ISKO UK: Knowledge Organisation and Social Impact

Here is the presentation I made today at ISKO UK Conference in London (by pre-recorded video as I damaged my ankle and couldn’t travel to it) on the topic “From cataloguers to designers: Paul Otlet, social impact and a more proactive role for knowledge organisation professionals”

The slides are here, and the supporting paper is here – revised version 27 July 2015.

Follow the tweet stream here.

1 Comment so far

Good stuff.

I am reminded of some things - the politics chapter in Davenport’s Information Ecology, Barbrook’s Californian Ideology, and Gray’s anti-utopian Black Mass.

The economic narratives of the last 40 years have been broadly sequestrationist and also individualist ("I’m gonna get mine") while less concerned with imposing social order and normative behaviour.

To what extent can information professionals separate themselves from broader political trends in society? I am not sure they can.

I also wonder where individualism sits in this framework and how it works out in practice - e.g. personalisation (through big data algorithms) as the ultimate goal for many online information tools.

I hope you recover from your injury soon.

Posted on July 20, 2015 at 09:22 AM | Comment permalink

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