The nature of the modern information society

In this paper, a survey and critique are presented of the existing concepts of an information society. The concept of a “modern information society” is introduced. The main components of the information society concept are analyzed, i.e., information, information technologies and the IT workforce (specialists). Changes are considered in the main spheres of human activities. A broad definition of the modern information society is formulated.     

Conceptual Analysis: A Method for Understanding Information as Evidence, and Evidence as Information

The utility of conceptual analysis for archival science is assessed by means of an exploratory evaluation in which the concept of evidence is analyzed. Usage of the term “evidence” in the philosophies of science, law, and history is briefly reviewed; candidates for necessary conditions of evidentiariness are identified and examined; and taxonomies are built of evidentiariness and of archival inference. Correspondences are shown to exist between the concepts of evidentiariness and relevance, and between the domains of archival science and social epistemology, thereby pointing in promising directions for further research. The tentative conclusion is reached that conceptual analysis may profitably be used to improve understanding of archival concepts.     

On the definition of <Emphasis Type="Italic">definition</Emphasis>

An attempt is undertaken to define the word “definition.“ The correlation of concepts, such as definition, term, discourse, and frame is discussed and a systematic definition of the term “definition” is given.     

Afterglow: Conceptions of record and evidence in archival discourse

In the last ten years, influential voices within and on the periphery of the record keeping community have succeeded in establishing the preservation of “evidence” as the governing purpose of contemporary archival theory and methods development. Afterglow offers a critique of the concept of evidence in archival discourse. Its main contention is that one can put records into evidence; one cannot set out to put evidence into records. The argument rests on the following assertions: (1) current discussions of evidence rest on a blindness to certain contradictions embedded in claims that record keeping principally involves evidence keeping, or “evidence management”; (2) a politics of temporality, under which an interplay of disciplinary knowledge claims and professional interest is discernible, helps to account for the contemporary rhetoric describing the relationship between “record” and “evidence”, and (3) the late-twentieth century legal, political, and cultural climate, along with the technological environment, explain the increasing prominence of “evidence” in these knowledge claims and professional ambitions. The essay concludes with recommendations for addressing these issues. Thanks go to Terry Cook, Visiting Professor in the Archival Studies Programme, Department of History, University of Manitoba, and co-editor of this series of essays, for his close reading and detailed comments on this essay. Particularly invaluable was his knowledge of historical and contemporary archival thinking on the notion of evidence.     

On the methodological foundations for the creation of expert systems for practical psychology

The creation of expert systems (ESs) for psychodiagnostics is analyzed. “Developmental” ESs are proposed for the modeling of professional activity. Some foundations for building such ESs are formulated. The prototype of the “Psychodiagnosis” ES is described as an example.     

From work to text to document

The defining trope for the humanities in the last 30 years has been typified by the move from “work” to “text.” The signature text defining this move has been Roland Barthes seminal essay, “From Work to Text.” But the current move in library, archival and information studies toward the “document” as the key term offers challenges for contemporary humanities research. In making our own movement from work to text to document, we can explicate fully the complexity of conducting archival humanistic research within disciplinary and institutional contexts in the twenty-first century. This essay calls for a complex perspective, one that demands that we understand the raw materials of scholarship are processed by disciplines, by institutions, and by the work of the scholar. When we understand our materials as constrained by disciplines, we understand them as “works.” When we understand them as constrained by the institutions of memory that preserve and grant access to them, we understand them as “documents.” And when we understand them as the ground for our own interpretive activity, we understand them as “texts.” When we understand that humanistic scholarship requires an awareness of all three perspectives simultaneously (an understanding demonstrated by case studies in historical studies of the discipline of rhetoric), we will be ready for a richer historical scholarship as well as a richer collaboration between humanists and archivists.     

The German registry: The evolution of a recordkeeping model

The German registry system is unique in its approach to records management. By way of better understanding this approach, the historical development of this registry is portrayed in its characteristic phases: first the adoption of the practice of using registers in the Middle Ages; second the transposition of this practice into a complete recordkeeping system in the Prussian administrations of the 18th and 19th centuries; third the attempt to streamline this system in the early 20th century; and fourth the nature of the registry in modern German administrations, and in particular how it has adapted to the use of electronic records. Apart from the historical presentation, however, this study also aims to highlight central concepts of the German registry, including entries, action files, and the idea of registry itself being applied to the entire activity of keeping records. Finally, it is suggested that these concepts can provide new insights into various areas of archives as well as into current recordkeeping problems. This article is a completely revised version of the thesis which I submitted in 1997 (under the title “The German Registratur”) for the Master of Archival Studies degree at the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, University of British Columbia. My thanks to Angelika Menne-Haritz and Wendy Duff for their comments during the writing of this revision.     

The influence of rankings on the development of universities

The debatable questions of creating university rankings are considered. University rankings are shown to be at the initial stage of development and are used for advertisement purposes in actual fact. The mechanism for composing rankings of material products is objective itself, but objective criteria can hardly be found for such an ideal object as “the quality” of an education; therefore, university rankings are poor due to the subjectivity and bias of “experts.”     

A View from Australia

Until 50 years ago the purpose of publishers in Australia was to act as distributors for overseas companies, mainly British. From 1970 onwards a local publishing industry began to develop, taking advantage of the greatly increased investment by publishers in distribution systems to service the “closed market.” In 1991 the “30-day rule” was introduced, leading to an increased amount of local printing of overseas titles, and a growing number of rights purchases of overseas-published books. The pros and cons of “separating out” Australian rights are addressed in this paper.     

Elektronische Vertr?ge und ihre verbindliche Aushandlung Ein formales Modell für verbindliche Telekooperation

Dieser Artikel erarbeitet eine formale Bestimmung der Begriffe “elektronischer Vertrag”, seine “Ziele”, “Verpflichtungen” und seine “verbindliche Aushandlungsphase”. Die hier erarbeiteten Begriffe dienen erstens der Spezifikation elektronischer Vertr?ge und zweitens der Verifikation lokaler Implementationen von elektronischen Vertragskooperationen. Besonders behandelt werden die lokale Darstellungen von Vertr?gen und ihre vermittelnde Kommunikation, mehrfache sowie sich überlappende Durchl?ufe durch eine verbindliche Phase und die Rolle von Beweismitteln. Die Begriffe beruhen auf der Theorie der formalen Sprachen bzw. der Automaten. Sie werden an einem einfachen Beispiel einer bilateralen Auftragskooperation demonstriert.     

Elektronische Vertr?ge und ihre verbindliche Aushandlung

Zusammenfassung.   Dieser Artikel erarbeitet eine formale Bestimmung der Begriffe “elektronischer Vertrag”, seine “Ziele”, “Verpflichtungen” und seine “verbindliche Aushandlungsphase”. Die hier erarbeiteten Begriffe dienen erstens der Spezifikation elektronischer Vertr?ge und zweitens der Verifikation lokaler Implementationen von elektronischen Vertragskooperationen. Besonders behandelt werden die lokale Darstellungen von Vertr?gen und ihre vermittelnde Kommunikation, mehrfache sowie sich überlappende Durchl?ufe durch eine verbindliche Phase und die Rolle von Beweismitteln. Die Begriffe beruhen auf der Theorie der formalen Sprachen bzw. der Automaten. Sie werden an einem einfachen Beispiel einer bilateralen Auftragskooperation demonstriert. Eingegangen am 16. Dezember 1999 / Angenommen am 10. M?rz 2000     

Increasing the acceptance of functional requirements for electronic evidence

This article reports on a research study that tested the effect of statements of “ literary warrant ” on lawyers, auditors and information specialists’ evaluations of a set of functional requirements for electronic evidence. It found that legal statements can increase the rating of importance of some of the functional requirements. Its results also provided evidence that differences in subjects professional backgrounds and their computer knowledge can affect the ratings of importance the subjects gave to the functional requirements. This study was completed as part of the requirements for the author’s doctoral program. It has benefited immensely from the insightful comments received from members of her doctoral Committee: Richard Cox, Margaret Hedstrom, Edie Rasmussen, and Steven Hirtle. David Bearman first purposed the concept of “ literary warrant ”, and this study has also profited greatly from his wise advice.     

The development of information-education materials for systems of distance learning: “Protection of Intellectual Property,” an example of a course of study

The existing open-source object-oriented systems that can be used as an environment to upload and to store information-educational resources for distance learning (open-source LMS\LCMS: ATutor, Claroline, Dokeos, Sakai, and Moodle), are analyzed. The use of Moodle (a Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) as the environment for the learning portal of the Mendeleyev University of Chemical Technology of Russia () is justified. The capabilities of Moodle with regard to the development of information-educational resources are explored and educational materials are elaborated for a course of study, viz., “Protection of Intellectual Property,” e.g., theoretical materials, seminar and colloquia exercises, tests for interim and final control of student’s knowledge level, as well as the elements of a learning process management system for a course of study.     

Measured markets: Limited edition publishing and the Grabhorn Press, 1920–1930

In the postwar prosperity of the 1920s there burgeoned a new interest in fine book-making, which typically featured handcraft production, luxurious materials, “worthy” texts, and—virtually by definition—limited editions. A small but socially prominent community of bibliophiles and wealthy collectors consituted an eager market for these elite books, distinguished by their visible repudiation of mass culture and “commercialism.” This article examines the publishing enterprise of the Grabhorn Press, one of the foremost producers of finely printed books in twentieth-century America. It analyzes the press's editiorial and design strategies, pricing and marketing policies, and general business practices in order to better understand the cultural paradoxes of producing such books both “for love” and for profit.     

The archival sliver: Power, memory, and archives in South Africa

Far from being a simple reflection of reality, archives are constructed windows into personal and collective processes. They at once express and are instruments of prevailing relations of power. Verne Harris makes these arguments through an account of archives and archivists in the context of South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy. The account is deliberately shaped around three themes — race, power, and public records. While he concedes that the constructedness of memory and the dimension of power are most obvious in the extreme circumstances of oppression and rapid transition to democracy, he argues that these are realities informing archives in all circumstances. He makes an appeal to archivists to enchant their work by engaging these realities and by turning always towards the call of and for justice. This essay draws heavily on four articles published previously by me: “Towards a Culture of Transparency: Public Rights of Access to Official Records in South Africa”,American Archivist 57.4 (1994); “Redefining Archives in South Africa: Public Archives and Society in Transition, 1990–1996”,Archivaria 42 (1996); “Transforming Discourse and Legislation: A Perspective on South Africa's New National Archives Act”,ACARM Newsletter 18 (1996); and “Claiming Less, Delivering More: A Critique of Positivist Formulations on Archives in South Africa”,Archivaria 44 (1997). I am grateful to Ethel Kriger (National Archives of South Africa) and Tim Nuttall (University of Natal) for offering sometimes tough comment on an early draft of the essay. I remain, of course, fully responsible for the final text. I presented a version of it in the “Refiguring the Archive” seminar series, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, October 1998. That version was published in revised form in Carolyn Hamilton et al.,Refiguring the Archive (Cape Town: David Philip, 2002).     

Scientific schools in bibliography: Peculiarities of formation

The approaches to the concept of a “scientific school” in bibliography and peculiarities of the formation of scientific schools in the bibliography science, connected with the humanities character of this science and principles of its formation as a scientific discipline are considered. The main characteristics of bibliographic scientific schools are proposed and the problem of their identification and creation of a definition is put forward.     

Application of the Rasch model to measuring the impact of scientific journals

This paper focuses on a fresh and fair way to determine a ranking of science journals according to the “number of citations-to and articles published,” data used by SCI Journal Citation Reports of ISI to determine journal ranking by “impact factor.” Impact is considered a latent variable defined by a set of items (citations and articles published). The theoretical background is Item Response Theory, which suggests that, if we can understand how each item in a set of items operates with an object, then we can estimate a measure for the object. The Rasch model is the most common formulation of that theory. This technique is here applied to the citations and articles published of 62 medical journals (objects) to provide a Rasch measure for these journals which is compared with the current “impact factor” computation.     

Enhancing literary understandings through young adult fiction

Young adult literature can be used to enhance students' understanding of literary techniques and concepts, providing a “transition” between children's and adult fiction. Two young adult novels—The Pigman andI am the Cheese—are used to illustrate the use of young adult novels to teach about literary elements such as tome, point of view, characterization, motif, symbolism, style, and structure. Maia Pank Mertz areas of specialization include the teaching of young adult literature, literature study, and the impact of media on adolescents.     

Documentary ethics,ontology, and politics

Recent years have seen a sharp rise of attention to the importance of documentation in various disciplines in the social sciences. Many thinkers have found the concept of assemblages, which emphasizes complexity, heterogeneity, and emergence, fruitful for investigating the role of documents and documentation. This article analyses some examples from anthropology and management studies as contributions to documentary ethics, ontology, and politics. The first pair of case studies reveals a documentary activism of biological and therapeutic citizenship. The second pair shows how documentation works constitutively to bring different kinds of entities into being. Both kinds of cases practice a documentary politics, which is analyzed in terms of Bruno Latour’s ideas of “reassembling the social”.     

Inventing book news, 1925–1935: “Publicity hypnosis” and the colophon

The Colophon, published from 1925 through 1935 for an audience of book collectors and connoisseurs, illuminates the debate over the basis of a book's value: genuine quality or artificial scarcity. It also illustrates the distinction between genuine news about the book industry and “publicity hypnosis”—today’s “hype.” The magazine’s authors, designers, typographers, printers, and illustrators were among the finest of their day. Claire Badaracco is an assistant professor at Marquette University, and is currently writing a series of articles about Anglo-American book publishing, journalism, and publicity trades between 1920 and 1940 with the support of The British Academy, the National Endowment, and the Bibliographical Society of America. Her work has been published inAmerican Literary Realism, Journalism Quarterly, Essays in Business and Economic History, and other journals. The Library of Congress, The Center for The Book, is publishing her monograph “The Lakeside Press Four American Books Campaign 1926–1930.”