[Sigcr-l] North American Symposium on Knowledge Organization--Jan. 31 deadline

[Richard Smiraglia]

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

Call for Participation and Call for Position Papers

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: 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 at 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.

Program Committee:
Richard Smiraglia, Long Island University, Chair
Clement Arsenault, University of Montreal
Clare Beghtol, University of Toronto
Allyson Carlyle, University of Washington
Anita Coleman, University of Arizona
Jonathan Furner, University of California, Los Angeles
Rebecca Green, University of Maryland, College Park
Kathryn La Barre, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Joseph T. Tennis, University of British Columbia
Hope Olson, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Nancy Williamson, University of Toronto


Planning Committee:
Richard Smiraglia, Long Island University, Chair
Kathryn La Barre, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Nancy Williamson, University of Toronto
Joseph T. Tennis, University of British Columbia
sigcr-l at asis.org.

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 at liu.edu