[Web4lib] North American Symposium on Knowledge Organization (NASKO) - Call for participation and position papers

[Kathryn La Barre]

With apologies for cross-posting

Call for Participation and Call for Position Papers

Two events in one place!  An organizing conference for the North American
Chapter of ISKO, and a paper session on the state of the art of Knowledge
Organization research.

Call for Participation: KO, Classification Systems, and Controlled
Vocabularies Adjust to New Technologies and Service Areas-- What are YOU
Doing?  An Information Exchange Opportunity and Organizational Meeting for
the North American Chapter of the International Society for Knowledge
Organization (ISKO)

The time is ripe for enhanced communication among Knowledge Organization
researchers in North America. We are a diverse, yet committed, set of
researchers interested in asking basic and applied questions on how
knowledge is organized and how such organization can be improved through
research. As ISKO members we are also are interested in forming a North
American chapter in order to attain critical mass for KO researchers to
share research findings, mentor students and maintain continuous
conversations across the large landmass of North America. What are your
needs as a Knowledge Organization researcher? What can a North American
chapter do for your research program? Your participation in planning for a
North American chapter will serve to enrich the research infrastructure in
Knowledge Organization.

Call for Position Papers: "Knowledge Organization Research in North America:
What have we done, what are we doing, and where do we go from here?"

North American thinkers have commented on a number of changes and
innovations in Knowledge Organization research. Beghtol, Mai, Smiraglia, and
Svenonius have all noted a shift in knowledge organization research
strategies and focus in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The task of
laying the groundwork for future work is imminent. Valuable approaches
demonstrated by current research are many and include but are not limited
to:

- contextual and ecological inquiry,
- comparative approaches to classification,
- establishing theories of instantiation and works,
- looking at the history and discourse of organization structures in order
to inform current theory and practice.

What then are the next steps? What are the salient questions? Some
possibilities include:

- Will social tagging and ontology engineering have impact on knowledge
organization, or vice versa?
- Will the economics and institutional application of information
organization structures change in the next ten years?
- Will Library of Congress cataloguing at current levels cease entirely?
- Will the Library and Archives Canada merge archival and library work into
metadata work?
- How will large-scale implementations and issues of economics affect
knowledge organization research?
- What role can legacy Knowledge Organization systems and strategy play in
the theoretical and practical development of current and future information
realities?
- Finally, what epistemological innovations and insights will shape the next
stages of Knowledge Organization research?
- Will the Pragmatists forever influence Knowledge Organization?
- Will there be another Wittgenstein?
- Will there be another Ranganathan?
- What is the impact of Rorty on our work?
- Who will be the next public intellectual from our area?

Research Papers: Proposals should include a title, and be no more than 1500
words long. Proposals situated in the extant literature of knowledge
organization will be given preference. Proposals may be submitted in English
or French.

Position Papers: Proposals should include a title, and be no more than 1500
words long. Proposals with clearly articulated theoretical grounding and
methodology, and those that report on completed or ongoing research will be
given preference. Diverse perspectives and methodologies are welcome.
Proposals may be submitted in English or French.

Publication: All accepted papers will appear online. The most highly-ranked
papers will, with permission of the authors, be published, in full, in a
North American theme issue of Knowledge Organization.

Doctoral students are especially invited to submit proposals for the
conference.

Deadline for proposals is January 31, 2007. Proposals, including the name(s)
of the author(s), complete mailing and e-mail addresses, telephone and fax
numbers, should be sent electronically (Word or RTF) to Kathryn LaBarre:
klabarre at uiuc.edu. Proposals will be refereed by the Program Committee.
Authors will be notified of the committee's decision no later than February
28, 2007. All presenters must register for the conference. Papers to appear
as full text in the electronic proceedings must be submitted no later than
May 14, 2007.

Updates and conference information may be found at the conference
website: http://www.slais.ubc.ca/users/iskona
.

Program Committee:
Richard Smiraglia, Long Island University, Chair
Clement Arsenault, University of Montreal
Clare Beghtol, University of Toronto
Allyson Carlyle, University of Washington
Pauline Atherton Cochrane, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
Anita Coleman, University of Arizona
Jonathan Furner, University of California, Los Angeles
Rebecca Green, University of Maryland, College Park
Kathryn La Barre, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Joseph T. Tennis, University of British Columbia
Hope Olson, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Nancy Williamson, University of Toronto


Planning Committee:
Richard Smiraglia, Long Island University, Chair
Kathryn La Barre, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Nancy Williamson, University of Toronto
Joseph T. Tennis, University of British Columbia

Richard P. Smiraglia, Professor
Editor-in-Chief, Knowledge Organization
Palmer School of Library and Information Science
Long Island University
720 Northern Blvd.
Brookville NY 11548 USA
(516) 299-2174 voice
(516) 299-4168 fax
Richard.Smiraglia at liu.edu