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Posts Tagged ‘ASIS&T’

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Bon voyage!

In Misc. on November 6, 2009 at 3:47 pm

The highlight this past week was a guest lecture by Prof. Takhteyev and his dissertation on software development in Brazil, specifically around a programming language called “Lua”. Extremely readable, and he’s currently editing it for the purpose of publishing it as a book. He emphasized how important writing was to him as a tool, perhaps juxtaposing the way ethnographic research can result in a wall plastered with photos taken in the field, and diagrams or models. It reminded me of the emphasis Prof. Cain emphasized writing as a process, that you write, and rewrite, perhaps for a particular end, but as a research process, never really ends.

Heading off to Vancouver, a little too ambitious about what I’ll get done on the plane, such as finalizing the logo for SPO, edit one of my papers for journal submission, and start planning the presentation I have to make on Wednesday morning when I come back, and do some course reading.

Oh, and enjoy my time in Vancouver, naturally. I’ll try to make some updates on my activities there.

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The Pluralistic Nature of Musical Knowledge

In My Work on September 23, 2009 at 12:29 pm

(This is the short piece that I submitted to the SIG USE Awards Jury for consideration for the Master’s Student Travel Grant, which I am the lucky and thankful recipient of. Participating in ASIS&T’s Annual Meeting in Vancouver will definitely be one of the highlights of this year. Thank you SIG USE!)

Music is perhaps one of the few ways through which people from different cultures make connections with each other. Once you find a common music interest or passion with someone — especially if it is a rather unusual one — it can turn into hours of mutual sharing and appreciation. Much research has been done in the field of information seeking behaviour, information retrieval, information architecture and system design to facilitate such activities. With all the advances in the field, there remains a much neglected but emerging research area, namely, how musical knowledge is being renegotiated in the information age.

The difference of scope lies in the distinction between information, and knowledge. A tension exists in the idea that music is some how ‘universal’, yet culturally unique. (Click here to read the rest of my position paper.)

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What is this, and what is that?

In My Work on September 13, 2009 at 8:37 pm

As an aspiring information science professional (scientist seems a bit too grandiose for me at the moment), I am acutely aware of my shortcomings in terms of classification methods. The Library of Congress has a system for classifying books, but surely there are more fundamental and theoretical frameworks around which classification happens. My first year classes already brought my attention to the inherent biases that are unavoidable in the process of classification, yet I don’t even know where to begin in terms of actually creating a classification system.

In particular, my interest in music knowledge sharing has been growing, and it is becoming clear to me that I would like to pursue this in my studies and research. Having corresponded with Jens-Erik Mai over the summer in order to clarify which one of his courses this year would be most relevant to me, and finally meeting in person to discuss my own educational goals when it comes to classification, he swiftly offered to supervise me in an independent study project to explore the specific issues I want to learn more about. Considering his areas of speciality, this is an amazing offer. Proposal time!

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