School of
Information
Previously School of Library & Information Studies
Friday Afternoon Seminar: Summaries.
296a-1 Seminar: Information Access, Fall 2023.
Fridays 3-5. Details will be added as they become available.
Anyone interested is welcome.
In person, with also Zoom unless indicated otherwise. Campus policy requires
all Zoom participants to sign into a Zoom account prior to joining
meetings hosted by UC Berkeley. Zoom sessions are not recorded.
A link to each Seminar session is available only at
the School's event listing: www.ischool.berkeley.edu/events.
Schedule. Weekly
mailing list.
Aug 25: Clifford LYNCH & Michael BUCKLAND: Introductions.
Introduction to the seminar. Brief introductions
by participants.
Short informal report by Yaşar Yonta, PhD '92, Professor,
Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey.
Michael BUCKLAND: Known Item Search and Subject
Search: An Analysis.
Librarians' traditional distinction between "known item"
search and "subject" search is routinely mentioned in textbooks but
appears to have received little serious attention. However, an
analysis drawing on diverse sources contributes to a
philosophically-grounded theoretical model of library catalogs and other
retrieval systems.
Sep 1: No Seminar session.
Sep 8: Zoom only. Clifford LYNCH: Documenting and Preserving AI
Systems.
A discussion of documenting and preserving various kinds
of AI systems, with some emphasis on recent large language models.
This is an area that seems to have received relatively little attention,
but seems like it will be very important going forward. The discussion
will consider how to frame the challenges, and also relationships with
the considerably more mature area of software preservation.
Sep 15: Ali KHAN: Analyzing Gender Bias in Sentiment Analysis
Algorithms Using a Large Corpus of Gendered Language Data.
A brief introduction.
Clifford LYNCH: Stewardship of Social
Media: Twitter (and competitors) as a Case Study.
Implications for reproducible research and good research
practice. For a long time, Twitter was a favorite target of study by
social media researchers, probably largely because it provided relatively
friendly policies and interfaces for these researchers. Since the company
was purchased by Elon Musk, these policies have changed drastically.
This has implications not just for future research, but also for the
reproducibility of existing research, and raises questions about best
practices for open and reproducible scholarship that depends on licensed
materials.
Sep 22: Zoom only. Tracy BERGSTROM, Oya Y. RIEGER & Roger SCHONFELD,
Ithaka S+R: Shared Infrastructure for Scholarly Communication.
Shared infrastructure includes everything from discovery
services to identifier providers, from editorial management systems
and hosting platforms to research integrity services. In one way or
another, shared infrastructure is foundational to the work of every
publishing organization, supporting different stakeholders in the
scholarly communication landscape. This year, Ithaka S+R is conducting
a study about successes, needs, and gaps in the publishing community’s
shared infrastructure. The project, which is supported by STM
Solutions, will result in a white paper to be published in early
October. The authors will review preliminary findings and welcome
an opportunity to discuss implications with the seminar.
Tracy Bergstrom is the program manager for
collections and infrastructure. In this role, she collaborates on a
variety of projects that examine contemporary challenges relating
to the management, access, and discovery of analog and digital
collections held by libraries, archives, museums, and community
organizations. Prior to joining Ithaka S+R, Tracy served as the
director for the specialized collection services program within the
Hesburgh Libraries of the University of Notre Dame.
Oya Y. Rieger, as senior strategist,
spearheads projects that reexamine the nature of collections within
the research library, help secure access to and preservation of the
scholarly record, and explore the possibilities of open source software
and open science. Oya previously led the operations, governance,
sustainability, and strategic development of arXiv.org, the open
access preprint service, and was Associate University Librarian at
Cornell.
Roger Schonfeld is the vice president of
organizational strategy for ITHAKA and of Ithaka S+R’s libraries,
scholarly communication, and museums program. Roger currently
serves as a board member for the Center for Research Libraries,
blogs regularly at the Scholarly Kitchen, and was previously a
research associate at The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Ithaka S+R helps academic and cultural communities
serve the public good and navigate economic, technological, and
demographic change. Its work aims to broaden access to quality
postsecondary education, improve student outcomes, and advance
research and knowledge. More at sr.ithaka.org/.
Sep 29: Wayne de FREMERY, Dominican University: Innovation and
Relevance: Toward a Theory of the Problems.
Relevance is a central concern in information science.
Innovation is central to theories of economic competitiveness and
prosperity. Yet, like relevance, innovation is difficult to categorize
and measure. Widely used metrics for innovation are acknowledged to
be problematic. Although acknowledged to have many limitations,
patent applications, for example, are frequently used as a proxy
measure for innovation when describing a particular firm, industry,
or region. Alternative metrics for innovation have been widely used,
such as investment in research and development. Newer measures are
emerging, such as measures for assessing eco-innovation. Relevance
has been formulated in a similarly wide variety of ways—-objective
relevance, subjective relevance, situational relevance-—to name only
a few. Widely used relevance metrics are likewise acknowledged to
be problematic. This presentation will explore the possibility that
conceptions of innovation and relevance as they have been formulated
in the economic and information science literature respectively
share a central theoretical challenge. It will suggest that a theory
of the problems presented by the concepts in their respective fields
can be more clearly articulated by contextualizing theories of
relevance in information science with theories of innovation in the
business and economic literature.
Wayne de Fremery is Professor of Information Science
and Entrepreneurship at Dominican University of California, where he
directs the Françoise O. Lepage Center for Global Innovation. Wayne
also co-directs the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative and is
Chair-Elect of the History and Foundations of Information Science
Special Interest Group at the Association for Information Science
and Technology. Wayne’s current book project, Cats, Carpenters,
and Accountants: Bibliographical Foundations of Information Science,
is forthcoming from MIT Press.
Oct 6: Paul DUGUID: From Whitewashing to Greenwashing: PR’s Approach
to Climate Science.
Greenpeace recently declared that we are living in
“the golden age of greenwashing.” This talk attempts to look at how
we got there, examining in particular the role across the twentieth
century of the Public Relations [PR] industry in responding to what
its clients saw as problematic science. It looks in particular at PR's
great master, Edward Bernays, and his “revolutionary” account of the
profession.
Oct 13: Johanna DRUCKER, UCLA: Text, Glyph, Inscription, Chart:
Knowledge Production in the Origin of the Alphabet.
Our knowledge of the origins and development of the
alphabet (yes, there is only one) is bound to the material properties
of evidence and their analysis within a wide range of disciplines
including textual studies, archaeology, and epigraphy. Visual
epistemology and graphic rhetoric also play a role in construction and
transmission of knowledge in this domain. In discussing how we know
what we know about the early history of the alphabet, this talk will
focus on the modes of rhetoric in charts with emphasis on the
benefits and liabilities of the graphical organization that structures
arguments.
Johanna Drucker is Distinguished Professor and
Breslauer Professor Emerita, Department of Information Studies, UCLA.
She recently published Inventing the Alphabet: The Origin of Letters
from Antiquity to the Present with the University of Chicago Press.
She is known for her work in visual epistemology, the history of graphic
design, and studies of the visual aspects of writing in poetry,
literature, and communication.
Oct 20: No Seminar. School's 105th Birthday celebration
Oct 27: Ann CLEAVELAND & Matthew NAGAMINE, Center for
Long-Term Cybersecurity:
Cybersecurity Futures 2030: Global Insights to Anticipate and Address
Tomorrow’s Cybersecurity Challenges.
From ubiquitous software-controlled vehicles, innovations
in gaming, virtual reality, and hyper-scale Cloud adoption, to
supply chain frictions, a proliferation of inexpensive tools
available to cyber criminals, the emergence of synthetic image
generators, and fractures in global internet governance, the landscape
of digital security is constantly changing. Cybersecurity Futures 2030
is a foresight-focused scenario-planning exercise, led by the Center
for Long-Term Cybersecurity in partnership with the World Economic
Forum, to consider how cyber is set to transform over the next
five-to-seven years. This talk will discuss findings that have
emerged from a series of international workshops on four continents,
teeing up important choices in cybersecurity that decision-makers
can use to seize opportunities, address challenges, and mitigate
risks that exist just over the horizon.
Ann Cleaveland is the Executive Director of the
Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity, a multidisciplinary research
center at the University of California, Berkeley. She also chairs
the Consortium of Cybersecurity Clinics, which she co-founded in
2021. Cleaveland has held leadership positions in philanthropy,
non-profit management, and industry. She previously served as
Interim Executive Director of the Berkeley Institute for Data Science
and as the Senior Director of Strategic Planning at the
ClimateWorks Foundation. She received an MBA in Sustainable
Management from the Presidio Graduate School and a B.A. from
Rice University. Her research interests include cybersecurity
futures, digital risk communications, and governance of cyber risk.
More at cltc.berkeley.edu/people/ann-cleaveland/.
Matthew Nagamine serves as CLTC's Manager of
Strategic Partnerships, where he cultivates impactful relationships with
key partners and allies to support CLTC's research programs. He also
oversees Cybersecurity Futures and manages CLTC's Grants Program.
Matt earned his bachelor's degree in Political Science with a minor in
African American Studies from UC Berkeley conducted research in Professor
Nikki Jones' Justice Interactions Lab, exploring the intersections of race,
gender, and justice. He was also on the Research Team for the
Social Science Matrix's Research Network Graph project, an interactive
data visualization tool designed to navigate and access social science
research at UC Berkeley. He also served as a Research Assistant for the
School's Center for Technology, Society, and Policy (CTSP).
Nov 3: Ali KHAN and Michael BUCKLAND.
Ali KHAN: Analyzing Gender Bias in Sentiment Analysis
Algorithms Using a Large Corpus of Gendered Language Data.
The problem of Gendered Pronoun Resolution stems from
biases that can be inherent in language, datasets, or algorithms.
These biases can lead machine learning models to incorrectly associate
gendered pronouns with stereotypical roles or attributes. To identify
these issues, we are conducting a detailed analysis of the training data
as well as auditing the algorithm's performance to ensure it does not
unfairly favor or disadvantage any specific gender. Progress report.
Ali Khan is a second year MIMS student
specializing in machine learning, AI, and data engineering.
Michael BUCKLAND: Marshalling Evidence for Wiser
Choices.
A historical review and analytical discussion of
selected views on the nature and scope of information studies,
broadly understood to include bibliography, documentation, and
library and information science. Also, more specifically, views on the
nature, scope and role of "i-schools." Some tentative
conclusions.
Optional reading: LIS Forward (2023). Ensuring a
Vibrant Future for LIS in iSchools. University of Washington
Information School. Scroll down https://tascha.uw.edu/projects/lis-forward/.
Nov 10: No Seminar. Veterans Day holiday.
Nov 17: Jeffrey HART, Indiana University: The History and Politics
of the Internet: Policy Implications.
This is a talk summarizing the main findings of a
book-length study of the history and politics of the Internet,
Essays
on the History and Politics of the Internet: Cyberpolitics
(Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2023).
After reviewing the history of its creation and maturation, the book
addresses the key problems for the future: namely, bridging the digital
divide, reforming antitrust, enhancing privacy and security, reducing
cybercrime, curating content on social media, and reforming intellectual
property laws.
Slides available at https://www.slideshare.net/hartjeff12/berkeley-internetpptx.
Jeffrey Hart is Emeritus Professor of Political
Science at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he taught international
politics and international political economy from 1981 to 2013. His
first teaching position was at Princeton University from 1973 to 1980.
He was a professional staff member of the President’s Commission for
a National Agenda for the Eighties from 1980 to 1981. His major
publications include The New International Economic Order (1983),
Interdependence in the Post Multilateral Era (1985), Rival
Capitalists (1992), Globalization
and Governance (1999, edited with Aseem Prakash), Coping with
Globalization (2000),
and Responding to Globalization (2000), Technology, Television
and Competition (2004), The Politics
of International Economic Relations, 7th ed. with Joan Edelman Spero
(2010), and
scholarly articles in World Politics, International Organization,
British Journal of Political Science, New Political Economy, The World
Economy, and the Journal of Conflict Resolution.
Nov 24: No Seminar. Thanksgiving.
Dec 1: Last Seminar of the Semester.
Clifford LYNCH: Developments and Trends in Networked
Information and Related Technologies.
As part of the December Coalition for Networked
Information member meeting, I do a survey of recent key developments
in networked information and related technologies, and look at
emerging trends and issues. I'll use this seminar session to discuss
and explore candidate trends and developments in a somewhat more
detailed and leisurely way, and will welcome observations on those
I'll discuss, as well as suggestions for those that I've overlooked.
The Seminar will resume in the Spring semester.
Spring
2023 schedule and summaries.
Spring
2024 schedule and summaries.