International ISKO

8th ISKO France conference, Lille, 27-28 June 2010 .

Metadata about what ?Distinguishing between ontic, epistemic,

and documental dimensions in KO

Claudio Gnolivice-president, ISKO

University of Pavia. Science and Technology Library

International ISKO

(Fidelia had just left !)

ISKO regional chapters

knowledge organization

= Wissensordnung= organisation des connaissances | du savoir= organizzazione della conoscenza | del sapere= organisación del conocimiento= ...

Focused on the subject content of knowledge items

KO KM (gestion des connaissances)

KO KR (représentation des connaissances)

Structure of the KO discipline

KO theory e.g. levels theory

KO systems (KOS) e.g. CDU

KO representation KR e.g. SKOS

KO applications KM e.g. your digital library

KO systems (KOS)

• keyword sets• folksonomies• taxonomies• subject headings lists• thesauri

• classification schemes

• ontologies sophistication,• ... hence cost!

Traditional KO

bydisciplines:

• Theology• Philosophy• Literature• ...

Many new media...

How to organize knowledge in them ?

“Theology” ??“Literature” ?? ...

Scope of KO

What is a knowledge item (a document) ?

1st attempt:

Everything that conveys knowledge

Then even, say, a cactus is a document ?!

Scope of KO

But everything can be a sign of something other ...

[semiotics]

E.g. a plant conveys knowledgeabout local climate

Normally not. However, a cactus in a botanical garden is a document

!

Scope of KO

Everything that intentionallyconveys knowledge

Scope of KO

Collections of knowledge items:

• libraries• archives• museums, galleries, exhibitions• botanical and zoological gardens• bibliographies, catalogues, directories• maps of research departments • websites, digital libraries• ...

“From the world to the classifier”

[Brian Vickery CG, 2 Aug 2007]

• “The world = Phenomena

• People’s activities = Disciplines, fields of activity

• Reports of activities

• Subjects of reports

• Classification of subjects”

Dimensions of knowledge( reality ) [mystique ?]

phenomena [ontology]

aspects[epistemology]

carriers[bibliography]

collections [library science]

users [sociology]

[cfr. Hjørland & Hartel, Afterword: ontological, epistemological and sociological dimensions of domains, KO, 30 (2003), n. 3-4, p. 239-245]

Dimensions of knowledge

A book has

• a mind ~ phenomena

• a language ~ aspect

• a body ~ carrier

[Ranganathan 1967]

The ontic dimension

( reality )

phenomena [ontology]

aspects (disciplines, domains, activities, theories, approaches, perspectives, ...)

Phenomena vs. disciplines

[Mills & Broughton, BC2. Introduction ..., section 5.5, Butterworths, 1977]

The ontic dimension

Phenomena and disciplines often correspond:

organisms ~ biologyanimals ~ zoologyplants ~ botany

Some call these sub-disciplines, while fundamental disciplines are forms of knowledge, alternative “ways of looking at phenomena of the world”:

science / philosophy / history / art

[Mills & Broughton cit.; Langridge 1992]

The ontic dimension

Phenomena can work better than disciplines

as knowledge units, because they are shared

between

many different media [Gnoli 2010]

starscountrieswines...

“Reality is the basis for the texts of documents;

that is what authors try to describe,

and what searchers are investigating.”[DJ Foskett 1970]

The ontic dimension

... photons, granites, cats, teams, operas, ...

The ontic dimension

... photons, granites, cats, teams, operas, ...

“ building models of entities in reality,

thus for example building models

of the organization of the genome

and not just of information

contained in this or that database

[Barry Smith 2004]

”

Concepts

phenomenaanalyzed into concepts

aspects ( theories )

depend on the current status of knowledge:

their meaning changes in time [Popper; Quine; LaPorte]

all KOSs need revisions

The epistemic dimension

phenomena

aspects[epistemology]

(disciplines, domains, activities, theories, approaches, perspectives, ...)

carriers

... microscopy techniques, semiotics, Marxism, poetry, child education, ...

The epistemic dimension

The Integrative Levels Classification analyzes it into ten epistemic facets:

0 viewpoint, perspective [Beghtol]

01 epoch [Tennis]

02 place03 method [Szostak]

04 theory [Szostak]

05 discipline [traditional KO]

06 culture07 activity field, domain [Vickery, Hjørland]

08 modality, case09 mood, communicative function [Hutchins]

The epistemic dimension

In some knowledge items (poetry, political cartoons), theme is strongly epistemic

[Landbeck C, Issues in subject analysis and description of political cartoons, Proc. 19th Workshop ASIST SIG/CR, 2008,http://dlist.arizona.edu/ arizona/handle/10150/105595]

The documental dimension

aspects

carriers [bibliography s.l.]

collections [library science] pragmatics

users [sociology]

... MPEG formats, dates, durations, file sizes, ...

The documental dimension

The Integrative Levels Classification analyzes it into ten documental facets:

00 document, specimen, knowledge item001 publication time002 publication place003 language004 medium005 section006 author007 target008 commented document009 format

The documental dimension

In some knowledge items, like instrumental music, content is strongly formal,

although phenomena and aspects can also be relevant, e.g. in

Smetana’s Moldau

Dimensions in titles

Lectures on set theory

Handbook of African anthropology

Birdwatching in the Cotentin peninsula : a guide

Front loading

Recommended sequence:

phenomenon > aspect > carrier

... on what ??

Front loading

Subject matter vs. form

phenomenon + aspect ~ subject indexing, semantics

(classmarks, subject headings...)

carrier ~ descriptive indexing

(titles, authors, dates, ...)

Subject matter vs. form

Originally, “facets”are components ofsubject matter [Ranganathan] ...

... but in Web information architecturethey are often meantas components of form [La Barre]

JStor

Subject matter vs. form

form“facets”

Subject matter vs. form

Metadata:• semantic • descriptive

Standards for the “Semantic” Web concern subject contents ...

... but also descriptive metadata,e.g. “ontologies” for description of documents ...

Thesis

There is a need for distinguishingbetween the different dimensions of knowledge items,and to treat each separately in an appropriate way

Leon Manifesto

• interdisciplinarity

• requires some new KOS

• based on phenomena

• allowing to shift between

perspectives

• by analytico-synthetic

techniques

The León Manifesto[ISKO Spain 2007]

Integrative Levels Classification

www.iskoi.org/ilc

Esperimental freely-faceted KOS

Integrative Levels Classification

Treat dimensions as facets beginning by –0

mq03b animals, studied by observationmq03g animals, studied by marking

ft03g proteins, studied by marking

Integrative Levels Classification

Allows for combination of phenomenon, aspect, and carrier [León Manifesto] :

mq03g007u animals, studied by marking, treated for university readers

so that each dimension can be searched and retrievedindependently:

Integrative Levels Classification

Tested with a web bibliography on bioacoustics:

Freely-faceted KO

Allows for free combination of phenomena, aspects, and carriers,

hence for searching them separatelyin creative ways,

thus discovering new combinations ...

E.g.: has method x ever been applied to phenomenon y ?

“Undiscovered public knowledge” [Davies, Szostak]

What is the mission of KO ?

Only describing the status-quo of knowledge

by faithfully reproducing its perspectives

(“theology books”, “literature books”)[literary warrant],

or also favouring new

creative, interdisciplinary uses of knowledge

(“x, from viewpoint of y, applied to z”) ?...

What is the mission of KO ?

... let’s discuss !

Acknowledgements

Tom Pullman (ILC project ; U Cambridge)

Rick Szostak (ILC project ; U Alberta)

Francesca Cattaneo (U Pavia)

Merci pour votre attention !

Des questions (même en français) ?

gnoli@aib.it