Description: Its meaning, epistemology, and use with emphasis on information science

IF 2.8 2区 管理学 Q2 COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology Pub Date : 2023-09-22 DOI:10.1002/asi.24834
Birger Hjørland
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Abstract

This study examines the concept of “description” and its theoretical foundations. The literature about it is surprisingly limited, and its usage is vague, sometimes even conflicting. Description should be considered in relation to other processes, such as representation, data capturing, and categorizing, which raises the question about what it means to describe something. Description is often used for any type of predication but may better be limited to predications based on observations. Research aims to establish criteria for making optimal descriptions; however, the problems involved in describing something have seldom been addressed. Specific ideals are often followed without examine their fruitfulness. This study provides evidence that description cannot be a neutral, objective activity; rather, it is a theory-laden and interest-based activity. In information science, description occurs in processes such as document description, descriptive metadata assignment, and information resource description. In this field, description has equally been used in conflicting ways that mostly do not evince a recognition of the value- and theory-laden nature of descriptions. It is argued that descriptive activities in information science should always be based on consciously explicit considerations of the goals that descriptions are meant to serve.

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内容简介其含义、认识论和使用,重点是信息科学
本研究探讨了 "描述 "的概念及其理论基础。有关 "描述 "的文献少得令人吃惊,其用法也含糊不清,有时甚至相互矛盾。描述应与表征、数据捕捉和分类等其他过程联系起来考虑,这就提出了描述事物意味着什么的问题。描述通常用于任何类型的预测,但最好仅限于基于观察的预测。研究的目的是建立最佳描述的标准;然而,描述事物所涉及的问题却很少得到解决。人们往往遵循具体的理想,而不去研究它们是否富有成效。本研究提供的证据表明,描述不可能是一种中立、客观的活动;相反,它是一种充满理论和基于兴趣的活动。在信息科学中,描述发生在文档描述、描述性元数据分配和信息资源描述等过程中。在这一领域,描述同样被以相互冲突的方式使用,这些方式大多没有体现出对描述的价值和理论性质的认识。本文认为,信息科学中的描述活动应始终基于对描述所要服务的目标的有意识的明确考虑。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
8.30
自引率
8.60%
发文量
115
期刊介绍: The Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST) is a leading international forum for peer-reviewed research in information science. For more than half a century, JASIST has provided intellectual leadership by publishing original research that focuses on the production, discovery, recording, storage, representation, retrieval, presentation, manipulation, dissemination, use, and evaluation of information and on the tools and techniques associated with these processes. The Journal welcomes rigorous work of an empirical, experimental, ethnographic, conceptual, historical, socio-technical, policy-analytic, or critical-theoretical nature. JASIST also commissions in-depth review articles (“Advances in Information Science”) and reviews of print and other media.
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