Saturday, September 30, 2006

CFP: North American Symposium on Knowledge Organization (NASKO)

CFP: North American Symposium on Knowledge Organization (NASKO)

North American Symposium on Knowledge Organization (NASKO)
Conference Venue: Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto,
June 14-15, 2007

Two events in one place! An organizing conference for the North American
Chapter of ISKO, and a paper session on the state of the art of Knowledge
Organization research.

Call for Participation and Call for Position Papers

Call for Participation: KO, Classification Systems, and Controlled
Vocabularies Adjust to New Technologies and Service Areas-- What are YOU
Doing? An Information Exchange Opportunity and Organizational Meeting for
the North American Chapter of the International Society for Knowledge
Organization (ISKO)

The time is ripe for enhanced communication among Knowledge Organization
researchers in North America. We are a diverse, yet committed, set of
researchers interested in asking basic and applied questions on how
knowledge is organized and how such organization can be improved through
research. As ISKO members we are also are interested in forming a North
American chapter in order to attain critical mass for KO researchers to
share research findings, mentor students and maintain continuous
conversations across the large landmass of North America. What are your
needs as a Knowledge Organization researcher? What can a North American
chapter do for your research program? Your participation in planning for a
North American chapter will serve to enrich the research infrastructure in
Knowledge Organization.

Call for Position Papers: "Knowledge Organization Research in North
America: What have we done, what are we doing, and where do we go from
here?"

North American thinkers have commented on a number of changes and
innovations in Knowledge Organization research. Beghtol, Mai, Smiraglia,
and Svenonius have all noted a shift in knowledge organization research
strategies and focus in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The task
of laying the groundwork for future work is imminent. Valuable approaches
demonstrated by current research are many and include but are not limited
to:
- contextual and ecological inquiry,
- comparative approaches to classification,
- establishing theories of instantiation and works,
- looking at the history and discourse of organization structures in order
to inform current theory and practice.

What then are the next steps? What are the salient questions? Some
possibilities include:

- Will social tagging and ontology engineering have impact on knowledge
organization, or vice versa?
- Will the economics and institutional application of information
organization structures change in the next ten years?
- Will Library of Congress cataloguing at current levels cease entirely?
- Will the Library and Archives Canada merge archival and library work
into metadata work?
- How will large-scale implementations and issues of economics affect
knowledge organization research?
- What role can legacy Knowledge Organization systems and strategy play in
the theoretical and practical development of current and future
information realities?
- Finally, what epistemological innovations and insights will shape the
next stages of Knowledge Organization research?
- Will the Pragmatists forever influence Knowledge Organization?
- Will there be another Wittgenstein?
- Will there be another Ranganathan?
- What is the impact of Rorty on our work?
- Who will be the next public intellectual from our area?

Research Papers: Proposals should include a title, and be no more than
1500 words long. Proposals situated in the extant literature of knowledge
organization will be given preference. Proposals may be submitted in
English or French.

Position Papers: Proposals should include a title, and be no more than
1500 words long. Proposals with clearly articulated theoretical grounding
and methodology, and those that report on completed or ongoing research
will be given preference. Diverse perspectives and methodologies are
welcome. Proposals may be submitted in English or French.

Publication: All accepted papers will appear online. The most
highly-ranked papers will, with permission of the authors, be published,
in full, in a North American theme issue of Knowledge Organization.

Doctoral students are especially invited to submit proposals for the
conference.

Deadline for proposals is January 31, 2007. Proposals, including the
name(s) of the author(s), complete mailing and e-mail addresses, telephone
and fax numbers, should be sent electronically (Word or RTF) to Kathryn
LaBarre: klabarre@uiuc.edu. Proposals will be refereed by the Program
Committee. Authors will be notified of the committee’s decision no later
than February 28, 2007. All presenters must register for the conference.
Papers to appear as full text in the electronic proceedings must be
submitted no later than May 14, 2007.

Updates and conference information may be found at the conference website:
http://www.slais.ubc.ca/users/iskona.

Richard P. Smiraglia, Professor
Editor-in-Chief, Knowledge Organization
Palmer School of Library and Information Science
Long Island University
720 Northern Blvd.
Brookville NY 11548 USA
(516) 299-2174 voice
(516) 299-4168 fax
Richard.Smiraglia@liu.edu