Category: New Librarianship

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Conversants: Call for Papers

CALL FOR PAPERS

Introducing Conversants. Conversants (ISSN: 1940-5022) is a limited-run, open-access journal about participatory networks. Part of a joint project on Participatory Librarianship (http://ptbed.org) between the Information Institute of Syracuse and the American Library Association’s Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP), the journal is a forum for the exchange of ideas relating to conversation-based theories as well as their applications in knowledge environments. Articles and essays are solicited not only to increase our understanding of participatory approaches to virtual and physical settings, but also to challenge the scholarly and practice communities. The emphasis of the journal is on durable concepts that transcend any particular technology or suite of functions.

While treatments related to all types of settings are welcome, a special emphasis is placed on the library domain and the role librarians play as facilitators of conversations. Submissions might include:

• Empirical articles analyzing user contributions to web resources;
• Thought pieces concerning the library as conversation;
• Podcasts of presentations concerning Library 2.0; and
• Discussions of curricular initiatives to incorporate new web technologies into information science education.

All submissions will be reviewed by the editors of the journal and then, in keeping with the central tenets of participatory networks, made available for ongoing public review via CommentPress. Authors are encouraged to follow these conversations, and can incorporate these comments into revised drafts.

Unlike most journals, pieces are published as they are accepted to encourage timely discussions of current trends and events. Selected pieces will be edited into a volume exploring participatory librarianship.

Please e-mail submissions to [email protected] in Word, HTML, RTF or ASCII text format.

The editorial board of Conversants comprises:

Editors
• R. David Lankes, Associate Professor Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies
• Joseph Janes, Associate Professor University of Washington’s Information School
• Eli Neiburger, Ann Arbor District Library
Associate Editors
• Todd Marshall, Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies
• David Pimentel, Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies

If you are interested in joining the board, please contact David Lankes [email protected]

More information is available on the project website at http://ptbed.org/conversants.php

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Marshall Bibliography Added

Todd Marshall has compiled a brief bibliography on Conversation Theory and Participatory Networks (from a scholarly perspective). It is listed below and has been added to the “Readings” page of the site. If you see things missing or want to add, please let me know.
Participatory Networks Bibliography (12/3/2007)

Bechtel, Joan M. (1986). Conversation, A New Paradigm for Librarianship? College & Research Libraries 47 (3). pp. 219-224.
Bernard, Scott. (1980). The Cybernetics of Gordon Pask. International Cybernetics Newsletter (17). pp. 327-336.

Fisher, Kathleen M. (2001). Overview of Knowledge Mapping. In: Mapping Biology Knowledge. Springer, pp. 5-23.

Ford, Nigel. (2004). Modeling cognitive processes in information seeking: From Popper to Pask. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 55 (9). pp. 769-782.
Ford, Nigel. (2005). “Conversational” information systems: Extending educational informatics support for the web-based learner. Journal of Documentation 61 (3). pp. 362-384.
Glanville, Ranulph. (1993). Pask: a Slight Primer. Systems Research 10 (3). pp. 213-218.
Lankes, R. D., Silverstein, J. L., Nicholson, S., & Marshall, T. (2007). Participatory Networks: The Library as Conversation. Information Research, 12 (4) paper colis05 (http://InformationR.net/ir/12-4/colis05.html).
Lankes, R. David and Silverstein, Joanne L. and Nicholson, Scott. (2007). Participatory Networks: The Library as Conversation. Technical Report. Information Institute of Syracuse, Syracuse, NY.
Laurillard, Diana. (1999). A Conversational Framework for Individual Learning Applied to the `Learning Organisation’ and the `Learning Society’. Systems Research and Behavioral Science 16 (2). pp. 113-122.
McKeen, James and Guimaraes, Tor and Wetherbe, James (1994). The relationship between user participation and user satisfaction: An investigation of four contingency factors. MIS Quarterly 18 (4). pp. 427-451.
Pask, Gordon. (1975). Conversation, Cognition and Learning: A Cybernetic Theory and Methodology. Elsevier, Amsterdam.
Pask, Gordon. (1996). Heinz von Foerster’s Self Organization, the Progenitor of Conversation and Interaction Theories. Systems Research 13 (3). pp. 349-362.
Patel, A. and Kinshuk, and Russell, D. (2002). Implementing Cognitive Apprenticeship and Conversation Theory in Interactive Web-Based Learning Systems. In: Sixth Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics. International Institute of Informatics and Systemics, pp. 523-528.
Pimentel, D. M. (2007). Exploring classification as conversation. In Tennis, Joseph T., Eds. Proceedings North American Symposium on Knowledge Organization 2007 1, pp. 1-8, Toronto, Ontario. (http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu/1893/)
Scott, Bernard. (1993). Working with Gordon: Developing and Applying Conversation Theory (1968- 1978). Systems Research 10 (3). pp. 167-182.
Scott, Bernard. (2001). Cybernetics and the Social Sciences. Systems Research and Behavioral Science 18 (5). pp. 411-420.
Thomas, Laurie and Harri-Augstein, Sheila. (1993). Gordon Pask at Brunel: A Continuing Conversation about Conversations. Systems Research 10 (3). pp. 183-192.
Wenger, Etienne. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge University Press, New York.

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Draft Report from LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control

Today someone asked me about how the new LC report (http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/news/draft-report.html) meshed with participatory library concepts. Much of this is very compatible: user create materials, wider cooperation, distribution of tasks, etc.

However, a central tenant of participatory is the focus on conversation and how artifacts only make sense in the context of someone’ use. Perhaps it is the nature of the beast, but this approach to bibliographic control is in making descriptions of artifacts more standard and more efficient. So it is participatory in process, but not result. What would help is a recognition (perhaps as part of the cohesive philosophy of bibliographic control discussed) that any artifact, and thus it’s description, gains meaning and utility in the context of communities and conversations. Further that these conversations and context often exist BETWEEN records and items.

My question for the committee would be how could bibliographic control incorporate contexts between items or be applied to conversations and non-document like objects? What are your thoughts?

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IR, VR and Conversation Theory

Keisuke Inoue, doctoral student at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, explains his current research in applying participatory concepts to information retrieval and virtual reference.

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Lankes Named First Fellow by ALA’s Office for Information Technology Policy

The American Library Association’s Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) named R. David Lankes a fellow through December 2008. Lankes will lead a collaborative research project with OITP on the evolving landscape of information technology and its implications for the education of the next generation of library and information science (LIS) professionals.

“Professor Lankes is the ideal candidate to serve as the first OITP Fellow,” says Alan Inouye, OITP director. “He is a leading LIS researcher as well as someone with ties to, knowledge of, and interests in the larger library community. Professor Lankes has the ability to cultivate stronger ties–for mutual benefit–between library practitioners and institutions and the LIS research community, and he’s also a future-oriented thinker.”

Lankes’ primary work will be to enhance the office’s outreach to the scholarly and educational library and information science communities. While he will be working with the office on a wide range of issues, his primary focus will be on further developing the concept of participatory librarianship first set out in the OITP technology brief Participatory Networks: The Library as Conversation.

“Libraries are in a great position to improve their services, and their positions with their communities,” says Lankes, associate professor at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies and director of its Information Institute of Syracuse. “OITP is really a think tank within ALA, and it is important that it teams with scholars as much as possible. I’m very happy to be part of that process. It is vital to the entire library and information science community that practitioners and scholars engage in a continuous conversation on how best to serve patrons.”

Lankes’ work on participatory librarianship has included presentations both domestically as well as in Australia, Italy, and Sweden. More information on participatory librarianship can be found at http://www.ptbed.org and on Lankes at http://www.DavidLankes.org.

OITP advances ALA’s public policy activities by helping secure information technology policies that support and encourage efforts of libraries to ensure access to electronic information resources as a means of upholding the public’s right to a free and open information society. It works to ensure a library voice in information policy debates and to promote full and equitable intellectual participation by the public. It does this by:

  • Conducting research and analysis aimed at understanding the implications of information technology and policies for libraries and library users,
  • Educating the ALA community about the implications of information policy, law, and regulation for libraries and library users,
  • Advocating ALA’s information policy interests in non-legislative government policy forums, and
  • Engaging in strategic outlook to anticipate technological change, particularly as it presents policy challenges to libraries and library users.