Overview of MW98: Why you should attend MW98 Learn new skills to enhance your museum site Explore issues and controversies facing Museums and the Web Experts featured at MW98 Commercial products and services to enhance your web site Organizations supporting MW98: Online interchange regarding the virtual museum experience Juried awards to best web sites in 5 categories Overview of MW98: Why you should attend MW98 Learn new skills to enhance your museum site Explore issues and controversies facing Museums and the Web Experts featured at MW98 Commercial products and services to enhance your web site Organizations supporting MW98: Online interchange regarding the virtual museum experience Juried awards to best web sites in 5 categories
MUSEUMS AND THE WEB 1998

Overview of MW98: Why you should attend MW98 Learn new skills to enhance your museum site Explore issues and controversies facing Museums and the Web Experts featured at MW98 Commercial products and services to enhance your web site Organizations supporting MW98: Online interchange regarding the virtual museum experience Juried awards to best web sites in 5 categories

Archives & Museum Informatics

info @ archimuse.com

www.archimuse.comArchives and Museum Informatics Home Page

published April 1998
updated Nov. 2010

Papers

From "Come and Get It" to "Seek and You Shall Find": Transition from a Central Resource to an Information Meta-Center

Karen Neimanis, Manager of Development
E-mail: neimanis@chin.gc.ca
Canadian Heritage Information Network

Ecaterina Geber, Project Leader
E-mail: kati_geber@pch.gc.ca
Canadian Heritage Information Network

 

Contents

Introduction
From Come and Get it" to "Seek and You Shall Find"
Transition from a Central Resource to an Information Meta-Center
The User
Access
Phase 1: Redesigning Access - The Integrator
Phase 2: Redesigning Access to the National inventories
Conclusion & Acknowledgement

 

Introduction

This paper will describe some of the current issues considered by the Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN) in a project undertaken to re-design access to museum information on its website <www.chin.gc.ca>. As the title suggests, this new access refers both to a new role envisioned for users, the electronically connected participants in the creation of a collective knowledge resource and, as well, to the new role for the collective resource.

The Canadian Heritage Information Network
The Canadian Heritage Information Network is a special agency within the federal government department of Canadian Heritage. CHIN's mission is "to broker effective access to heritage information for public education and enjoyment, and for the collective benefit of Canadian museums." [1]

Twenty-five years ago, when the leading-edge information tools in cultural institutions were the typewriter and the file card, Canadian museums, through CHIN, were the first in the world to attempt the creation of an electronic inventory of a nation's heritage, "an ambitious undertaking, not merely envisioned but also achieved". [2] It was done by providing electronic collection management services to the participating museums. During this time, three national inventory databases covering the disciplines of Humanities, Natural Sciences and Archaeological Sites were created, representing information from Canadian museums on 25 million objects, specimens and sites. CHIN has also been actively involved in the development of data standards for museum information nationally and internationally.

Over the last three years, CHIN has shifted its focus from collections management services to the provision of museum information over the Internet. Today, CHIN's website is an electronic gateway to Canada's rich cultural and natural heritage. Working with member museums and partners, CHIN provides public access to the treasures of Canadian museums and related national and international heritage resources. Advanced search and retrieval tools work with integrated information on millions of museum objects. CHIN's long term vision and role is to ensure that audiences of all kinds - general public, museum professionals, school children and senior researchers - can enjoy effective access to museum content that meets their diverse needs, promoting an important and visible presence for Canadian museums in the world of networked information.
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From "Come and Get it" to "Seek and You Shall Find"
CHIN's change in focus has been the result of a transition both in the user's behavior and the system's behavior. The trend is toward the provision of tailored and adaptive responses to different types of usage situations.

The movement from "Come and Get it" towards "Seek and You Shall Find" and the transition from a "Central Resource" to "An Information Meta-Center" is as dramatic as the shift of emphasis from product to process, from structure to system, from one-medium transmission to multimedia communication and from hierarchy to network.

It represents the transition from pre-organized information to a more open system:

  • Information is no longer to be gathered only from the margins to the center or bottom-up, stored in one physical place, according to similar rules.
  • It means moving away from top-down information delivery towards communication processes based on dialogue.
  • Information is no longer to be deprived of its specifics or context during the process of generalization.
  • It represents a transition towards new access possibilities with links between specific and general, classification and context.

In essence this transition is the way towards the development of a framework where the user can create new organizations of information and contribute thereby to the development of the knowledge environment. The ability to see things from an unusual perspective and to produce, from that, insight to an original organization of familiar components, something that did not exist before, is defined as creativity.

The capacity of the knowledge environment to enhance creativity, which produces new knowledge, is one of the core elements of the transition.
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Transition from a Central Resource to an Information Meta-Center
Theoretically, an information Meta-Center is the integrated state of the accessible or available information. It is not a centralized collection of information but a series of relationships established among multiple information resources. It involves managing the process of communication or relationships among the components and constantly re-building the network of connections. It is intimately linked to a group of resources, in close and continuous communication, and it classifies the similarities and differences among them. Thus, through a cumulative process of experience, the Meta-Center has the potential to build up a more complete knowledge of the information environment, acting as a specialized gateway or access agent.
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The User
The transformation discussed has been accompanied by a shift in the users' attitude towards information. It is increasingly recognized that information is both material and tool, source and target. The distinctions between maker and user have started to fade. The maker, the user, the artifact, technology and intuition have gradually been united in a participatory creative process or "global consciousness" [3]. Users no longer consider themselves simple consumers of information. They are increasingly becoming participants, partners, initiating dialogue, needing informational space for reflection and interpretation, and a means to express and apply their own views and creative capacity.

This new attitude has been signaled and expressed convincingly by scientists and contemporary artists [4] alike. Networked communication used only by scientists to collaborate with each other in their pursuits, is now available to the general public, who has been invited to join in. Visitors to art exhibitions are invited to participate interactively in the process of experiencing or even constructing the work of art.

The enhanced focus on creativity invokes the two main components of thinking and language: intuitive concepts and logical concepts. It is the new information environment, characterized by connectivity and multimedia expression that induces a new degree of perception and awareness of reality, intuition and logical construction. [5] This is where art and science meet.

Take for example, a working model or mechanism of a possible human-computer interaction, proposed by a web artist. Is it science, art or technology? Or is it an object or a process?

The meeting between art and science or technology is a recurrent theme, being expressed today by the appearance of a growing number of prestigious articles, publications, institutions and conferences dedicated to this topic.

But why is this topic of such interest? We talk about effective access to the information environment. Effective access is creative and dependent on the "intellectual" component where the new or original organization of information items plays a significant role.
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Access
Access to on-line information has become one of the hot topics of the builders and users of the interactive knowledge environment. In the virtual world, the collective presence and role of the museum community can be enhanced by providing effective access and retrieval strategies that relate the different types of available information, offer the potential for integrating and extending its value and relevancy, and help reveal implicit narratives embedded in it. Beyond this, consideration must be given to the potential experiences that can be offered to on-line audiences, given the variety of their perspectives and expectations.

Roy Ascott, [6] describing the nature of on-line display, in his article entitled "The Digital Museum" considers that:

"To talk about the digital museum is to talk about two things - behavior and architecture".

Behavior
Behavior refers to the dialogue between the users and the knowledge environment. It consists of the ways the users can express their expectations and the ways the responses are adapted or tailored to meet these expectations. In essence, it consists of the processes or methods for communication, learning, knowing, perceiving or organizing the available on-line information.

Architecture
Architecture refers to the building blocks of the organization of information and communication on multiple levels of meaning and interpretation. Architecture is the reflection of the knowledge of the domain, mirrored by the arrangements of the components to form patterns different from what could occur by chance.

While defining the "Intellectual Access" Project at CHIN, in addition to behavior and architecture, we came across a third, very important component, which we added to our research domain.

"To talk about the digital museum is to talk about its context". 

Context
Context refers to the situation or environment in which cognitive activities occur. The surroundings, conditions or influences, especially those affecting the existence or development of the objects under consideration, such as place, time or social roles, are all factors influencing how the context is interpreted.

In undertaking basic documentation of collections, museums have already created architectural structures of knowledge representation, classification and interpretation. Museum websites are virtual realms that now could be oriented towards actions or processes of contribution and construction, creation and remembrance, interaction and dialogue. Museum information is so important in the process of constructing a virtual culture, that is, where myth and action, memory and future can be linked. This specific virtual environment is fulfilling simultaneously two important functions. The ideational function represents the world around us, connecting the natural to the artificial, the real to the virtual, challenging traditional notions of the authentic versus the reproduced, creating a new feeling of beauty or value. The interpersonal function enables social interaction.

Intellectual Access
With these three components in mind, (behavior, architecture, and context), CHIN undertook a project called "Intellectual access" to investigate and test access requirements. The goal of the project was to develop an intelligent tool to provide effective and enjoyable access to on-line information developed by Canadian museums, to guide and to assist the use of the information, and to encourage the development of a community resource and collaborative creativity. Owing to the complexity of the problem a phased approach was adopted. This paper will report on the first two phases:

  • Phase 1: Redesigning Access - The Integrator
  • Phase 2: Redesigning Access to the National Inventories.

Architecturally, the project looks at the potential of the integration of all the available knowledge components and, as integration is a process of increasing the number of connections, it has proved to be very much dependent on representation and design issues. What seems ordered and comprehensible on one level, becomes meaningless on another: for example 20,000 paintings organized by style as opposed to 20,000 paintings with no organization.

Behaviorally, the project considers procedures for providing various ways to access information:

  • by dynamic overviews, according to concepts or points of view chosen by the user
  • using the organization of a categorization tool, a well-established thesauri
  • through pre-defined points of access.

The access procedures are conceived more like construction tools, using filtering and browsing techniques. But as the access procedures are addressing an integrated environment and, as integration is a process of increasing the number of connections, categorization is a basic element for the provision of meaningful information.

In the future, the project will investigate means to develop dialogue, a narrative course and its components.

From the context perspective the project will study the notions of authentic versus reproduced and methods to contextualize information.

Access, interaction and integration are the processes that enable the creation of the knowledge artifact. The knowledge artifact is the result of the user's research. It is a construct, a map or a maze of relations, a hypothetical system, having an interpretive value, involving a distributed collection of inter-connected knowledge entities or a new set of relationships established by the architectural components of the information environment, possibly creating new behavior.
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Redesigning Access - Phase 1: "The Integrator"
The first phase of the project dealt mainly with the architectural aspects related to the development of effective access. The idea was to construct an information architecture where a specialized tool, which we have called "The Integrator", could access and search the different available resources.

The integration operated only on a conceptual level. The goal was not to alter the individual resources. Each resource was to be accessed sequentially and was supposed to work according to its own rules, navigation options and interface issues. In this way, the identity of each participating resource and its uniqueness expressing the original and creative aspects was respected. Synthesis occurred only as an intermediary between the query formulation and the results display.

Access to an integrated environment, possibly including distributed resources, with different conceptual and physical organizations, for example, references, thesauri, dictionaries, inventories, bibliographies, etc. - was defined as one of the main goals of this phase. The user was offered one single entry point to the whole information environment. The search request could be addressed to all the available resources or to any combination, according to the user's choice. The first answer the system provided was a quantitative one: 300,000 or 10 or 50. The provision of this intermediary phase, interfering between the search request and the results display is an incipient form for dialogue. The quantitative answer might stimulate the user to refine or broaden the search to get a browsable and meaningful result.

A legitimate question at this point was:
"How does the Integrator delimit the information environment to be considered?"

At this initial phase only the resources that were known to the system and that could be controlled were considered. This restriction was established in order to test and validate the concepts and the methods involved in the integration before considering its application in a larger environment.

In the future, when the Integrator is available in a more open environment, a list of types of resources would be more effective than names. It is difficult to control the length of the list and the names do not always adequately describe the type of resource. [7]

At this phase other types of active links were created and tested, for example between the information item and the real object through the Guide to Canadian Museums and Galleries. An information item about an object from a museum was linked through the "Institution Name" to the Guide to Canadian Museums and Galleries, http://www.chin.gc.ca/Museums/e_museums.html> which could lead the user to the respective museum's web site. The artist's name was linked to the Artists in Canada database, which is a resource under the coordination of the National Gallery of Canada Library. An external authority resource, the Union List of Artist Names, developed by the Getty Information Institute was also made available <http://www.gii.getty.edu/ulan_browser/>. Object type/name was linked to the terminology in The Art & Architecture Thesaurus developed by the Getty Information Institute.
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Phase 2: Redesigning Access to the National Inventories

Goals
The Integrator brought to light the following issues:

  • The user could still be faced with hundreds or sometimes thousands of hits and would need further support to categorize the information in order to be able to browse it efficiently.
  • The context of the search was easily lost or became confusing. A degree of ambiguity was present and there was no mechanism for disambiguation. For example, a search for "spring" could result in hits where spring was meant as a season, as a location, as a proper name or an object.

Both issues are specific to large knowledge environments containing complex information items.

In the development of new access procedures, the focus of the Integrator was next limited to the National Inventories, a collection of three databases: Humanities, Natural Sciences and Archaeological Sites.

Limiting the focus was necessary due to the complexities of dealing with approximately 25 million information items, in French and in English, using diverse classification and terminology and, above all, the connections they entail.

Limiting the focus of the Integrator to a single resource also meant a step forward in our general research on access redesign. This step tested the integration concepts and methods on more detailed level.

The challenges now became:

  • How to make the National Inventories respond in a meaningful and enjoyable way to a broad audience of museum professionals, researchers and interested public, in French and in English, reconciling the diversity of terminology and classification.
  • How to create responses that challenge the user's understanding of the domain and provide opportunities for reflection and interpretation.
  • How to transform the invitation of "Come and Get It" to an intellectual adventure of "Seek and You Shall Find", where the skills and level of interest determine the way the system organizes and formats the answers.
  • How to use the links and the connections embedded in the retrieved information to place it into a context or follow a narrative path.

What, When, Who, Where, and How
The Humanities database contains information describing objects, using generic and/or specific terms to express underlying concepts, intended to represent distinctions. Defining a concept means proposing a procedure for explicitly expressing that distinction. The two basic dimensions of distinctions are stability and generality. [8] It was found that the development of an effective access tool to the Humanities database did not depend primarily on distinctions related to stability, since the information items are not situations or events. Distinctions related to generality issues, namely classes and objects, are the keys for effective access and creative organization of the retrieved material. The advantage of defining concepts was that semantic categories could be constructed, assisting the user in the selection and disambiguation of the results. "Spring" could be grouped under "location" when signifying a place name and under "time" when signifying a season, etc.

The choice for concept mapping and categorization strategy considered interaction, responsiveness, understanding multiple views, the ability to encourage learning and discovery and even game-like framework issues. A theoretical challenge, to be considered in the future, is the prototype theory, where membership is determined by the similarity of the attributes of an object to the category's prototype. Here, in contrast to the classical view of categorization, where features are necessary for deciding what belongs in what category, relationships are determined by both intuition and logic. For example, in the category of games, the only thing its members have in common is a vague family resemblance as leisure pastimes. (Wittegenstein) [9]

The problem, at this stage, is how to select concepts to form meaningful categories, which could respond to the diverse usage situations the access procedure must support.

At this stage, the Concept Search model, developed by the Consortium for the Interchange of Museum Information (CIMI), was used to define the basic groupings of answers to the fundamental questions of What, When, Who, Where, and How, as described and demonstrated in the Cultural Heritage Information On Line Project [10]. During the CHIN design sessions, the names of these concepts were debated and alternatives were proposed. It was decided to proceed with What, When, Who, Where, and How, in the "Canadian Collections" phase of the project, as broadly accepted basic concepts.

The Art & Architecture Thesaurus <http://www.gii.getty.edu/vocabulary/aat.html>
The integration of The Art & Architecture Thesaurus with the Humanities database was one of the most significant improvements to access and retrieval. The thesaurus, used as a behind-the-scenes retrieval tool, enables access to objects through hierarchies. This integration has permitted a conceptual structure, that embeds art history knowledge, to be applied to the terminology used in the existing information collections, without the need to modify the resource itself or to impose vocabulary or category structures on those participating in the construction of this collective resource. The architecture enables the potential addition of other authorities and organized information resources including geographical or temporal perspectives or offering alternative views for categorization.

To enable access in both French and English, a multilingual thesaurus was developed using The Art & Architecture Thesaurus as a base. The most frequently used terms in the Humanities database, were identified and a French equivalent term was defined. Currently, there are 2,600 French terms available and active during the retrieval process. A searcher can enter the term "painting", for example, and retrieve all the records containing the French equivalent "peinture", as well as records using the English term. This has significantly improved full access to the bilingual resource, which contains data in the language chosen by the contributing institution.

Access
The redesign of access to the resource considered different usage situations and habits, based on users' comments and requirements. In defining the access scenarios the following were considered:

  • frequency of usage (a first-time visitor or a frequent visitor),
  • different usage situations (work, enjoyment, information, incidental access),
  • level of knowledge of the field, understanding of the discipline
  • research and learning style (from concept to objects, from objects to concepts, browsing, selecting)
  • usage habits
  • interaction style (preference for intelligent agents versus direct manipulation controlled by the user [11]).

 

The access scenarios that have been developed for "Canadian Collections" are as follows:

  • The Single Entry Search Box
  • Browsing Access Points
  • Concept Search
  • Search Using a Form
  • Search by Command
  • Browsing Authorities: "Need assistance with a term?"

 

The Single Entry Search Box can work for everyone. It was designed to bring the user a broad range of material in response to a query. It is the place where the user can associate any combination of terms with no restrictions imposed by the system. The system's immediate response to the Single Entry Search Box command consists of the number of objects retrieved, grouped according to the five main concepts of What, When, Who, Where, and How. As stated above, this grouping categorizes the answer into meaningful sets and renders a greater degree of clarity to the response. The user can either start browsing the information objects or, if the results are not satisfying, refine or rephrase the query.

Browsing Access Points uses pre-defined queries, organized according to the What, When, Who, Where, and How concepts. These are entry scenarios developed and displayed by those who are actively involved in the construction of the information environment. They are intended for first-time visitors or non-specialists and are meant to be "quick" access to interesting topics. The queries are not fixed and will be updated periodically based on user response and usage patterns.

The Concept Search is designed for those who wish to start their search from one or more of the basic concepts of What, When, Who, Where, and How. More control is provided for how the search is performed, how terms are combined, and how results are delivered.

The Search Using a Form opens with a pre-defined query form, itemizing the most common fields for searching. A search assistant is also available which provides, for each field, an alphabetic index of all the available search terms along with the number of times the term occurs in the resource as a whole. The terms from the index can be cumulated to the form, reducing spelling errors. This search option is designated for the more frequent users who can be more specific in their queries. The responses are not categorized by the What, When, Who, Where, and How concepts since the number of the hits is expected to be lower because of the specific and targeted nature of the query.

Search by Command is provided for frequent users who are familiar with the native command syntax of the underlying software. There has been considerable pressure from CHIN's original member community to provide this method which retains the power of the command line search structures.

Browsing by Authorities enables users to perform searches starting from a term or a concept. The user can search the thesaurus for a specific term. The information about a term could include detailed or family information, broader and narrower terms, alternate terms, scope notes as well as a French equivalent. The hierarchies of the thesaurus can be browsed by scrolling. When viewing the detailed term definition the user can launch a query against the information resource, which returns results categorized by the 5 concepts of What, When, Who, Where, and How. The user can explore the objects representing or illustrating the researched concept. The only authority which has been integrated, at this time, is The Art & Architecture Thesaurus. Other authorities, enabling the user to select different views into the information environment and offering a mechanism to collect terms from different authorities and then launch a combined query, will be considered in the future.

Refine or Rephrase functions are considered key features of the interface. As mentioned above, when dealing with large quantities of information, the user requires a proper tool to enable regrouping of the information in meaningful and useful ways. The user never has to go "back" to refine a search. Having this function available encourages a sense progress rather than failure.

Each of the access scenarios is equipped with a "refine" option. The Single Entry Search Box can be refined through interaction with the system, which promptly responds to each new term added, providing updated figures for the categorized results. Single Entry Search Box, Concept Search, Browsing Access Points and Browsing Authorities, have access to a refine option where terms can be added to the 5 concepts of What, When, Who, Where and How. Each of these concepts can become even more specific, efficiently reducing the scope of the search. For example, if the user starts with "Thomson" and gets 5,000 hits under "Who", the search can be narrowed to artists or manufacturers or merchants named "Thomson". The user can use the same tool to broaden the scope of the search.

Providing these various search, retrieval and query refinement options means that the user is in control. The level of interaction with the system is determined by the type of query submitted. From children working on school projects to those performing more sophisticated research, each can select the level of interaction that is comfortable. Users who just want to know what is in museum collections can use the predefined searches and, when comfortable with that, start exploring the resource on their own. The goal is to provide the user with options based on interest and expertise.
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Conclusion

"Seek and You Shall Find", as a process, enables users to direct their interaction with a knowledge environment - the "Information Meta-Center". The goal of the CHIN Intellectual Access project has been to develop a process which makes this happen and to enable the user to explore the information resources on their own level based on interest and expertise. With more frequent use, the level of expertise and understanding of the knowledge environment will increase, which will in turn enhance the perceived value of the resource.

The initial goal was to focus on the information needs of the museum professional, but it was rapidly determined that developing layered access also opened the application to a much broader audience. From the very simple search using the Single Entry Search Box or Browsing by Access Points for the uninitiated, to the Search by Form or Search by Command for those more intimately familiar with the knowledge environment, it is anticipated that the spectrum of user perspectives into this Meta-Center will be satisfied.

Adopting the 5 concepts, which focus on the basic questions posed by users, was a natural consequence of figuring out how best to synthesize the volume of information into logical partitions which could be commonly understood and effectively used. Allowing users to query, as well as refine their searches on these concepts, was a logical extension. Users can "seek" out the relevant information and, with assistance from the conceptual structure, focus and refine the query to "find" what is applicable to their need.

The use of search assistants, such as subject specific thesauri and multi-lingual thesauri, also greatly enhances access to the collective resource. Superimposing a hierarchical vocabulary structure adds interpretive knowledge to existing terminology in the Information Meta-Center.

The focus up to this stage has been on developing search methodologies and strategies on single information resources. Our next goal is to extend these ideas to a group of resources, enabling the user to search many related resources at one time - a more truly integrated search. In addition, there is the need to synthesize results according to the point of view of the user, such as distribution of results on a time line, or geographically on a map. Enabling the selection of that point of view gives the user a role on how results are presented and subsequently used.

We invite your reactions to the progress to date. This resource can be found at <http:www.chin.gc.ca>.

 

Acknowledgement
The authors would like to acknowledge all the creative efforts and ideas contributed to the project thus far. In the true spirit of collaboration all CHIN staff have contributed and worked very hard to redesign access to Canadian museums information. Thank you to all.

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Notes 

[1]
CHIN's mission is to: "Broker effective access to Canadian and international heritage information for public education and enjoyment and for the collective benefit of Canadian museums."
CHIN does this by working with the heritage community and others to:
1. Promote the creation, management, dissemination, and use of heritage information;
2. Articulate and promote standards and guidelines which will enable the creation and exchange of coherent information resources in a distributed environment;
3. Offer integrated access to distributed heritage information;
4. Ensure the development and effective use of technology appropriate to the specific needs of the community;
5. Represent Canadian museums in the development of national and international initiatives and programs related to access to heritage information.
More about CHIN: <http://www.chin.gc.ca/About_Chin/e_about.html>
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[2]
Lyn Elliot Sherwood, CHIN Update, p.1-2, Network News, Issue No. 11, Winter 1997-1998 <http://www.chin.gc.ca/Whats_New/update/e_update.html>
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[3]
Peter Russell, The Global Brain: Speculations on the Evolutionary Leap to Planetary Consciousness (Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher, Inc., 1983) <http://artfolio.com/pete/pete.html>
Jean-Francios Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi, trans. (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1984)
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, http://biology.semo.edu/web/courses/ui415/teilhard.html
Alexander Chislenko, Automated Collaborative Filtering and Semantic Transports - (ACF) is an unprecedented technology for distribution of opinions and ideas in society and facilitating contacts between people with similar interests. It automates and enhances existing mechanisms of knowledge distribution and dramatically increases their speed and efficiency. This allows to optimize knowledge flow in the society and accelerate the evolution of ideas in practically all subject areas. ACF also provides a superior tool for information retrieval systems that facilitates users' navigation in the sea of information in a meaningful and personalized way. This technology can be viewed as a semantic transport - a social utility that, after physical and data transports, transfers increasingly abstract and intelligent objects between previously isolated fragments of the social organism. <http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/articles/ACF.html>
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[4]
Timothy O'Brien, An Object Orientation: A Theatrical Reexamination of the Man-and-Machine Struggle in the Information Age <http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/
isast/wow/obrien-wow294.html
>
Imogen McCormack, < http://www.cs.monash.edu.au/~jonmc/ >
Miroslaw Rogala < http://www.mcs.net/~rogala/ >
Victoria Vesna < http://arts.ucsb.edu/~vesna/ >
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[5]
Marshall McLuhan: "... the ability to perceive media-induced extensions of man, once the province of the artist, is now being expanded as the new environment of electric information makes possible a new degree of perception and critical awareness by non-artists" which came as an answer to a question posed to him by a journalist: "Why should it be the artist rather than the scientist who perceives these relationships and foresees these trends ?" - From "The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan,, Playboy Magazine, March 1969. <http://www.mcluhanmedia.com/mmclm001.html>
"Einstein Meets Magritte - An interdisciplinary reflection on science, nature, human action and society" bringing together scholars and creative performers who had already - in their own distinctive ways - taken a path that leads to interdisciplinarity - transdisciplinarity - albeit in different directions. <http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Conf/EinmagAn.html>
"Beyond Interface: net art and Art on the Net" occurs in conjunction with Museums and the Web Conference,, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, April 22-25, 1998, Steve Dietz, <http://www.walkerart.org/gallery9/>
LEONARDO is an international journal for artists and others interested in the contemporary arts. It features illustrated articles written by artists about their own work and is particularly concerned with issues related to the interaction of the arts, sciences and technology. <http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/
isast/journal/editorial/edguides.html#aim
>
CTHEORY is an international journal of theory, technology and culture. Articles, interviews, and key book reviews in contemporary discourse are published weekly as well as theorisations of major "event-scenes" in the mediascape. Edited by Arthur and Marilouise Kroker. <http://www.ctheory.com/?clicktrade=14528>
ISEA, The Inter-Society of the Electronic Arts is an international organization whose membership and collaborators consists of a wide range of individuals - artists, educators, scientists - electronic art institutes and other interested organizations. <http://www.sat.qc.ca/~sat/isea/intersoc/edito.html>
The Foundation for Art and Creative Technology <http://www.fact.co.uk/>
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[6]
Roy Ascott. Director of the Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts, University of Wales College, Newport for the development of doctoral research, advanced practice and theory in the field of electronic arts and digital media with special reference to new forms of communication, collaboration and production. It is concerned with all aspects of the post-biological culture. CAiiA is both a physical centre and a virtual community, providing for Onsite and Online research leading to University of Wales degrees of MPhil and PhD. <http://caiiamind.nsad.newport.ac.uk/ >
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[7] Dublin Core Metadata <http://purl.oclc.org/metadata/dublin_core/>:
Instantiation. Element 8. Resource Type Label: "Type"
The category of the resource, such as home page, novel, poem, working paper, technical report, essay, dictionary. For the sake of interoperability, Type should be selected from an enumerated list that is currently under development in the workshop series. On line discussion: <http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Metadata/types.html>
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[8]
Definition of terms "concept and "category" Web Dictionary of Cybernetics and Systems <http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/INdexASC.html>
Francis Heylighen, Structuring Knowledge in a Network of Concepts; <http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/papers/>
Alexander Chislenko, Semantic Web vision paper - Version 0.27 - 29 June, 1997 <http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/articles/SemanticWeb.html>
Paul Resnick, Filtering Information on the Internet, Scientific American, March 1997. An overview of non-collaborative automated filtering system (PICS) <http://www.sciam.com/0397issue/0397resnick.html>
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[9]
George Lakoff: On Conceptual Categories, Paris, October, 1995. <http://www.cis.hut.fi/~tho/paris/paris3.html>;
George Lakoff, Women, Fire and Dangerous Things: What categories reveal about the mind, The University of Chicago Press; (C) 1987. <http://lummi.Stanford.EDU/Media2/texts/Lakoff/WomenFire.book/>
Stevan Harnad, E-Prints on Cognitive Psychology <http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/genpub.html>
Jaakko Hintikka, Lingua Universalis vs. Calculus Ratiocinator: An Ultimate Presupposition of Twentieth-Century Philosophy, ISBN 0-7923-4246-1, 1996
Ludwig Wittgenstein <http://www.ags.uci.edu/~bcarver/ludwig.html>
é

[10]
CIMI - Consortium for the Interchange of Museum Information <http://www.cimi.org/about/mission.html>
Kody Janney & Jane Sledge, User Access Needs for Project CHIO, Draft, June 28, 1995
CHIO - Cultural Heritage Information On-line <http://www.cimi.org/projects/chio.html>
Network News No. 11, Winter 1997-98, Celebrating CHIN's 25th Anniversary, CIMI Update <http://www.chin.gc.ca/About_Chin/Network_News/e_news11.html>
é

[11]
CHI 97 Electronic Publications: Panels. Intelligent Software Agents vs. User-Controlled Direct Manipulation: A Debate. <http://www.acm.org/sigchi/chi97/proceedings/panel/jrm.htm>
"The @gency" <http://www.info.unicaen.fr/~serge/sma.html - agent>
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