Proceedings: : CoLIS 2:

Citation

Bakewell, K.G.B. (1998), "Proceedings: : CoLIS 2:", New Library World, Vol. 99 No. 3, pp. 133-134. https://doi.org/10.1108/nlw.1998.99.3.133.3

This work contains 30 peer‐reviewed papers and two invited keynote addresses from CoLIS 2, continuing the work of the first CoLIS conference, held in Tampere, Finland, in 1991. The first four contributions cover basic conceptualisations, including a keynote paper by C.J. van Rijsbergen on information, logic, and uncertainty in information science. This section is followed by six papers on philosophical dimensions, four papers on methodological approaches, six papers on information interaction, four studies reflecting the results of empirical investigations of information seeking and information management, four papers on information seeking and access dealing with qualitative and theoretical perspectives of the information‐seeking process, and four papers on analysing two different kinds of information objects ‐ text objects and image objects (digitised photographs). The work is truly international, with contributions from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Irish Republic, Israel, Italy, South Africa, Sweden, the UK and the USA.

In his keynote paper, van Rijsbergen identifies seven types of ambiguity in the information process, which he likens to the seven deadly sins: ignorance, incompleteness, undecidability, complexity, randomness, vagueness and imprecision.

Bryce Allen provides a thoughtful contribution on the importance of a user‐centred approach when designing an information system, presenting a model that links user‐oriented research with user‐centred design. It is good to see user needs identified in several other papers too, including Amanda Spink’s contribution on the importance of feedback during information retrieval and Suzanne Ornager’s paper on theoretical image analysis and empirical user studies on indexing and retrieval.

Michael Buckland’s presentation of a “liberal arts” approach, in which library and information science are studied in their own right rather than simply for professional education, is particularly interesting. Specialists in information management and librarianship are not the only people interested in our subject and, as Buckland points out, LIS schools provide a good foundation for the study of “the information society”. Buckland’s ideas could very usefully be taken up by many LIS schools.

In contrast, I was sorry to find a paper entitled “Librarianship and information science in South Africa ‐ reflections on the parting of the ways”. In my innocence, I had thought that discussions on the difference between librarianship and information science were a thing of the past.

There is a useful contribution on relevance by Tefko Saracevic which, surprisingly, does not refer to the pioneer Cranfield studies.

The comment by Maija‐Leena Huotari and Tom Wilson on page 311 about the paucity of literature on corporate information, reminded this reviewer of some research which he carried out for the British Institute of Management in the early 1960s on the collection and dissemination of commercial information in companies. This was believed to be a pioneer study but, unfortunately, the resulting publication was confidential to members of the British Institute of Management and so the report itself was not widely disseminated!

This is a stimulating collection of papers and it will be surprising if the information specialist does not find something of interest within its 484 pages. I must, however, criticise the index ‐ while also stating that it is good to find a subject index, since this is so often overlooked in collections of conference proceedings. There are many omissions from the index, most notably “indexing”, but also “information transfer”, “intertextuality”, “journal reading behaviour”, “liberal arts”, “needs analysis”, “reading behaviour” and “usability”. There are also errors and inconsistencies. Sometimes inclusive page numbers are given, as they should be, but sometimes only the first page number is given. Examples of such errors are:

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  “Browsing” should be 161‐169, not 161;

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  “Cyberspace” should be 117‐134, not 120‐123;

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  “Language games” should be 91‐95, not 92;

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  “Mimesis” should be 104‐110, not 104;

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  “South Africa” should be 61‐73, not 61.

It is a pity that such a valuable collection of papers on information should conclude with such a carelessly compiled index, since the index is such a vital part of the information process.