[Sighfis-l] SIG/HFIS 2009 program ideas needed

[Trudi Hahn]

Hi Bob - 

 

Don't know if you've received some good ideas and don't need anymore.  Here
is one that is not even half-baked.it is just a raw lump of dough.  But
perhaps it could be shaped..

 

An odd and interesting thing happened to me this morning.  I received a call
from a patent attorney in New York City who is working on a case from Texas
involving a developer of a search engine who in 1993 claimed to have
invented a new way of "indirectly" linking Web pages-other than through
metadata or other subject links.  The lawyer himself is not an expert in
information retrieval, but he figured out enough to search the literature
and found the book that Charlie Bourne and I wrote on the early history of
online information retrieval.  In it he found a description of TIP at MIT in
the mid-1960's (Mike Kessler et al.) including all its wonderful features
such as bibliographic coupling (which is what the patent applicant seemed to
be claiming as a new invention). The lawyer is trying make the case that the
"invention" was nothing new.it had been done already and was widely known in
the literature of the information science field.  He wanted a lead to some
TIP documents and other materials on information retrieval developments in
the 1970's and 80's.  I couldn't help him much (all my materials for the
book are in the information science archives at Michigan) but I referred him
to Charlie Bourne and other experts on newer developments.

 

Anyway, it occurred to me that occasionally our theories and our history
bump into the real world-they are used for "practical purposes" or get
written up in the mass media (e.g., Paul Otlet in the NYT last June), and
that perhaps a theme could be developed around that idea.history and
foundations meet the modern real world, or something like that.

 

As I said, it is not even ready for the oven, but perhaps you and others can
help develop it if you think it's worth pursuing.

 

Happy New Year to all!

Trudi

 

 

  _____  

From: sighfis-l-bounces at asis.org [mailto:sighfis-l-bounces at asis.org] On
Behalf Of WILLIAMS, ROBERT
Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2008 2:07 PM
To: sighfis-l at asis.org
Subject: [Sighfis-l] SIG/HFIS 2009 program ideas needed

 

Folks: This is to renew my appeal for specific program ideas for our 2009
Vancouver program. I am working on a couple of ideas that may eventually
come together but it would be good to have others in hand in case they do
not. I particularly need ideas focused around theory/foundations of IS. 

 

Ideally, I would have abstracts of papers by Jan. 10 so we could have them
reviewed prior to submitting to meet the ASIST program deadline of Jan. 21. 

 

So, while enjoying those holiday treats let them stimulate your thinking.. 

 

Robert V. Williams, Distinguished Prof., Emeritus, and Chair, SIG/HFIS, 2009

School of Library and Information Science

University of South Carolina

Columbia, SC 29208

Ph: 803-777-2324

E-mail: bobwill at sc.edu

Home Web page: http://www.libsci.sc.edu/bob/frontpg.htm 

 

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