Knowledge Organization
The researchers in this area study, build, and evaluate structures and processes that help shape how information is accessed, displayed, disambiguated, and ordered. With the growing amount of information and information systems, we need to understand how best to manage new and recreated information, serve people in finding the right information for the task at hand, and present information in a manner that is meaningful to users.
Researchers
Centers & Institutes
 |
Center for Human-
Information Interaction |
Current Projects
Joseph Tennis, Principal Investigator
Given the increase in international standardization and global interconnections in information systems, do we face an increased risk of mono-culturalism? Do descriptive practices contribute to the differentiation of small states through a declaration of identity and authority? If so, how does that difference manifest in such practices like cataloguing, indexing, and archival description in these states? This exploratory research project asks these questions of small national documentary heritage institutions in order to ascertain where identity and authority meet, conflict with, or reinforce the political dimensions of description.
Allyson Carlyle, Principal Investigator
“Known-item searches” are searches where the searcher knows the name or title of the document they are looking for. However, people looking for a book by Herman Melville called Moby Dick might be satisfied to find a movie version or an abridged version. This research will study the phenomenon of the “known item search” in order to investigate and map out its parameters, with the goal of improving information systems (particularly online catalogs) searching, retrieval, and displays.