UKeiG seeks the 2011 nominations for the prestigious UKeiG Tony Kent Strix Award.

The UKeiG Tony Kent Strix Award is given in recognition of an outstanding practical innovation or achievement in the field of information retrieval. This could take the form of an application or service, or an overall appreciation of past achievements from which significant advances have emanated. The Award is open to individuals or groups from anywhere in the world. The deadline for nominations is Friday 26th August 2011.

Nominations should be for achievement that meets one or more of the following criteria:

· a major and/or sustained contribution to the theoretical or experimental understanding of the information retrieval process;

· development of, or significant improvement in, mechanisms, a product or service for the retrieval of information, either generally or in a specialised field;

· development of, or significant improvement in, easy access to an information service;

· a sustained contribution over a period of years to the field of information retrieval; for example, by running an information service or by contributing at national or international level to organisations active in the field.

Key characteristics that the judges will look for in nominations are innovation, initiative, originality and practicality.

Full details for nominations can be found at http://www.ukeig.org.uk/content/2011-call-tony-kent-strix-nominations.

Nominations for the 2011 Award are now invited.

ISKO UK Meeting - Public Access to Information, London 14th April 2011

We are pleased to invite you to the next ISKO UK open meeting to be held on 14th April 2011 entitled Public Access to Information? Challenges for information gatekeepers.

This ISKO UK event is organized in cooperation with Taxonomies in the Public Sector and UCL Department for Information Studies.

Speakers are Christopher Graham (UK Information Commissioner), Carol Tullo (The National Archives), Charles Oppenheim and Paul Davidson (Public Sector Information Domain Team)

To read more about the event to book your place go to the event website.

The event will take place at University College London.

Newsletter, December issue - IFLA Classification & Indexing Section

[courtesy of David Miller]

The latest issue of the issue of the Classification and Indexing Section Newsletter is now available. The contents include:

1. A Few Words from the Chair
2. Classification and Indexing Section Report
3. Reports: IFLA Namespaces Task Group; UDC News in 2010; Dewey Decimal Classification News
4. News from... Czechia, Italy, Portugal, United States (Library of Congress)
5. More News:
   
   - EUROVOC conference, Luxembourg
   - Fundamentals of NLM Classification course
   - International UDC Seminar 2011: Classification & Ontology
   - 10th Conference of the ISKO Spanish Chapter
   
   

The complete list of Section newsletters available online.

Booking for July conference starts soon

Look out for the start of registration for the ISKO UK 2011 Conference which will open soon.

As well as invited papers, submissions are being reviewed and the programme will be finalised at the beginning of February. Booking starts from Feb 7th 2011.

We expect a diverse international programme of presentations and posters on knowledge organisation, with key themes of:

• Classification, information retrieval
• Semantics and the Web
• Putting the user first
• Evaluation and testing
• Society, networking and collaboration
• Models and structure

The conference will be at University College London, in central London and near the British Museum and the British Library.

Places are limited and this will doubtless be another lively and engaging event

Review of conference paper submissions

The Conference Review Panel have been busy reviewing submissions of proposals of papers and posters for the forthcoming ISKO UK 2011 Conference. The proposals cover a huge range of fascinating topics, from analyses of broad cultural issues to technical descriptions of metadata projects and software developments. A noticeable trend is the huge amount of innovation that is taking place in knowledge organisation, encompassing academic research into sophisticated semantic systems as well as practical case studies in how new technology can help professionals. However, it is also heartening to see serious reflection and assessment of topics that only a few years ago were at the cutting edge. This combination of “pace layers” – rapid innovation along with thoughtful analysis – illustrates the richness of the knowledge organisation field and the benefits of strong contacts between the research and practitioner communities.

The key themes of the conference:

• Classification, information retrieval
• Semantics and the Web
• Putting the user first
• Evaluation and testing
• Society, networking and collaboration
• Models and structure

have all been well represented, which will make for a balanced and highly informative event.

It is also pleasing to see the number of proposals from people based outside the UK and the diversity of their interests and experiences. This is surely fitting for a conference held in honour of Professor Brian C Vickery, whose intellect and interests ranged far and wide.

The authors of successful proposals will be informed by 1st February 2011.

CFP: Classification & Ontology, 19-20 September, The Hague

International UDC Seminar 2011
CLASSIFICATION & ONTOLOGY
Formal Approaches and Access to Knowledge

VENUE: The Hague, National Library of the Netherlands
DATE: 19-20 September 2011
WEBSITE: http://seminar.udcc.org/2011/
CONTACT: seminar2011@udcc.org

The difference between bibliographic knowledge classifications and ontologies resides in their particular purpose/function, and levels of formality. However, they are both based on observation and reasoning (ontological analysis) and share some structural principles and elements.

Automatic processing of knowledge classifications is significant whenever there is a need to support intuitive services. For instance, ontology-like representations of classifications are recognized as potentially important facilitators in creating a web of linked data (the semantic web).

The objective of the conference is to promote collaboration and exchange of expertise between the bibliographic, the semantic web and the AI domains.

Papers are now invited covering the following topics:

• Modelling and representation of knowledge classifications
• Standards and solutions for innovative and high-quality classification data processing
• Applications and implementations of classification structures as ontologies
• Theoretical considerations of the role of knowledge classifications

Read call for papers more at the conference website or download the print version (pdf).

Contributions may include conference papers and posters. Authors should submit a proposal in the form of an extended abstract (1000-1200 words including references, for papers, and 500-600 words for posters).

IMPORTANT DATES:

30 Jan 2011 Paper proposal submission deadline
28 Feb 2011 Notification of acceptance
01 Apr 2011 Paper submission

Conference proceedings will be published by Ergon Verlag and will be distributed at the conference.

ORGANIZER: Classification & Ontology is the third biennial conference in a series of UDC Seminars organized by the Universal Decimal Classification Consortium (UDC Consortium) and hosted by Koninklijke Bibliotheek (The National Library of Netherlands).

Event Report - Legal Know-How: Organization and Semantic Analysis

ISKO UK afternoon event Legal Know-How: Organization and Semantic Analysis took place on Wednesday 10 November 2010 at University College London.

This was yet another successful ISKO UK event exploring the topic of knowledge and information organization practices in specilised domains. There were over 80 participants in attendance. Speakers included legal knowledge specialists from 3Kites Consulting, Pinsent Masons, Clifford Chance, Linklaters LLP, Tikit and University of Liverpool.

The full programme and presentation slides are available from the event website. Audio recordings will be published shortly on the same address.

Read a more detailed account of the talks in Fran Alexander's review.