Critique in Knowledge
Organization
Critique is a negatively loaded word. However, professionalism implies that one
can make a distinction between what is low quality and what is high quality
within ones field of competency, and that one can suggest improvements. It is
thus important for students in Library and Information Science (LIS) to
regard all kinds of knowledge organizing systems and processes critically, and
to develop a sense of how things ought to be and how they might be improved. The
more traditional (or positivist) way is to make systems evaluations based on,
for example, recall and precision. More intellectual ways might include, for
example, making reviews.
Book reviews of specific knowledge organizing systems (e.g.
a specific thesaurus) as well as general considerations concerning models for
such reviews and empirical research concerning the status, production, use and
quality of such reviews should be considered a part of research in knowledge
organization. (Just as criticism is considered part of lexicography, cf.
Bergenholtz & Tarp, 1994, 254-257). Such criticism is a natural part of KO
because the existing system should form an empirical basis for the design of new
systems.
Doctorow (2001) provides a critique of background assumptions about metadata "A
world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be a utopia. It's also a
pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris and hysterically inflated
market opportunities".
Literature:
Andersen, J. (2005). Information Criticism: where is it? Progressive Librarian,
no. 25, pp. 12-22. Available at:
http://www.libr.org/PL/25_Andersen.html
Bergenholtz, H. & Tarp, S. (1994). Manual i fagleksikografi. Herning, DK: Systime.
Doctorow, C. (2001). Metacrap: Putting the torch to
seven straw-men of the meta-utopia.
http://www.well.com/~doctorow/metacrap.htm
Ripfel, M. (1989). Wörterbuchkritik: eine empirische Analyse von
Wörterbuch-rezensionen. Tübingen: Niemeyer. (=Lexicographica Series Maior 29).
Soergel, D.
(2004). The Arts and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT). A
critical appraisal.
http://www.dsoergel.com/cv/B47_long.pdf
See also: Bias; Critical classification; Errors in Knowledge Organization; Evaluation
Birger Hjørland
Last edited: 01-03-2006