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A DIRECT APPROACH TO INFORMATION RETRIEVAL

Master's Thesis, University of London, 1975
Submitted by Kyung-Youn Park
Supervised by B. C. Brookes
University College London

Table of Contents
   WHAT
   WHY
   HOW
1. INTRODUCTION
2. THE LINE OF ATTACK
3. SYSTEMS VS. USERS
   3.1 Discrimination
   3.2 Prediction
4. DOCUMENTS VS. SURROGATES
5. THE THEORY OF INTERPRETATION
   5.1 Denotation and Connotation
   5.2 The Theory of Ogden and Richards
   5.3 Implications for Information Retrieval
6. PROPOSAL FOR FILE ORGANIZATION
   6.1 Incentives
   6.2 Extracts as Indexing Sources
   6.3 Extracts as Review Sources
7. CONCLUSION
8. REFERENCES


Contents

PREFATORY QUOTATIONS

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WHAT

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"What we should do, I suggest, is to give up the idea of ultimate sources of knowledge, and admit that all knowledge is human; that it is mixed with our errors, our prejudices, our dreams, and our hopes; that all we can do is to grope for truth even though it be beyond our reach. We may admit that our groping is often inspired, but we must be on our guard against the belief, however deeply felt, that our inspiration carries any authority, divine or otherwise. If we thus admit that there is no authority beyond the reach of criticism to be found within the whole province of our knowledge, however far it may have penetrated into the unknown, then we can retain, without danger, the idea that truth is beyond human authority. And we must retain it. For without this idea there can be no objective standards of inquiry; no criticism of our conjectures; no groping for the unknown; no quest for knowledge."

-- K. R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations4

WHY

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"In science men have learned consciously to subordinate themselves to a common purpose without losing the individuality of their achievements. Each one knows that his work depends on that of his predecessors and colleagues, and that it can only reach its fruition through the work of his successors."

-- J. D. Bernal, The Social Function of Science5

HOW

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"The modern World Encyclopaedia should consist of relations, extracts, quotations, very carefully assembled with the approval of outstanding authorities in each subject, carefully collated and edited and critically presented. It would not be a miscellany, but a concentration, a clarification and a synthesis."

-- H. G. Wells, World Brain6

AFTERTHOUGHTS

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Popper 1963

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"... we can retain, without danger, the idea that truth is beyond human authority."

This passage may be frustratingly at odds with Popper's later argument for the "objective knowledge without a knowing subject" that may lie in World 3 that is exactly human creation, hence, "human authority" in point.

Bernal 1939

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Science as Communism. -- Already we have in the practice of science the prototype for all human common action. The task which the scientists have undertaken -- the understanding and control of nature and of man himself -- is merely the conscious expression of the task of human society. The methods by which this task is attempted, however imperfectly they are realized, are the methods by which humanity is most likely to secure its own future. In its endeavour, science is communism. In science men have learned consciously to subordinate themselves to a common purpose without losing the individuality of their achievements. Each one knows that his work depends on that of his predecessors and colleagues, and that it can only reach its fruition through the work of his successors. In science men collaborate not because they are forced to by superior authority or because they blindly follow some chosen leader, but because they realize that only in this willing collaboration can each man find his goal. Not orders, but advice, determines action. Each man knows that only by advice, honestly and disinterestedly given, can his work succeed, because such advice expresses as near as may be the inexorable logic of the material world, stubborn fact. Facts cannot be forced to our desires, and freedom comes by admitting this necessity and not by pretending to ignore it. These are things that have been learned painfully and incompletely in the pursuit of science. Only in the wider tasks of humanity will their use be found. (pp. 415-6; boldtype not original)

— The Social Function of Science
  • The boldtyped indicates Park's (1975) quotation under WHY.
  • This and what follows down to the end was quoted in Eugene Garfield (1982) "J.D. Bernal, The Sage of Cambridge: 4S Award Memorializes His Contributions to the Social Studies of Science." Current Contents, No. 19, pp. 5-17, May 10, 1982. pdf

Wells 1938

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H. G. Wells may well be the ideal father of the "atomic bomb" while Vannevar Bush the material father thereof.

This is not the end of their commonality. The former seems to have greatly inspired the latter, judging from their seminal ideas, Wells (1938) and Bush (1939, 1945).

It would be a great historical curiosity if Vannevar Bush never knew about the World Brain but the atomic bomb, both of Wells's invention.

Blair 2002

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Explicit questions of knowledge management
David Blair (2002), "Knowledge Management: Hype, Hope, or Help?" Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, vol. 53, no. 12, pp. 1019-1028. Abstract
3Ws Blair (2002)
What "One: What is 'knowledge'?"
Why "Two: Why are people [...] thinking about Knowledge Management?"
How "Three: What are the enabling technologies for Knowledge Management?"

Bates 1999

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Big questions of information science
Marcia Bates (1999), "The Invisible Substrate of Information Science," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, vol.50, no.12, pp. 1043-1050. [ACM] Text
3Ws Bates (1999)
What "The physical question: What are the features and laws of the recorded-information universe?"
Why "The social question: How do people relate to, seek, and use information?"
How "The design question: How can access to recorded information be made most rapid and effective?"

Park 1975

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Fundamental questions of information retrieval
Kyung-Youn Park (1975). A Direct Approach to Information Retrieval (An unpublished master's dissertation), University of London, 1975.
3Ws Park (1975)
What "What is scientific information?"
Why "Why should scientific information be organized?"
How "How can scientific information be organized?"

Blair and Bates and Park

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Three Similar & Different Threads of Questioning
Blair (2002)
"explicit
questions"
Bates (1999)
"Big
Questions"
Park (1975)
"fundamental
questions"
"One: What is 'knowledge'?" "The physical question: What are the features and laws of the recorded-information universe?" WHAT: "What is scientific information?"
Resolution of WHAT (1975)
"What we should do ... is to give up the idea of ultimate sources of knowledge, and admit that all knowledge is human; that it is mixed with our errors, our prejudices, our dreams, and our hopes; that all we can do is to grope for truth even though it be beyond our reach." -- KR Popper (1963) Conjectures and Refutations
"Two: Why are people [...] thinking about Knowledge Management?" "The social question: How do people relate to, seek, and use information?" WHY: "Why should scientific information be organized?"
Resolution of WHY (1975)
"Each one knows that his work depends on that of his predecessors and colleagues, and that it can only reach its fruition through the work of his successors." -- JD Bernal (1939) The Social Function of Science
"Three: What are the enabling technologies for Knowledge Management?" "The design question: How can access to recorded information be made most rapid and effective?" HOW: "How can scientific information be organized?"
Resolution of HOW (1975)
"The modern World Encyclopaedia should consist of relations, extracts, quotations, very carefully assembled with the approval of outstanding authorities in each subject, carefully collated and edited and critically presented." -- HG Wells (1938) World Brain
(All boldtypes are not original.)

Note that Park's (1975) resolutions of the three separate questions commonly center around science in and for society, implicitly if not explicitly.

Adler 1988

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Necessary types of leaning and teaching

The essence of the proposal involved three necessary types of learning and respective types of teaching: knowing what, knowing how, and knowing why: One of these was lacking from present-day practice after kindergarten and first grade. [Gothic not original]

— Excerpt from Paideia Proposal

See also

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Notes

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