The importance of recognising
context
Wilson [3] stresses the importance of context
in dictating information needs, but makes no
mention of the impact of context on the interpretation
and effectiveness of information
materials. Hjørland considers ‘subject analysis
of documents as one of the most fundamental
activities of library and information
professionals’ [2, p. 610].
One implication of the model presented
here is that such an analysis requires an
appreciation of the context. As Hjørland
notes:
The subject of a book (or any other
document, or message) is closely
related to what kind of answers people
can find from reading the book...
Any document thus has an infinite
number of subjects [2, p. 610].
So to predict the effect of information on
a particular user, it is necessary first to envisage
the potential user. In classifying information,
therefore, the information scientist is
implicitly classifying the user.
Information and knowledge
Earlier, the importance of context in causing
a stimulus to become informative was discussed,
but arguably the most fundamental
context was omitted: that of the knowledge
of the recipient of the information. The examples
of contexts listed above will all shape that
knowledge, hence their significance, but in
addition the knowledge will be affected by
an incalculable array of experiences and
aptitudes. A definition of information
The importance of recognising
context
Wilson [3] stresses the importance of context
in dictating information needs, but makes no
mention of the impact of context on the interpretation
and effectiveness of information
materials. Hjørland considers ‘subject analysis
of documents as one of the most fundamental
activities of library and information
professionals’ [2, p. 610].
One implication of the model presented
here is that such an analysis requires an
appreciation of the context. As Hjørland
notes:
The subject of a book (or any other
document, or message) is closely
related to what kind of answers people
can find from reading the book...
Any document thus has an infinite
number of subjects [2, p. 610].
So to predict the effect of information on
a particular user, it is necessary first to envisage
the potential user. In classifying information,
therefore, the information scientist is
implicitly classifying the user.
Information and knowledge
Earlier, the importance of context in causing
a stimulus to become informative was discussed,
but arguably the most fundamental
context was omitted: that of the knowledge
of the recipient of the information. The examples
of contexts listed above will all shape that
knowledge, hence their significance, but in
addition the knowledge will be affected by
an incalculable array of experiences and
aptitudes.
The association between knowledge and
information seeking is well established: ‘...the
idea of using cognitive models as the basis for
information retrieval system design has
aroused considerable interest...’ [15, p. 63].
It has been argued that what motivates
someone to seek information is a recognition
by the seeker of ‘an anomaly in his/her state
of knowledge’ [4, p. 81]. Moser [16, p. 350],
questions how ‘normal’ and ‘anomalous’
states of knowledge are to be identified or
measured, and makes the point that ‘information,
to be generated, need not actively be
instigated on the ‘recipient’s’ side’.
This observation is highly relevant to the
context-reliant model of information reception
described in this paper. Checkland
argues that ‘consciousness makes man, via
his W(orld View)s, a meaning-endowing animal’
[17, p. 219]. If this is accepted, then it is
the meaning endowed within the World View
that will determine whether information is
sought, what information is sought, and
how it is interpreted. Anomalies may be a
motivating factor. People who, unlike Lewis
Carroll’s ‘Humpty Dumpty’, are not happy to
‘believe six impossible things before breakfast’
may seek information in an effort to
resolve some of the discrepancies in their
World View.
Alternatively, however, the meaning conferred
by a World View may provide someone
with a paradigm of ‘normality’, which can
be used in the generation of hypotheses.
Here, information may be sought to test the
hypotheses in order to establish or to extend
‘normality’.
Personal paradigms as context
The word ‘paradigm’ above is used in its dictionary
sense: ‘pattern, example, to exhibit
beside, show side by side’ (OED) rather than
in the ways in which Kuhn [18] used the term
in his philosophy of science. While Kuhn used
‘paradigm’ to describe systems by which
meaning could be shared in a research community,
the word is used above to describe
the ways in which an individual organises
information within his or her World View.
The difference is significant when considering
the evaluation of information.
Information scientists can only assess information
insofar as their World Views match
those of the people for whom they are evaluating
it. It is because the match is inexact
that browsing and serendipity are important factors in information seeking. Data and texts
that appear irrelevant to an evaluator may
provide the missing piece of a puzzle to a
researcher; but the data and texts will only be
informative if the puzzle is known.
Probably the best known example in science
of a serendipitous discovery arose
because of the problem of King Hieron’s
crown. The king, wishing to know whether
the crown was pure gold as claimed by the
goldsmith, or whether a gold/silver alloy had
been used, asked Archimedes to investigate.
Archimedes is reputed to have arrived at the
solution when, as he climbed into his bathtub,
he observed water overflowing from it.
Within the context of his knowledge, his
thoughts, and his ideas, the stimulus of overflowing
water was informative. Archimedes
deduced that the quantity of water displaced
was equivalent to the volume of his body, and
so had a means of determining the density of
the crown [19].
The history of science is full of such tales:
from the apple that gave rise to Newton’s
thoughts on gravity, to the dream of snakes
from which Kekule derived the structure of
benzene. Such examples, however, are of little
practical relevance to the information scientist,
since information of this kind is
impossible to organise. A more constructive
and more recent example involves the work
of Heisenberg in quantum mechanics.
According to C.P. Snow, in the early 1920s,
Heisenberg was seeking to find mathematical
tools which would enable him to relate the
set of rules associated with any given atom to
that atom’s set of properties.
The trouble was, he didn’t know
enough of the curiosities of nineteenth-
century mathematics, when all
kinds of mathematical arts had been
developed. Not for use, but for the
sheer beauty of the game.
Fortunately... Max Born ... [knew of
the] old subject of matrix algebra, half
forgotten but completely available [20,
p. 67].
This half-forgotten branch of mathematics
proved to be ‘precisely what they
needed’. If Snow’s analysis is correct, however,
and matrix algebra had indeed been
developed for ‘the beauty of the game’ rather
than for use, it would presumably have been
held to have little informative value. Despite
this, the text was ‘completely available’ and
clearly retrievable; and within the context of
Heisenberg’s research it became invaluable
information.
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