Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences
March 22nd, 2005I’m going to have to get my hands on this book:
“Is this book sociology, anthropology, or taxonomy? Sorting Things Out, by communications theorists Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star, covers a lot of conceptual ground in its effort to sort out exactly how and why we classify and categorize the things and concepts we encounter day to day. But the analysis doesn’t stop there; the authors go on to explore what happens to our thinking as a result of our classifications. With great insight and precise academic language, they pick apart our information systems and language structures that lie deeper than the everyday categories we use.”
On another note, I’ve just been informed that I will be presenting at the Canadian Library Association on folksonomies as part of their hot topics track. Here’s the description I sent in:
Tag - You’re It!
“The collective intelligence of Web users is not new. We have seen them work effectively in forums, newsgroups, and even electronic discussion lists. Social-tagging tools (also called folksonomies) such as del.icio.us, Furl, Flickr, Digg, and Feedmarker move this collective work into new ontological avenues. The presenter will discuss why information professionals should embrace the unstructured nature of folksonomies and how they can be best implemented into the structured library community.”