Conceptual Crowbars and Classification at the Crossroads: The Impact and Future of Classification Research
Workshop sponsored by ASIS&T SIG/Classification Research
ASIS&T 2015 Annual Meeting
Saturday, November 7, 2015, 8:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Hyatt Regency St. Louis at the Arch, USA
This year’s Classification Research workshop consciously and critically engages the general conference theme, “Information Science with Impact,” in order to frame conversations about the results and significance of classification research. With the increasing emphasis on impact in and around information science, the theme provides us with an opportunity to consider some of the ways in which we define ourselves as a Classification Research group and how we understand our research to affect and influence theory and practice. Classification matters not only in the functioning of information systems and technologies, but also in the lived experiences of individuals, and in society, organizations, and all information contexts.
The spate of violent events in the U.S., together with the resistance and response, quickens a crucial set of questions about the nature of our work. This workshop aims to cast such violence as a knowledge organization problem. We also aim to consider whether and how classificatory acts and systems can be reparative, or even transformative: What bearing does the structuring of knowledge have upon the seeking, reception, circulation, and use of knowledge and information? Do classifications tell us something about agendas, political contexts, or authority? What role do our classification systems play in constituting, and challenging categories of difference? In what ways have communities used and/or challenged classifications in civic action and protest?
We welcome papers that address positive or negative and intended or unintended consequences of classification, as well as papers and projects that explore potential and possibilities for classification systems and research. Doctoral students are encouraged to submit paper/presentation proposals, and two scholarships covering workshop fees will be awarded to student authors. We also invite presentations and posters of classification design projects in any stage of development, as well as nontraditional presentation formats.
We are interested in work that addresses questions and issues such as the following:
· Encounters with classification in daily life, on- and off-line
· Material effects of classifications, e.g., how do classifications bar or grant access to information, and in what ways does this matter?
· Structures and hierarchies and their effects and consequences
· Design and aesthetics in classifications
· Consequences of specific systems or types of systems, e.g., thesauri, universal classifications, folksonomies
· Reparative/transformative classifications
· Classification research as it relates to diversity initiatives
· Limitations and possibilities for assessing impact of classifications
· The role of classifications in constituting and ordering value in information science, i.e., how measurements of impact rely upon the classification and ranking of what counts as research, users, and knowledge
· Critical / theoretical discussions of classifications, e.g., critical race studies, queer theory, disability studies
· Classificatory mechanisms as tools for building or dividing communities
· Classifications as reflections of agencies, nations, individuals, or organizations
· Classifications in particular contexts, e.g., health information, libraries, archives, the Semantic Web, Linked Open Data, social media, etc.
· Knowledge organization in scientific and political debates, e.g. climate change
· The construction of users (user types, user communities, user identities) through classification
Deadlines:
August 20, 2015: Submit abstracts of no more than 500 words for a paper, poster, or alternative format presentation to Melissa Adler: melissa.adler@uky.edu
Include your name, title, and institutional affiliation with your submission.
September 10, 2015: Tentative author notification date, to be determined so that authors will be notified ahead of the early bird registration date.
Fees:
$100, SIG/CR members
$110, non-SIG/CR members
(Fees increase after the early bird registration deadline)
Organizers:
Melissa Adler, University of Kentucky
Jonathan Furner, UCLA
Barbara H. Kwasnik, Syracuse
Joseph T. Tennis, University of Washington
ASIS&T SIG/CR 