influence on Science Before the First World War
• Daniel Laqua: Scientific Pacifism’ in the Belle Époque: Alfred H. Fried’s Efforts to Promote Peace across National Borders
• Markus Krajewski: Organising a Global Idiom. Esperanto, Ido and the World Auxiliary Language Movement before WWI
• Fabian de Kloe: Beyond Babel: Science and International language during the Belle Époque
• Mikel Breitenstein: Unity Through Language: BASIC English by C. K. Ogden
• Alex Csiszar: Material Practices of Unity: The International Catalogue of Scientific Literature in Action
• Paul Servais: Scientific Networks and International Congresses; Orientalists before the First World War
• Charles van den Heuvel: Transcending Networks – Transcending Classifications (1905-1935)

CFP: Transcending Boundaries in Europe in the Period of the Belle Epoque: Organizing Knowledge, Mobilizing Networks...

CALL FOR PAPERS:

Colloguium: Transcending Boundaries in Europe in the Period of the Belle Epoque: Organizing Knowledge, Mobilizing Networks, and Effecting Social Change - Mons (Belgium), 20-21 May 2010

VENUE: Mundaneum [see: wikipedia entry on Mundaneum]

The colloquium will explore aspects of network development,information creation, organization and exchange, and related "boundary spanning" activities of individuals and institutions and the scholarly tools and techniques that this enabled them to develop during the period of the "Belle Epoque" in which the Western European world underwent extensive social, political and "epistemic" change from approximately 1880 to 1914 [read more].

Paul Otlet & Henry Lafontaine

Abstracts (in English or French) of not more than 500 words should be sent by January 31, 2010 to Prof. W Boyd Rayward (wrayward@illinois.edu).

Notification of acceptance 28 February 2010. Accepted papers must be delivered at the Colloquium in English.

Workshop - MetaKnowledge Mash-up 2.0 - London, 9 October 2008

MetaKnowledge Mash-up 2.0: Making and Organising Knowledge in Communities
A joint ISKOUK/KIDMM Day conference/workshop

London, 9 October 2008
10:00 -17:00 (registration opens 9:15)

VENUE: British Computer Society London rooms, Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London WC2E 7HA

FEE: 20 GBP (includes lunch, refreshments and materials)
To book you place, dowload the PDF form and fax it or post it to the British Computer Society. Pre-registration is essential and must be received by end of business Tuesday 7th October. There are no facilities for paying ‘on the door’. Booking queries: Mandy Bauer (mandy.bauer@hq.bcs.org.uk; tel. 01793 417472)


In keeping with the last year's successful event the MetaKnowledge Mash-up 2007, BCS KIDMM and ISKO UK have joined efforts to put up this follow-up event.

Knowledge management professionals know that much of the knowledge which drives a successful organization derives from its communities, both formal and informal; and that knowledge can be used and shared more easily if it is organized.

In many organizational contexts, be they businesses, government departments, professional associations and social enterprises, a lot of the most useful knowledge is not contained in documents and other written forms; it is in peoples' heads. Before knowledge organization can begin, there is already the challenge of eliciting and formulating what people know. What are the methods and tooks that can help in these processes?

Social networking technologies may be part of the answer. They are also causing a re-examination of the role of formal KO and its relationship to less formal approaches such as folksonomy and social tagging. People are asking: In what circumstances should formal KO apply, and where might an informal approach be better?; and: Perhaps they could work together? Arguably, they already do, since we organize as we speak or write, at the very least by constructing comprehensible sentences, but also through our choice of words, of implicit categorization and of metaphor.

So, if KO is at work the instant we open our mouths or tap on a keyboard, how and to what degree should we formalize it in our communities, whether face-to-face or virtual? Perhaps different techniques apply in each circumstance?

These are some of the questions surrounding KM and KO in the Web 2.0 age that we hope will be raised and discussed on October 9th. The speakers have been selected because they have case-study stories to tell, and there will also be participative round-table exercises. If we can also find some answers, that will be a bonus!

Speakers and contributors include: Alan Pollard, Conrad Taylor, Marilyn Leask, Jan Wyllie, Lyndsay Rees-Jones, Christopher Dean, Sabine K McNeill and Susan Payne.

To read more visit the event's website.

Outputs from the joint NKOS/CENDI Workshop - Washington, 11 September 2008

"New Dimensions in Knowledge Organization Systems", a joint NKOS/CENDI Workshop sponsored by CENDI and the Networked Knowledge Organization Systems Working Group and hosted by The World Bank Washington, DC took place on September 11, 2008.

Presentation materials are available now at NKOS website. 

Findability - survey's shock findings

AIIM (the Association for Information and Image Management) have just completed a survey on Findability to be published soon (see their press release).

The 'shock' finding is that among more than 500 businesses surveyed, "69% of respondents report that less than half of enterprise information is searchable online".

Dan Keldsen is Director of Market Intelligence at AIIM, and his blog offers an interesting discussion of these preliminary results.

We had similar findings reported back in March by Cap Gemini in their Information Opportunities Report.

How many more of these reports do we have to suffer before people realize that actively organizing knowledge and information is the only way to ensure findability? Add your weight to the argument by submitting a comment to Dan's blog, arguing the case for knowledge organization in your organization, or by commenting on this post.

Or, preferably, all three!

Taxonomy - And let there be light

John Lindsay, Reader at Kingston University's (KU) Faculty of Computing, Information Systems and Mathematics, and stalwart of the JISC Taxonomy mailing list, is presenting his annual seminar on 7th May at 1pm at KU. The seminar is entitled 'Taxonomy - And let there be light'.

John will be talking about the taxonomy of concepts, knowledge organisation and social networking. The seminar is the latest in a long series in which John offers new and challenging viewpoints on KO topics.

John's talk will be followed by an open meeting to discuss how the topic can be taken forward, and stayers-on will be expected to assist in emptying a bottle or two of wine.

Finding the CISM Campus.

Press release: North American Symposium on Knowledge Organization

Courtesy of Joe Tennis:

The first symposium North American Symposium on Knowledge Organization took place at the Faculty of Information Studies at the University of Toronto, on 14-15 June 2007. There were forty participants. Researchers contributed papers and posters, and delivered presentations over 2 days (to mention only a few R. Green, M. Kipp, K. La Barre, R. Smiraglia, J. Tennis)
The group resolved to form a North American chapter of ISKO, and are moving forward with that plan.

Papers are available in the dLIST archive.
Pictures from this event are available here .

CFP Knowledge Society: new spaces for its construction, Habana, Cuba

Courtesy of María López-Huertas:

Call for papers for
"The international conference on Information "Knowledge Society: new spaces for its construction"" - INFO' 2008
21-25 April 2008
Palacio de Convenciones de La Habana, Cuba

The conference has two main purposes: an international meeting on information and an
international workshop on business intelligence and knowledge management in companies.
Organizers: El Instituto de Información Científica y Tecnológica (IDICT) del Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología y Medio Ambiente de la República de Cuba.

SKOS Use Cases and Requirements: Working Draft

From SKOS discussion list:

Request for Comments: SKOS Use Cases and Requirements: Working Draft

2007-05-16: The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of SKOS Use Cases and Requirements [1]. Knowledge organization systems, such as taxonomies,thesauri or subject heading lists, play a fundamental role in information structuring and access. These use cases and fundamental or secondary requirements will be used to guide the design of SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organisation System), a model for representing such vocabularies. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. We would greatly appreciate your comments and feedback on this Working Draft, which should be submitted to the SWD mailing list [2].
[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/skos-ucr/
[2] mailto://public-swd-wg@w3.org

The North American Symposium on Knowledge Organization, June 14-15, 2007

From ISKO-l and ISKOI lists:

Greetings Knowledge Organization researchers:

North American thinkers have commented on a number of changes and innovations in Knowledge Organization research. Beghtol, Mai, Smiraglia, and Svenonius have all noted a shift in knowledge organization research strategies and focus in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The task of laying the groundwork for future work is
imminent.

Likewise, the time is ripe for enhanced communication among Knowledge Organization researchers in North America. We are a diverse set of researchers interested in asking basic and applied questions on how knowledge is organized and how such organization can be improved through research. As ISKO members we are also are interested informing a North American chapter in order to share research findings, mentor students and maintain continuous conversations across the large landmass of North America.

That is why we invite you to Toronto, Ontario for the North American Symposium on Knowledge Organization, June 14 and 15, 2007.

Programme, registration, and accommodation information available:
http://www.slais.ubc.ca/users/iskona/events.html

Report from the 8th ISKO Spain conference and proposal of the "León manifesto"

Courtesy of Claudio Gnoli.

The 8th Conference of the ISKO Spain , held on 18-20 April 2007 in León was devoted to "Interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in the organization of scientific knowledge".
Some relevant proposals regarding the future of knowledge organization emerged during the conference and were summarised by Claudio Gnoli and Rick Szostak as "León manifesto":

• the current trend towards an increasingly interdisciplinarity of knowledge calls for essentially new knowledge organization systems (KOS), based on a substantive revision of the principles underlying the traditional discipline-based KOS;


• this innovation is not only desirable, but also feasible, and should be implemented by actually developing some new KOS;


• instead of disciplines, the basic unity of the new KOS should be phenomena of the real world as it is represented in human knowledge;


• the new KOS should allow users to shift from one perspective or viewpoint to another, thus reflecting the multidimensional nature of complex thought. In particular, it should allow them to search independently for particular phenomena, for particular theories about phenomena (and about relations between phenomena), and for particular methods of investigation;


• the connections between phenomena, those between phenomena and the theories studying them, and those between phenomena and the methods to investigate them, can be expressed and managed by analytico-synthetic techniques already developed in faceted classification.

To comment and discuss on this manifesto, to subscribe to it, or to propose collaboration, please write to Claudio Gnoli and Rick Szostak.

A full illustration of the issues discussed in León is available here.

CFP - 1st Symposium on Knowledge Organization, 27-29 August 2007, Ciudad de Mexico

From ISKO Italy mailing list:

The University Centre for Library Science Research at the University of Mexico invites contributions for the

1st International Symposium on knowledge organization: Library science and terminology

27-29 August 2007
CUIB UNAM, Ciudad de Mexico

(see complete text of invitation)

OBJECTIVE
To exchange experiences, points of view and results of studies conducted
by scholars specialized in either of these subjects on any aspect of
scientific communication, understanding that this has direct relevance to knowledge organization within information systems.


CONTRIBUTIONS
If you’d like to make a presentation, please read the complete call for papers in PDF format at http://cuib.unam.mx/Convocatoria_1er_Simposio.pdf
All proposals will be submitted to an academic evaluation committee.
Deadline for submission of the proposals: 15 May 2007.

Summaries of the paper proposals should be sent to simposio2007@cuib.unam.mx

We urge you again to read the full call for papers, and also to pass it on to friends and colleagues in your own community of interest.

On behalf of the organizing committee
Dr Catalina Naumis Pena
Dr Filiberto Felipe Martinez Arellano

Approaches to Knowledge Organization by Birger Hjørland

Courtesy of Maria Teresa Biagetti:

Presentation of the talk by Birger Hjørland on "Approaches to Knowledge Organization (KO)" at the School for Archivists and Librarians, University of Rome "La Sapienza", on 20 April 2007 is available at http://w3.uniroma1.it/ssab/new/ApproachesToKO.zip

"I believe the best way to prepare students for the future in KO is to provide a critical review of approaches available and cooperate in the discipline to establish the best possible theoretical ground for evaluating existing technologies and providing excellent KO.

I have tried to demonstrate that approaches are associated with theories of knowledge such as positivism, rationalism, empiricism, pragmatism and post-modernism. I believe that debate and further study of the approaches mentioned (as well as new ones) is urgent." [from the presentation conclusion]

CFP - IKONE: Session 'Future of Knowledge Organization', Bangalore, 3-5 September 2007

Peter Ohly invites contributions for a special session, titled 'Future of Knowledge Organization' at the IKONE conference, in Bangalore, 3-5 September 2007. The session's main emphasis is on indexing and retrieval languages, and other tools of ordering and organizing information.

The main objective of the session is to discuss general trends, problems
and requirements, although it may also include presentations and
elaboration of individual solutions. The session will take form of a panel discussion.

Proposals for contributions should be e-mailed to Peter Ohly (ohly@iz-soz.de) by 15th April 2007.

Additional information about the venue: accomodations are available at the campus. There are direct flights to Hindustan Airport, Bangalore. The climate in Bangalore should be moderate as it is situated at an altitude of about 1000 m.