Programme highlights
This will be a very full programme, with seven posters as well as 29 presentations. Day One includes a special session co-organized by our colleagues in the European network of NKOS (Networked Knowledge Organization Systems/Services). The topic, “What role can KOS play in information retrieval applications?” was inspired by Brian Vickery’s longstanding interest in information retrieval. On the second day we shall hear from several other speakers who have drawn on Vickery’s legacy.
This year the Proceedings will be published and sent to all those attending the Conference. As well as the presented papers, it will include a selection of papers either by, or about, Brian Vickery.
Keynote addresses
Our keynote speakers will be Stephen Robertson who, after leaving the Aslib Research Department under Brian Vickery, spent many years leading the Centre for Interactive Systems at City University and is now a full-time researcher at the Microsoft Research Laboratory in Cambridge; and Amanda Spink, recently appointed to the Chair in Information Science at Loughborough University, moving from the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh.
On retrieval system theory
Stephen Robertson
“What kinds of theory or theories do we need for the field of information retrieval?” Brian Vickery's book whose title I have purloined was first published in 1961; in the preface he makes the following disclaimer: “There is as yet no unified theory of retrieval systems”. I have made the same statement many times myself, and it is as true now as it was a half-century ago. The number of papers published in the field of information retrieval, in every year of the first decade of the third millennium, would astonish the BCV of 1961, and many of these papers appeal to theoretical arguments of various more-or-less formal kinds. But can we expect, and do we need or want, a unified theory? In this talk I will attempt some discussion of these issues.
Information organizing: an evolutionary and developmental
framework
Amanda Spink
Information behaviour has emerged as an important aspect of human life, however our knowledge and understanding of it is incomplete and underdeveloped scientifically. Our understanding of information behaviour and the sub-process information organizing behaviour is largely contemporary in focus. In this presentation Professor Spink discusses an evolutionary and developmental framework for information behaviour and information organizing by incorporating related findings, theories and models from evolutionary psychology, cognitive archaeology, cognitive neuroscience and developmental psychology. In her presentation, she argues that information behaviour and information organizing are important instinctive sociocognitive abilities for all humans that can only be fully understood with an evolutionary and developmental perspective. Professor Spink’s presentation addresses four important research questions. Firstly, what is the evolutionary, biological and developmental basis for information behaviour and information organizing behaviour? Secondly, what is the role of instinct versus environment in shaping information behaviour and information organizing behaviour? Thirdly, how have information behaviour and organizing capabilities evolved and developed over human species?, and Fourthly, when and how does information behaviour and in particular information organizing abilities emerge in young children? An evolutionary and developmental approach lays the foundation for a more holistic perspective on information behaviour and information organizing behaviour, and opens many new research directions.