Here, Marjorie is likely referring to a Navajo rug. She mentions explicitly using these rugs as gifts frequently, as in her May 12, June 6, and June 19, 1924 letters.
In each case, she alludes to these rugs only briefly, possibly suggesting how obvious to her their potential as souvenirs and "unique" decor was.
Teaching in a Digital Age
people able to laugh atthemselves
It is laughable if this is considered unique to information science!
one must be at least comfortable with both sides of this dualtradition
this seems interesting - inter-disciplinarity is at the core of information science
hree Big Questions can be identified within the aboveframework: (1) the physical question: What are the featuresand laws of the recorded-information universe? (2) Thesocial question: How do people relate to, seek, and useinformation? (3) The design question: How can access torecorded information be made most rapid and effective?
This covers quite a bit of ground, and isn't that stifling.
We ask what kinds of information people pre-fer to communicate through this or that new channel ofinformation technology. We always follow the information.
So does HCI and design not fit within Bates definition of information science?
Information science has a distinct universe that it studiesalso—the world of recorded information produced by hu-man agency. We can imagine all the human activities instudying the above natural, social, and artistic universesthemselves producing information entities— books, articles,databases, data files, etc.—thus creating a fourth universe,that of recorded information.
Wait, so information science is distinct from the natural sciences, social sciences. arts and humanities? This is a bold claim.
We are interested in information as a social and psycho-logical phenomenon. The information we study generallyoriginates from human agency in some way, whether it isthe data beamed down from a satellite or the text of a bookon Immanuel Kant’s philosophy. Our primary, but not solefocus, is onrecordedinformation and people’s relationshipto it.
people are central ; but aren't people central to all study, ultimatey? Isn't that what Kuhn taught us about Physics?
Llewellyn C. Puppybreath
In my 1980 study of citations in informationscience, Chomsky was the single most cited individual.
Wow. Speaks to the importance of structure. I wonder what the most cited Chomsky was...
form and structure
I like it when she focuses on what the profession actually does, rather than staking out boundaries between the disciplines. Reminds me of Kirschenbaum's conclusions in What is digital humanities and why are they saying such terrible things about it.
Other fields with which informationscience might have been thought originally to have much incommon, such as computer science, cognitive science, com-putational linguistics, or artificial intelligence, did not, infact, prove to be good matches.
Oh really? Good matches for who? How is this justified? Get off my lawn, etc. No wonder other professions are put off.
It is what thenewcomer or outsider does not understand
If newcomers can't understand it, no wonder there is uncertainty about what the profession is about.
My litmus test for the newcomers who are now interestedin information work is whether I can observe evidence thatthey have gone through the transformation of becoming aninformation expert.
Drink the Kool Aid. No thanks.
f you want to portray a doctor, you have to be agood actor, not a doctor; if you want to work with infor-mation organization and retrieval, you have to be a goodinformation person, not a subject specialist without infor-mation training.
Ironically, Bates seems to be overlooking the entire genre of documentaries, where doctors do play themselves, and to great effect.
features that matter to the organization and retrievalof it
These are two purposes - are there more?
as good a job
How convenient! I wonder if the doctors agreed!
Creating databases and catalogs in-volves creating representations of forms of information. Theskill a reference librarian or information specialist developsalso involves representation—figuring out how to concep-tualize and represent a user’s query, then in turn, translatingthe query (representing it) into a form an information sys-tem uses, which in turn arises from the representations ofdocuments in the information system.
Interesting that representation is such a central component to this.
A talented actor, without a day’s experi-ence in medical school, can do a much better job.
Makes me think of reality TV :-)
The answer here is that although the physicians know themost about medicine,portrayinga physician is differentfrombeinga physician. Portraying a physician requires adifferent body of talents than being a physician does. Oc-casionally, some people have both types of talent, but usu-ally not. Actors, with little or no medical knowledge, butwith experience portraying a variety of characters
The big assumption here is that the actors are portraying medical professionals and not performing a drama that uses the setting of the hospital as a backdrop. What is "better" in this context?
The Ph.D. arthistorian who gets a job working with art history informa-tion out of a love of the subject matter eventually finds him-or herself working with the core questions of informationscience, not of art history.
Interesting progression from studying the content to studying content about content. But what content is not about other content, really? Hmm
The average person,whether Ph.D. scholar or high school graduate, never no-tices the structure that organizes their information, becausethey are so caught up in absorbing and relating to thecontent. And, in fairness to them, they are not interested inthe structure.Weare interested in the structure
Reminds me of infrastructure studies - how certain features slip into the background.
rhetorical character in the broadest sense, that is, by theirselection, design, and objectives
this is interesting ... it's the purposes that matter most -- pragmatism
professional activities involving the manipulation andtransmission of knowledge
So it is more practice oriented? Don't Art Historians have professions too?
retrieval
There's a whole lot bundled up in this one word. I'm not sure it fits.
Borko, 1968, p. 3
We read this last week.
behavior of information
It's so startling to see this idea that information has a behavior, seemingly independent of people.
At this historicaljuncture, information scientists need to become more con-scious of the thought world we are operating out of, so thatwe can communicate it more rapidly and effectively to largenumbers of new people, and so that we can continue toinfluence the future of information in the 21st century.
A same argument could be made that perhaps information science itself is going through a paradigm shift? In which case it behooves us to understand what the shift is, rather than trying to reshape it in our own image only to be left behind.
Currently, the wheel is being reinvented every day onthe information superhighway
Reminds me of Eggers thoughts about the importance of recreating wheels.
while the collectors of live specimens— the branch most remote from document collecting— are not included at this time.
It's strange to me that the characteristic of living is what is used to distinguish what is covered and what is not. I can see why they need to scope things for their Encyclopedia, but should this be a general theory of information sciences? Don't living and non-living systems interpenetrate each other?
socially mediated
What's going on here in this little phrase?
I have not the space to make the case fully here, but I argue that a document, above all, contains "recorded information," that is, "communicatory or memorial information preserved in a durable medium"
So the intent to communicate is key for Bates. It might be useful to read (Bates 2006) to see what's going on here.
that distinction has been fading a bit, because increasing portions of museum collections are being digitized, placed on websites, and made viewable and searchable online
Interesting explanation for the existence of GLAM movement. Digitization of museum objects have increased the number of documents they must manage.
we research the universe of living too— but always in relation to the universe of documentation
Ok, so there is interaction there between both universes.
All the other humanities and sciences study the universe of living; the biologist and the bird-watcher alike both study the bird; we study the documentation associated with the bird.
This is a succinct and useful description.
That product of the doctor visit now exists in the universe of documentation.
But doesn't that universe of documentation get used by the universe of living. For example patient records are generated by the visit to the doctor, but they are used (in the Universe of Living) in subsequent visits, and it is in this use that the system of documentation is defined.
we engage in living and working our daily lives, and these vast numbers of human activities give off or throw off a remarkably extensive body of documentation of one sort or another
Information is a ubiquitous part of life as a human being.
This contrast is between the idiographic approach of the humanities— valuing the unique and individual character of phenomena, and the nomothetic approach of the sciences— seeking general laws and principles.
particulars and universals
As a rule, all information disciplines are in the process of becoming more generally applicable, as the discipline gains sophistication and breadth of understanding.
So information sciences start out in a host discipline but then differentiate themselves and start to map out to other disciplines?
The fundamental engine of development is need. Human beings want to retain informational resources, and, after a very short time, these resources collect at such a rate that some principles of selection, organization, etc., need to be brought to bear, in order for the resources to continue to be available for effective use.
Do other disciplines orient themselves around need as well. Is it possible to look at them that way?
add an "s"
There are many information sciences ; like the Physical Sciences, Social Sciences
an array of fields addressing distinct issues that nonetheless could all be seen from a common framework
This seems like a real challenge. What is a framework in this context?
We have been treated as the astrologers and phrenologists of modern science— assumed to be desperately trying to cobble together the look of scholarship in what are surely trivial and nearly content-free disciplines.
I wonder how this treatment manifested itself: budget, funding, etc?
Ironically, however, that legitimacy has often been gained without much clarity on just what the information disciplines are about. Power struggles are going on in universities and information schools regarding what the fields really are, and whose backgrounds are most needed to create coherent information disciplines. And those of us who were information before information was "cool" are often the last to be consulted.
There is a land grab going on about who can lay claim to the plunder of Silicon Valley.