The Work of Knowledge

1. In Wikipedia, look for some of the concepts or topics we have discussed in class and share your impressions and comments about the information presented. Is there anything you would add or edit?

I decided to look up the four information behaviors that we discussed.  The article on Nicholas Belkin was only about 6 or 8 sentences, with four sentences devoted to his Anomalous State of Knowledge model.  This article could definitely be expanded upon by anyone that has listened to Dr. Roland's lecture.  I would add the process that starts with the user's image of the world, and that user's conceptual state of knowledge, until there is a realization of a need.  A request for information from the generator informs the user.  The chart that we viewed in class would also be a good addition to this article.

The article on environmental scanning was labeled as having problems and requested that someone improve it.  The existing article seemed focused on the global environment, more so than a business environment. I would provide more details about the environmental scanning method and the modes of scanning.

Marcia Bates' berrypicking model was only mentioned briefly in a longer article about Bates.  Again, anyone that has listened to Dr. Roland's lecture could elaborate on the information currently provided.  Adding the berrypicking strategies would be helpful, as well as the behavior patterns of the information seeker in this model.

Finally, Dervin's sensemaking actually rated its own article.  I found it via a link from the article about Dervin.  This article was very complete and well cited.

It was interesting to me that while I am well acquainted with each of these models through studying them in several of my classes, outside the realm of information science, they seemed less relevant, if the quality of the article in Wikipedia can be said to be a gauge of relevance.

2. On page 212, Weinberger gives an example of a third-order description of an imaginary person. Imagine that you are preparing a resume for a job application – a first order information package - how would you better tag yourself in terms of the third order to make yourself more marketable?

In terms of the third order, I might tag myself as a project manager by providing links to some of the 100+ libraries that I have helped migrate to WorldShare Management Services.  I could also tag myself as an effective writer by linking to OCLC documentation that I have created.  I could tag myself as an excellent customer service provider by adding a picture of the Star Awards that I have received from customer nominations.  Perhaps by providing examples of the data that I have helped librarians migrate, I could tag myself as a metadata expert.  First and foremost, above all, I would tag myself as a librarian.  How to represent my "librarian-ness" in the third order?  I suppose I could link to the web pages of all of the libraries at which I have been employed.  Or perhaps share the Library Thing project I helped my sister-in-law create for her Chinese club, to bring order and access to a collection of Chinese books that had been left to the club from a deceased member's estate. 

I thought it was an interesting concept that in the third order, your skill set doesn't need to add up to 100%.  One can be more than the sum of one's individual parts.

3. On page 215, Weinberger writes that “understanding is metaknowledge” – relate this to Shedroff’s model of Understanding as presented earlier in this course. Search for the model on the web if necessary.

Metaknowledge can be defined as knowledge about what we know.  As we move through Shedroff's model, from acquiring data, to transforming that data into information and eventually knowledge, we are gaining understanding as we move toward wisdom.  We are not only expanding our knowledge within a certain domain, but we are also learning about ourselves.  We are learning how we learn.  We are becoming more knowledgeable about what we know.  Shedroff said that "information is not the end of the continuum of understanding. Just as data can be transformed into meaningful information, so can information be transformed into knowledge and, further, into wisdom."  (http://www.nathan.com/thoughts/unified/unified.pdf)  The journey toward wisdom takes us from a global view toward a more personal view, within the context of our experiences, and on the way there, we gain metaknowledge.