Richard P. Smiraglia

Professor § Palmer School of Library and Information Science § College of Information and Computer Science § Long Island University § Brookville NY 11548 USA § (516) 299-2174 voice (516) 299-4168 fax § email to: Richard.Smiraglia@liu.edu

(The photo on the right was taken in a classroom at the School of Library Service on the 6th floor of Butler Library at Columbia University. I think it must have been about 1988 or so. Notice the actual school bell on the wall behind me.)

This site is being updated May 9, 2008. If anybody is actually looking at this and finding the red irritating let me know; I rather like it!

Instantiation

Following on analysis of bibliographic works has led me to the evolving concept of instantiation, which turns out (fascinatingly enough) to be broadly applicable among informing knowledge artifacts. A paper for the 2005 conference of the Canadian Association for Information Science/L'Association canadienne des sciences de l'information presents an overview of the concept. The paper is here http://www.cais-acsi.ca/search.asp?year=2005. The abstract:

The concept of "instantiation," the phenomenon of realization in time, is emerging in knowledge organization. Studies have demonstrated some consistent theoretical parameters. Epistemological and content analysis provide a background for meta-analysis. The result points the way to lacunae in the understanding of instantiation, including flaws in the FRBR model.

I was excited to find the phenomenon of instantiation among artifacts in a museum of archeology and anthropology (see Content metadata-an analysis of Etruscan artifacts in a museum of archeology. Cataloging & classification quarterly 40n3/4 (2005): 135-151). In this paper:

I extend the "works metaphor" from the bibliographic to the artifactual domain, by altering the terms of the definition slightly, thus: 1) instantiation is understood as content genealogy. Case studies of Etruscan artifacts from the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology are used to demonstrate the inherence of the work in non-documentary artifacts.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to work on indexing and digitizing the papers of the Class of 1942 of the United States Merchant Marine Academy I found instantiation not just among reproductions of the papers, but among the original documents themselves. I was astonished to discover the USS Lurline mentioned in these papers; in 1967 my family sailed from San Francisco (I remember we were housed briefly at Fort Mason) to Hawaii on the SS Lurline (by then commissioned for transport of military dependent families). My paper for the 2006 ISKO conference (Empiricism as the basis for metadata categorisation: expanding the case for instantiation with archival documents) included a partial analysis of this research:

Bibliographic, museum, and archival analyses are compared to demonstrate the value of empirical derivation of categories. In this instance categories, once derived, are demonstrated to represent properties yielding typologies. The empirical generation of categories for knowledge organization is demonstrated.

As did a paper for the CIDOC/SIG-CRM Workshop in Crete, October 2006 <here>, briefly:

Empirical methods for the derivation of resource content and the description of instantiation are described, thus posing one possible model for the empirical derivation of categories, descriptors, and schemas. Instantiation will be demonstrated as one example of a semantically interoperable model for the integration of scientific and cultural information.

I develop a set-theoretic for describing instantiation networks.

For Museums & the Web 2007 I developed a paper more focused on the artifacts <here>, which turned out to be a mistake because they put me on a panel about social tagging. So I might have focused on the typologies had I known they were more interested in hierarchical depth and "tags" but they didn't tell me that. Oh well .... for the presentation I went to some trouble to incorporate images of the instantiating artifacts and documents (including the hut urn and the deck log) so perhaps I'll have some other opportunity to use those.

In the meantime I prepared a paper on superworks for a volume edited by Arlene Taylor <here>. This was fun, because often when I talk about cultural forces as catalyst for instantiation peoples' eyes glaze over, but this time I was able to use Brokeback Mountain as an example. It had been fun to see the movie in the US one week, and a week later find a novelization in English with the movie actors on the cover in a bookstore in Amsterdam.

Constellations of works exist with abundance in the bibliographic universe. While this is good news for library users-cultural forces drive the marketplace to see to it that a wide variety of useful instantiations evolves-it presents a challenge for information retrieval. A simple citation for a work might be the anchoring node for a large family of related works. The future of sophisticated information retrieval depends on the development of integrated repositories that allow informed selection among the plethora of entities that share intellectual content. Achieving this goal will bring us much closer to Wilson's notion of exploitative control of humankind's store of recorded knowledge.

(Speaking of Wilson and exploitative control please scroll down farther.)

I recently published a larger meta-analysis of the concept of instantiation (A meta-analysis of instantiation as a phenomenon of information objects. Culture del testo e del documento 9, no.25, gennaio-aprile 2008, pp. 5-25). Here is the abstract:

"Instantiation" is the phenomenon observed among information objects of all types, in which multiple iterations of the information content exist and must be collocated and disambiguated in a retrieval system. The phenomenon has been observed among bibliographic works, cultural heritage artifacts, archival documents, scientific models, and ontological constructs. Studies have demonstrated some consistent theoretical parameters for the concept of instantiation, such as the importance of canonicity as a catalyst for instantiation, positive correlation of age of progenitor with large instantiation sets, and positive correlation of age of progenitor with complexity of instantiation sets. In the present paper all relevant terms are defined, an epistemological analysis of the concept of instantiation is presented in summary form, and a meta-analysis of the phenomenon of instantiation is performed using empirical evidence from several studies. The result demonstrates theoretical consistency across studies, suggesting the importance of the phenomenon for the development of the semantic Web, as well as pan- and inter-institutional digital libraries incorporating representations of both documentary and artifactual information resources.

I have prepared an entry for the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science on the "bibliographic work." At the moment I am interested in understanding the concept of instantiation as a form of metonymy.

Instantiation and Naïve Classification

Intrigued by the flap in the knowledge organization community over Beghtol's notion of naïve classification, I developed two papers combining her techniques with Dahlberg's essentials of concept-theoretic. This yields an approach from Beghtol--articulated purpose, paradigm identification, conceptual structuring--which works in tandem with a structure from Dahlberg--knowledge elements, knowledge units, knowledge systems. The full citations to their work are in the two papers I developed. One is about "Performance Works," and that was developed from the 2007 NASKO conference. It is available <here>, and the other makes use of the full spectrum of research in instantiation. The latter was "Defining Bibliographic 'Works:' Naïve Classification for Terminology Generation." In Proceedings I Simposio Internacional sobre Organización del Conocimiento, Bibliotecología y Terminología, Centro Universidad de Investigaciones Bibliotecologías, Ciudad de Mexico, 27 al 29 agosto de 2007. This will be published in the proceedings, but I think it is being translated into Spanish for that purpose; here is its abstract in English:

Empirical methods are effective for the generation of descriptive terminology, especially concerning new or little-understood phenomena. Direct observation provides a critical base point from which terminology can be generated for further rational analysis. This procedure has been called "naïve classification" because it closely parallels the process of category generation in the laboratory. In the present paper, the evolution of terminology used to describe the phenomena concerning bibliographic "works" is demonstrated as a form of naïve classification.

I find this process satisfactory for the classification of phenomena as they are uncovered by research, and especially for hypothesis generation.

The Meaning of Perception: Husserl and Noesis

Edmund Husserl's phenomenology is just one of the 20th century's fascinating schools of philosophical thought that is direclty relevant to notions of knowledge and information. I have been experimenting with the differentiation of otherwise like entities by attempting to identify their perceptual differences--Husserl calls this noesis, or the act of perception through one's own ego. Trivial examples are most entertaining so here are two. This sign from a hotel in Amsterdam puzzled me for years:

The text says "Wat to doen bij brand," which as you can see means "what to do in case of fire." (The photo is fuzzy, which is a shame, because it means I will have to fly back to Amsterdam to take a better picture!) The first time I encountered this I was rather jet-lagged and thought "how odd, instead of running apparently you are supposed to scream." What did I know of Dutch culture? But the more times I pointed this out to people in the hotel the more times they said to me "looks like he's dancing." So there you have it--the picture shows a person by a fire. I see someone screaming, many others see a person dancing. Those are ego-acts--noesis--self-experiential interpretations. It is one reason classification can be so difficult, because the same thing can mean different things to different people. Here is a set of pictures from the intersection of Frauentorgrabe and Kartäusergaße in Nürnberg; this is where you turn to approach the Germanisches Nationalmuseum:

Clearly, in Germany in order to cross the street one must stand atop a bicycle. Note that if the light is red one is compelled to balance there at rest until it turns green. Obviously this is problematic for some citizens--the older gentleman in the last photo has acquired the requisite bicycle, but although the light is green he is hesitant to leap onto the bar to cross the street.

Okay--point made? I always think it is an interesting philosophical exercise to approach a scene as though one were a creature from outer space and ask oneself "what am I seeing here?" Do you see that long line of earthlings on the right in that third picture? They have evolved to a high capacity and even seem to float as though on wheels; when they become excited their eyes shine enough to brighten even the night. Unfortunately, all of them are infested with two-legged parasites. Their civilization must learn to deal with these infestations before we can settle among them.

(Are you curious about how much traffic I stopped taking these pictures? I'm interested to know whether anyone has noticed I've taken hundreds of infrastructure photos around the world recently as part of this study!)

New example May 2008--you have to love the Dutch people, especially for their enlightened approach to life. In fact, they have always had that characteristic point of view, it is part of the way they survive in their country, which is a world cross-roads reclaimed from the sea. Recently these emergency signs have begun to appear in Amsterdam:

As you can see, the background is green, meaning "go"--so these are social imperatives. The man is running, which implies energy and forward motion. The arrows show the direction, which is toward the light. "Run toward the light"--now there is an enlightened approach to new-wave life. Furthermore, the light itself is in a narrow door, which is in accord with some of the sayings of Jesus of Nazareth. The third sign shows that all future progresses from the unification of souls within the light itself. What more could we expect of an enlightened people?

What is the use of this research stream? At present an obvious implication is the explanation of divergence in Web 2.0 applications--when is a tag meaningful and to whom? But there is much more potential here as well. For instance, in my paper for this summer's ISKO conference I develop the idea of noesis as the synthesis of perception. While trying to illustrate this process I realized that the heretofore supposed origin of perception is not in the information object itself, but rather is in each person who interprets it. So this accords with the phenomenon of instantiation. Instantiation says there are many perceivable iterations of information, and phenomenology says there are many potential noetic acts of perception. What is the chance that any two of these streams will meet in a human mind and form an understandable chain? A million research questions now follow; stay tuned.

The CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model and the FRBRoo

The CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM) is an object-oriented typology for information sharing about cultural heritage <CIDOC/CRM>. Attracted to this work because of its intersection with my research on instantiation, I joined the working group on developing a companion typology based on IFLA's FRBR model that is object-oriented. The FRBRoo <here> is an extension of FRBR that fits into the CRM, providing concepts related to works of all sorts and their instantiations. For discussions in Paris this past Spring I developed a model of "performance work" and "recording work" based on data from my prior studies of instantiation. This material has been extended for a paper to be presented at the forthcoming North American Symposium on Knowledge Organization <NASKO>. (Note: this symposium is being held to kick off the formal organization of a North American chapter of the International Society for Knowledge Organization.) I am increasingly convinced of the efficacy of the CRM. I also enjoy the varied meeting venues!

Domain Analysis

(1) Mapping a New Domain: Music Information Retrieval

The relatively new domain of Music Information Retrieval or MIR is a rapidly evolving, technology-driven recent entrant on the information retrieval scene. Generated by information scientists, computer scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and musicologists, among others, the domain has contributed new systems for automatic storage and retrieval of music. Mapping the domain is itself a fascinating business. Recently I asked "Music Information Retrieval: An Example of Bates' Substrate?" in a paper for the Canadian Association for Information Science/L'Association canadienne des sciences de l'information. This is the abstract:

Bates suggested that the intrinsic unity of information science lies in 'substrate'-the properties of information and its transmission. Music Information Retrieval (MIR), and ISMIR annual conferences offer a rich panoply of intellectual and cultural diversity. We map the evolution of MIR using conference papers from 2000 through 2005. Results indicate tight thematic coherence in the domain around the problems of information retrieval and classification, and the locus of most research within computer science departments.

The paper is available here: http://www.cais-acsi.ca/search.asp?year=2006.

A co-citation analysis was also revealing: indicat[ing] tight thematic coherence in the domain around the problems of information retrieval and classification, and the locus of most research within computer science departments. Citation practice indicates the habits of a hard science. Author co-citation within the domain is abundant, J. Stephen Downie is clearly the founding focal point, but the domain is very focused, reinforcing the notion of a tightly-packed, emerging and continuously successful domain. I am waiting anxiously for ACA data from outside the domain to make a comparison. Watch for another paper soon.

Inspired by encountering quotations from Two Kinds of Power in conference papers last summer I undertook an analysis of the domain defined by those who cite Wilsons famous book. The paper is to be presented at the 2007 conference of the Canadian Association for Information Science/L'Association canadienne des sciences de l'information:

Among Patrick Wilson's most influential books was Two Kinds of Power, which has influenced scholars in information science, and particularly in knowledge organization. Tools of domain analysis are used to analyze the corpus of literature that cites Two kinds of power. Aboutness and relevance are demonstrated keys to this specialization.

The Proceedings are here: http://www.cais-acsi.ca/2007proceedings.htm. I am really quite fascinated by the concept that author co-citation analysis gives us a picture of symbolic interaction. That is, that what we see is how the scholarly community perceives intellectual connections among the co-cited authors. As I mentioned only briefly in the paper, there seem to be clear social networks in the map that focus on the lineage of dissertation advising. For my presentation I added a final slide using this quotation from Two Kinds of Power (p. 132): "Let us imagine a Supreme Bibliographical Council, whose task it was to evaluate the bibliographical situations ...." I decided that's what we're looking at here. Marcia Bates is the "chief justice" and there are two parties, one in IR represented by Belkin and Saracevic, and another in KO dominated by Hjorland, with Howard White as the swing vote. Well, it's a metaphor ....

Fascinating to see Åström's paper in JASIST 58(7): 947-57, in which he finds informetrics and ISR stable but that user-oriented and experimental IR research have merged into one field--ISR. This is comparable I think, to my finding that "aboutness" was a historical node but has given way to IR and KO. Interesting ....

I teach courses in knowledge organization (broadly defined), and also in research methods, and some occasional survey courses. At present I teach in both the masters and doctoral programs. At the Palmer School, doctoral students may take advanced masters courses for credit. The courses so designated have course numbers in the 700s. Follow these links to course descriptions:

Masters courses

This semester we just finished a master's level course in knowledge representation. In addition to dealing with subject headings and classifications, all of the students developed their own classifications and thesauri. Some samples of their work are here (scroll down to LIS765 and look for the table).

Doctoral courses 

My c.v. (current August 29, 2007) is here.