Very useful for those looking for biotechnology related digital resources available online. / Information is a dynamic and inexhaustible source that affects all disciplines and Animal Biotechnology is no exception. The application of scientific and engineering principles to the processing and production of materials by animals or aquatic species to provide goods and services, has yielded new and improved medicines for animals that help lower production costs and improve animal well being by fighting various diseases caused by bacteria and parasites. New and enhanced animal vaccines have also been developed through modern animal biotechnology techniques. For all these things, Animal biotechnologists require latest, authenticated and scholarly information. In this regard, the exponential growth of the Internet expands the wealth of knowledge resources available in all disciplines including animal biotechnology and the amount of biotechnology knowledge available on the web is staggering. The Internet connects them to organizations such as universities, colleges, research institutes and companies who are dealing with animal biotechnology and facilitates access to informal organizations such as special interest groups, email lists, news groups, blogs, etc. Databases such as Entrez Nucleotides, GenBank, RefSeq, CCDSD, TPAD, dbEST, dbGSS, dbMHC, dbSNP, dbSTS, UniVec, CDD, Entrez Proteins, MMDB, 3DDD are made available by NCBI across the cyberspace which facilitates 24/7 access to all those concerned with animal biotechnology. Gateway sites like AgBiotechNet, APHIS of USDA, ISB of Virginia Tech University opens the door of online documents and searchable databases pertaining to the development, testing and regulatory review of genetically modified plants, animals and other microorganisms. A number of factual databases, electronic journals, electronic books and other electronic documents are freely available across the Internet. It connects students, research scholars, academics, librarians, scientists and other category of professionals dealing with animal biotechnology. The opportunities provided by the Internet for interactive learning, up-to-date science news, scholarly contents, project funding guidance, audio-visual contents in the area of biotechnology are laudable.

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When we examine how and why decisions get made in the indexing enterprise writ large, we see that two factors shape the outcome: economics and aesthetics. For example, the Library of Congress has reduced the time and effort it has spent on creating bibliographic records, while the Library and Archives Canada has begun coordinating the work of librarians and archivists in describing the documentary heritage of Canada (Oda and Wilson, 2006; LAC, 2006). Both of these initiatives aim at reducing costs of the work of description. They are decisions based on economic considerations. When engaged in deciding what fields, tags, and indicators to use in cataloguing, librarians consider the cost of labour and whether or not the system will use that work for display and retrieval. On the other hand, international bodies craft standards that are designed to shape the indexing enterprise. For example, we see the form of controlled vocabularies in ANSI/NISO Z39.19-2005. We then evaluate such vocabularies as to whether or not they comport with that form. This is one interpretation of the aesthetic consideration of indexing. We can take this further. We can look at indexing theory and, for example the work of Ranganathan and the CRG, and compare instantiations of classification schemes as to whether or not they are truly faceted. These examples result from designers and implementers of description and identification systems asking: what is good enough? When is my framework for information organization good enough? Though each of these acts is governed by a different purpose (sometimes pragmatic, sometimes artistic), the acts involved, the identification and description of resources, is measured against both economic and aesthetic concerns: how much does it cost, and how well does it comply with an abstract form, how is it evocative of our human urge to name and organize? Information organization frameworks, like those discussed above, comprise structures, work practices, and discourses. Examples of structure would be: the bibliographic record, the archival description, and the list developed by the patrons of the art installation. Work practices enable, result in, and evaluate structures, and the discourse shapes how priorities and purposes are aligned in both work practices and structures. Key to all examples of and components of Information Organization Frameworks are considerations of cost and compliance with abstract form (standardization or design). This paper explores the diversity of information organization frameworks, looking specifically at how aesthetic concerns and economic concerns manifest their work practices, structures, and discourse. In order to do this I examine the manuals and policies that shape work practice, the structures and their paratextual material (introductions, how-to-use guides, etc.), and the literature that references these practices and structures. I take the position that we need to move into a more descriptive stance on practices of knowledge organization, not only in documentary heritage institutions (libraries, archives, and museums), but also into the cultural and artistic realms. By expanding the scope of inquiry we can interrogate the integrity of my assertion above that information organization frameworks wrestle with, and manifest along a spectrum drawn from economic to aesthetic decision-making. This project, investigating the economic-aesthetic axis of information organization frameworks, follows the recent development in knowledge organization research, which is moving from prescriptive (how to design systems) to a descriptive (what systems are being built, how and why) approach, (Beghtol, 2003; Andersen, 2005). By engaging in this work, we grow more familiar with not only the professional concerns with knowledge organization, but rather, expand the scope of our inquiring into the knowledge organization practices for various purposes, and develop a deeper understanding of the human urge to name and organize.

Invited paper for a thematic issue of the journal "What is Knowledge Organization"? / Knowledge Organization (KO) is about activities such as document description, indexing and classification performed in libraries, databases, archives etc. These activities are done by librarians, archivists, subject specialists as well as by computer algorithms. KO as a field of study is concerned with the nature and quality of such knowledge organizing processes (KOP) as well as the knowledge organizing systems (KOS) used to organize documents, document representations and concepts. There exist different historical and theoretical approaches to and theories about KO, which are related to different views of knowledge, cognition, language, and social organization. Each of these approaches tends to answer the question: â What is knowledge organization?â differently. LIS professionals have often concentrated on applying new technology and standards, and may not have seen their work as involving interpretation and analysis of meaning. That is why library classification has been criticized for a lack of substantive intellectual content. Traditional human-based activities are increasingly challenged by computer-based retrieval techniques. It is appropriate to investigate the relative contributions of different approaches; the current challenges make it imperative to reconsider this understanding. This paper offers an understanding of KO based on an explicit theory of knowledge.

The core problem in Information Science (IS) is in my opinion information seeking and "information retrieval", (IR), which is aimed at helping users become informed by helping them identify documents, which are the "best textual means to some end" (Wilson, 1968). Other problems, such as the design of information systems and knowledge organization (e.g. by classification and indexing) should be seen as means to that end. However, IS has ignored some fundamental problems, which questions the possibility of having a profession and a discipline trying to solve the above mentioned problems. Much research in IS has been based on certain problematic views of knowledge, and searched for principles of knowledge organization, which are independent of claims of subject-knowledge. In this paper, we shall look at the problems of knowledge organization based on a view of knowledge as a historical developed product in which principles of organization is tied to domain-specific criteria. The article is organized as an argumentation for nine principles on the organization of knowledge: Principle # 1: Naive-realistic perception of knowledge structures is not possible in more advanced sciences. The deepest principles on the organization on knowledge rest upon principles developed in and by scientific disciplines. Principle # 2: Categorizations and classifications should unite related subjects and separate unrelated subjects. In naive realism, subject relationships are based on similarity. Two things or subjects are seen as related if they are "alike", that is if they have common properties (descriptive terms) ascribed. Principle # 3 For practical purposes, knowledge can be organized in different ways, and with different levels of ambition: Principle # 4: Any given categorization should reflect the purpose of that categorization. It is very important to teach the student to find out the lie of the land and apply ad hoc classifications, pragmatic classifications or scientific classifications when each kind of classification is most appropriate. Principle # 5: Concrete scientific categorizations and classifications can always be questioned. Principle # 6: The concept of "polyrepresentation" (cf. Ingwersen, 1994) is important. Principle # 7: To a certain degree different arts and sciences could be understood as different ways of organizing the same phenomena. Principle # 8: The nature of disciplines varies. Principle # 9: The quality of the knowledge production in many disciplines is in great trouble

This presentation provides an overview of the creation of the Center for Knowledge Management at The Ohio State Univeirsty.

Classaurus is a faceted hierarchic scheme of terms with vocabulary control features.

It is more than 30 years ago that the guidelines ISO 2788 and 5964 were developed for the design of thesauri, basically to meet the demands of bibliographic databases and libraries. The last revision of the standards dates around 20 years back. Information technology has changed the usage of thesauri, a development that has motivated many changes in BS 8723, the first successor of ISO 2788 and 5964. Not only has the world of thesauri and libraries matured. Ever since there have been defined a variety of structured vocabularies, thesauri being just one of them: ontologies, taxonomies, classification schemes, topic maps, just to name some of them. For these types of vocabularies there hardly exist rules for the construction of the vocabulary content comparable to those for thesauri. There are standards for the formal description of some vocabulary types at most, e.g. SKOS, Topic Maps, RDF. The guidelines in Parts 1 and 2 of BS 8723 and its predecessors are, unfortunately, not simply applicable on vocabularies other than thesauri. The degree to which this is reasonable has not been analysed. Thus, applications using structured vocabularies other than thesauri lack guidance for the construction of the vocabulary content. The developments in BS 8723, particularly those in the forthcoming Part 3, "Vocabularies other than thesauri", try to catch up that knowledge gap. However, these vocabulary types are treated in much less detail than thesauri. Part 3 seems rather a detour from thesauri than a standard for other vocabularies. BS 8723 will basically remain a thesaurus standard, particularly in terms of its rules for construction. The further development of BS 8723 as an ISO standard (ISO 25964) is a chance to continue the transformation of a once thesaurus-only standard to a truly general knowledge organization standard. The most important reasons that encourage such strategy are: - While some of the rules from the thesaurus standard will have to be modified, a significant number of rules can be expected to apply directly to other types of structured vocabularies. So it makes sense to keep them in a single standard. - It is easier to develop rules for different structured vocabularies if being put in contrast to thesauri. The thesaurus standards are based on decades of extensive experience and include also knowledge about "what is relevant to cover". - It is highly useful to give general guidance in choosing the right type of structured vocabulary before the structured vocabularies are detailed. - Bringing together various disciplines avoids the reinvention of knowledge and strengthens "knowledge structuring" as a professional discipline. - A higher differentiation of knowledge structures / vocabularies can be expected resulting in more efficient and purpose-oriented development of vocabularies. The resulting and certainly greatest benefit from a true "multi-vocabulary" standard is the interest of industry and many other disciplines than library science. Thus, the relevance of the standard will be increased. Examples for potential application areas of a common standard are: - Skill catalogs in competence management - Visualizations of the organizational structure - The directory structures in computer file systems (particularly shared folders) - Categorizations (typology) of files in a Document Management System - Description of knowledge assets in knowledge management tools - Categorization systems (typology) of music or picture archives - Knowledge maps - Corporate Encyclopaedias - Vocabularies for search expansion in search engines - The navigation structure, labelling system and the metadata on web sites - The Table of content and / or the index of a book or complex document / It is more than 30 years ago that the guidelines ISO 2788 and 5964 were developed for the design of thesauri â basically to meet the demands of bibliographic databases and libraries. The last revision of the standards dates around 20 years back. Information technology has changed the usage of thesauri â a development that has motivated many changes in BS 8723, the first successor of ISO 2788 and 5964. Not only has the world of thesauri and libraries matured. Ever since there have been defined a variety of structured vocabularies, thesauri being just one of them: ontologies, taxonomies, classification schemes, topic maps â just to name some of them. For these types of vocabularies there hardly exist rules for the construction of the vocabulary content comparable to those for thesauri. There are standards for the formal description of some vocabulary types at most, e.g. SKOS, Topic Maps, RDF. The guidelines in Parts 1 and 2 of BS 8723 and its predecessors are, unfortunately, not simply applicable on vocabularies other than thesauri. The degree to which this is reasonable has not been analysed. Thus, applications using structured vocabularies other than thesauri lack guidance for the construction of the vocabulary content. The developments in BS 8723 â particularly those in the forthcoming Part 3, "Vocabularies other than thesauri" â try to catch up that knowledge gap. However, these vocabulary types are treated in much less detail than thesauri. Part 3 seems rather a detour from thesauri than a standard for other vocabularies. BS 8723 will basically remain a thesaurus standard, particularly in terms of its rules for construction. The further development of BS 8723 as an ISO standard (ISO 25964) is a chance to continue the transformation of a once thesaurus-only standard to a truly general knowledge organization standard. The most important reasons that encourage such strategy are: - While some of the rules from the thesaurus standard will have to be modified, a significant number of rules can be expected to apply directly to other types of structured vocabularies. So it makes sense to keep them in a single standard. - It is easier to develop rules for different structured vocabularies if being put in contrast to thesauri. The thesaurus standards are based on decades of extensive experience and include also knowledge about "what is relevant to cover". - It is highly useful to give general guidance in choosing the right type of structured vocabulary before the structured vocabularies are detailed. - Bringing together various disciplines avoids the reinvention of knowledge and strengthens "knowledge structuring" as a professional discipline. - A higher differentiation of knowledge structures / vocabularies can be expected resulting in more efficient and purpose-oriented development of vocabularies. The resulting and certainly greatest benefit from a true "multi-vocabulary" standard is the interest of industry and many other disciplines than library science. Thus, the relevance of the standard will be increased. Examples for potential application areas of a common standard are: - Skill catalogs in competence management - Visualizations of the organizational structure - The directory structures in computer file systems (particularly shared folders) - Categorizations (typology) of files in a Document Management System - Description of knowledge assets in knowledge management tools - Categorization systems (typology) of music or picture archives - Knowledge maps - Corporate Encyclopaedias - Vocabularies for search expansion in search engines - The navigation structure, labelling system and the metadata on web sites - The Table of content and / or the index of a book or complex document

The purpose of this paper is to provide an answer to a critique put forward by Szostak against a paper written by the present author. The paper is based on a literature-based conceptual analysis based on Hjørland and Nissen Pedersen and Szostak. The main points in a core theory of classification are outlined and Szostakâ s criticism is examined and answered. The paper demonstrates theoretical differences between the views adduced by Hjørland and Nissen Pedersen on the one side and by Szostak on the other.

As a visual artist, I collect, organize, and re present and continually reflect on that process. The life and work of Swedish botanist Carl von Linné continues to be significant in understanding the cultural practices of classification and representation. Images gathered in the University of Uppsala, at Linné’s preserved home in Hammerby outside of Uppsala, Sweden and from Linné’s samples stored by the Royal Society in London continue to infuse my art work. It was Linné who developed the binomial system of classification which is the basis of modern scientific classification. It was Linné who strived for a systematic representation of the natural object. Information was not real or useful to science unless it took a quantified form. Naming. Measuring. Representing. I am drawn to the similarities and differences of artistic and scientific practice. My focus lies in the ironies of that comparison. Currently I work with the natural object as it is represented in scientific collections and public display. I am interested in the meaning of the representation. My presentation to the ASSI&T Workshop would take the form of a visual presentation of the natural object, beginning in the 18th century with Linné, followed by subsequent developments in the representation of nature. Examples of my art work would be used to consider that history.