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A memoir of my experiences as a faculty member in the School of Informarion, 1976-2023.

Purpose—The purpose of this paper is to provide a new and useful formulation of relevance. Design/methodology/approach—This paper is formulated as a conceptual argument. It makes the case for the utility of considering relevance to be function of use in creative processes. Findings—There are several corollaries to formulating relevance as a function of use. These include the idea that objects by themselves cannot be relevant since use assumes interaction; the affordances of objects and how they are perceived can affect what becomes relevant but are not in themselves relevant; relevance is not an essential characteristic of objects; relevance is transient; potential relevance (what might be relevant in the future) can be distinguished from what is relevant in use and from what has been relevant in the past. Originality/value—The paper shows that its new formulation of relevance brings improved conceptual and terminological clarity to the discourse about relevance in information science. It demonstrates that how relevance is articulated conceptually is important as its conceptualization can affect the ways that users are able to make use of information systems and, by extension, how information systems can facilitate or disable the co-production of creative outcomes. The paper also usefully expands investigative opportunities by suggesting relevance and creativity are interrelated.

The International Conference on Cataloging Principles (Paris, 1961) led to wide acceptance of Seymour Lubetzky's distinction between books and works, where books denoted particular physical objects and works concerned conceptual abstractions associated with the creative labor of particular authors. Lubetzky's formulation of works is included in many of the world's cataloging frameworks, including the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR). Several conceptual and practical difficulties arise from the widespread adoption of Lubetzkian works in practices associated with knowledge organization. However, FRBR and other knowledge organization frameworks that utilize works as central entities could be made more useable and useful if work, as an organizing principle, were de-emphasized and seen as one among many concepts used for aggregating sets and supersets of objects according to how likely they are to be useful to users of knowledge organization tools like catalogs.

An introduction to the life and work of Robert Pagès (1919–2007), French social psychology researcher and theorist of documentation. From 1946 to 1948 Pagès was a student in the program in documentation directed by Suzanne Briet that later became the Institut National des Techniques de Documentation (INTD). A 1947 thesis was published in 1948 as an article entitled “Transformations documentaires et milieu culturel” (Documentary transformations and cultural context). It received little attention until recently. The article, now reprinted and translated, examines the rise of new media and how they have largely displaced lived experience and bookish knowledge in a society that has become increasingly planned and coordinated. A notable feature of this article is his distinction between unique, particular objects, which he called “autodocuments,” and specimens that are representative of whatever group they are specimens of. A second thesis of classification was published in 1955 as Problèmes de classification culturelle et documentaire. Pagès founded and directed a laboratory for social psychology. He developed an indexing language (named CODOC) with interesting syntactic and notational characteristics for materials collected in the laboratory. Pagès writings and leftwing political activism are briefly noted.

Oral History Interview of Michael K. Buckland education and career by Robert V. Williams, April 7-8, 2011,

An information-resilient society requires the development of a resilient information science. Three different requirements for resilient information science are identified and a constructive contribution presented for each. First the scope and available resources need to be fully identified. Wayne de Fremery draws on his forthcoming book on the bibliographical foundations of information science to suggest how humanistic forms of bibliography can provide resources that support information science. Second, clarity in concepts and definitions is required. Michael Buckland draws on recent work to bring clarity to the centrally important but notoriously unclear topic of “relevance.” Third, concepts and techniques need to be articulated as new technologies emerge. A presentation on access to the evidence behind the news by Olivier Le Deuff will illustrate how the publication of articles can now be enriched with the publication of related evidence, now a critical need with the rise of fake news. A moderated discussion follows.

Since information science concerns the transmission of records, it concerns context. The transmission of documents ensures their arrival in new contexts. Documents and their copies are spread across times and places. The amount of labor required to discover and retrieve relevant documents is also formulated by context. Thus, any serious consideration of communication and of information technologies quickly leads to a concern with context, relevance, and labor. Information scientists have developed many theories of context, relevance, and labor but not a framework for organizing them and describing their relationship with one another. We propose the words context and relevance can be used to articulate a useful framework for considering the diversity of approaches to context and relevance in information science, as well as their relations with each other and with labor.

Checklist of the writings of Robert Pagès (1919-2007), French social psychologist.

In information science, writing, printing, telecommunication, and digital computing have been central concerns because of their ability to distribute information. Overlooked is the obvious fact that these technologies fashion copies, and the theorizing of copies has been neglected. We may think a copy is the same as what it copies, but no two objects can really be the same. “The same” means similar enough as an acceptable substitute for some purpose. The differences between usefully similar things are also often important, in forensic analysis, for example, or inferential processes. Status as a copy is only one form of relationship between objects, but copies are so integral to information science that they demand a theory. Indeed, theorizing copies provides a basis for a more complete and unified view of information science.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurodegenerative disease associated with a history of repetitive head impacts (RHI). CTE was described in boxers as early as the 1920s and by the 1950s it was widely accepted that hits to the head caused some boxers to become "punch drunk." However, the recent discovery of CTE in American and Australian-rules football, soccer, rugby, ice hockey, and other sports has resulted in renewed debate on whether the relationship between RHI and CTE is causal. Identifying the strength of the evidential relationship between CTE and RHI has implications for public health and medico-legal issues. From a public health perspective, environmentally caused diseases can be mitigated or prevented. Medico-legally, millions of children are exposed to RHI through sports participation; this demographic is too young to legally consent to any potential long-term risks associated with this exposure. To better understand the strength of evidence underlying the possible causal relationship between RHI and CTE, we examined the medical literature through the Bradford Hill criteria for causation. The Bradford Hill criteria, first proposed in 1965 by Sir Austin Bradford Hill, provide a framework to determine if one can justifiably move from an observed association to a verdict of causation. The Bradford Hill criteria include nine viewpoints by which to evaluate human epidemiologic evidence to determine if causation can be deduced: strength, consistency, specificity, temporality, biological gradient, plausibility, coherence, experiment, and analogy. We explored the question of causation by evaluating studies on CTE as it relates to RHI exposure. Through this lens, we found convincing evidence of a causal relationship between RHI and CTE, as well as an absence of evidence-based alternative explanations. By organizing the CTE literature through this framework, we hope to advance the global conversation on CTE mitigation efforts.

Robert Pagès (1919-2007) was an anarchist activist who later became director of a major social psychology research laboratory. Between these roles he was a student in documentation established in Paris by Suzanne Briet and others at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers. In 1947 while he was a student of documentation Pagès submitted a thesis entitled “Transformations documentaires et milieu culturel” (Documentary transformations and cultural context) which was published as an article in the Review of Documentation in 1948. A key theme was that documentation is to culture what machinery is to industry. This introduction situates and explains some key ideas from Pagès' article.

A progress report and discussion on the preservation of, and access to, historical resources relating to the history of ASIST and of Information Science and Technology generally and guidance for members interested on opportunities and methods.

Obituary of Franklin Samuel Stych (1916-2020), librarian and scholar of Italian literature.

Adult diffuse gliomas are a diverse group of brain neoplasms that inflict a high emotional toll on patients and their families. The Cancer Genome Atlas and similar projects have provided a comprehensive understanding of the somatic alterations and molecular subtypes of glioma at diagnosis. However, gliomas undergo significant cellular and molecular evolution during disease progression. We review the current knowledge on the genomic and epigenetic abnormalities in primary tumors and after disease recurrence, highlight the gaps in the literature, and elaborate on the need for a new multi-institutional effort to bridge these knowledge gaps and how the Glioma Longitudinal Analysis Consortium (GLASS) aims to systemically catalog the longitudinal changes in gliomas. The GLASS initiative will provide essential insights into the evolution of glioma toward a lethal phenotype, with the potential to reveal targetable vulnerabilities and, ultimately, improved outcomes for a patient population in need.

The nature of Information Science and why it is important to society. Autobiographical perspective.

Document theory examines the concept of a document and how it can serve with other concepts to understand communication, documentation, information, and knowledge. Knowledge organization itself is in practice based on die arrangement of documents representing concepts and knowledge. The word "document" commonly refers to a text or graphic record, but, in a semiotic perspective, non-graphic objects can also be regarded as signifying and, therefore, as documents. The steady increase in the variety and number of documents since prehistoric times enables the development of communities, the division of labor, and reduction of the constraints of space and time. Documents arc related to data, facts, texts, works, information, knowledge, signs, and other documents. Documents have physical (material), cognitive, and social aspects.

An ethical and human-centered approach to Information Science requires rigorous, historically-informed analysis of both the resources that inform this discipline and the cultural role it inhabits. This session will present and discuss significant recent developments in the history and foundations of the field. ASIST has formally established a new volunteer administrative position of ASIST Curator. Kathryn La Barre, the newly-appointed Curator, will describe the role and responsibilities of this position and assess the state of Information Science history in relation to the conference themes. In two complementary reports: Michael Buckland will examine theoretical accounts of the materials made use of in Information Science; and Sachi Arafat will explain why Information Retrieval and Information Science should be integrated and rethought as a science of technology-mediated experience, and how this new kind of science relates to the pre-modern memory arts tradition.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the agenda for library technology for the next 20 years. Design/methodology/approach: A long-term historically based analysis of the evolving roles of librarians and library technology, especially the catalog. Findings: The rise of standardized cataloging codes, communications formats, bibliographical utilities, and software for online searching constitutes a great triumph in universal bibliographical access for everybody. But each reader is unique and no-one is “everybody” so a uniform service is not ideal for all. The ideal librarian knows both the collection and the readers. The catalog is a guide to the collection and a surrogate for the librarian. The librarian understands the readers. The development of library technology will remain significantly incomplete until the uniqueness of each reader is accommodated. Some ways to do that are noted. Research limitations/implications: Research and development should focus on relating the uniqueness of individuals to the uniformity of services provided. Practical implications: Strategic directions are indicated. Originality/value: Provides a perspective on the development of library service in terms of changing relationships between technology and librarians.

A 32-year-old female with advanced human immunodeficiency virus infection presented to an Australian hospital with subacute, worsening symptoms of encephalitis. Metagenomic sequencing and Dengue NS3 antigen staining of brain tissue confirmed active dengue virus (DENV) encephalitis. The most recent possible DENV exposure was months prior in West Africa, indicating chronicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a new and useful formulation of relevance. Design/methodology/approach: This paper is formulated as a conceptual argument. It makes the case for the utility of considering relevance to be function of use in creative processes. Findings: There are several corollaries to formulating relevance as a function of use. These include the idea that objects by themselves cannot be relevant since use assumes interaction; the affordances of objects and how they are perceived can affect what becomes relevant but are not in themselves relevant; relevance is not an essential characteristic of objects; relevance is transient; potential relevance (what might be relevant in the future) can be distinguished from what is relevant in use and from what has been relevant in the past. Originality/value: The paper shows that its new formulation of relevance brings improved conceptual and terminological clarity to the discourse about relevance in information science. It demonstrates that how relevance is articulated conceptually is important as its conceptualization can affect the ways that users are able to make use of information systems and, by extension, how information systems can facilitate or disable the co-production of creative outcomes. The paper also usefully expands investigative opportunities by suggesting relevance and creativity are interrelated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the development of documentation studies at the University of Tromsø and the founding of the Document Academy it was asserted that one should view a document as having three complementary and simultaneous aspects: physical, mental, and social. These three document dimensions and relationships between them are discussed. Physicality is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for being a document, there must also be a mental angle, which, in turn, entails a social (cultural) angle. The physical disposition of documents is influenced by social controls. The inability of any one angle to fully characterize a document explains the role of documents in the social construction of reality and why “relevance” in retrieval evaluation can be understood but resists scientific treatment.

'And oh, if we ever part, then that might break my heart’ (Gershwin and Gershwin,). In the lyric, ‘tomato tomahto', the marked, or explicitly differentiated term, is tomahto, corresponding more to the English rather than the United States pronunciation. The marked term of a contrast characteristically designates the exception or minor term and the distinctions contained in the unmarked term may be implicitly, and incompletely, understood. Analogously, information science has often been implicitly based in the United States and influenced by American modes of thought, while European, including English, developments have been the occasionally marked and often minor term. This panel explores European perspectives on information science, explicitly and implicitly contrasting them with United States perspectives, from a base in a number of languages and in Europe and beyond. The panel employs diverse and complementary viewpoints and should make for a lively discussion. It concludes, in sympathy with Gershwin, that cooperation and integration, corresponding to increasing globalization, is the way forward. The combination of European and beyond and United States perspectives on information science is especially appropriate for the first ASIS&T Annual Meeting outside North America.