Information Studies

K. S. Raghavan ¹

Affiliations
1 Documentation Research and Training Centre, ISI, Bangalore, IN

Abstract

In a letter written to Shri Alasinga Perumal on 24^th May 1894 Swami Vivekananda had urged:

"Try to get up a fund, buy some magic lanterns, maps, globes, etc, and some chemicals. Get every evening a crowd of the poor and low ... and lecture to them about religion first, and then teach them through the magic lantern and other things, astronomy, geography, etc in the dialect of the people".¹

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K. S. Raghavan ¹, A. Neelameghan ¹, S. K. Lalitha ²

Affiliations
1 DRTC, Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore 560 059, IN
2 Sarada Ranganathan Endowment for Library Science, Rajajinagar, Bangalore 560 010, IN

Abstract

Based on an ongoing project at the Sarada Ranganathan Endowment for Library Science, a collaborative approach to developing South Asian language interfaces as also test collections in Greenstone has been elaborated. Some of the novel features of the work that has been carried out so far are explained with illustrations. Some of the issues that need to be addressed as also strategies that could be adopted for enhancing the utility and value of digital libraries are briefly examined.

Keywords

Digital Library, Software Development, Co-Creation, Collaboration.

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K. S. Raghavan ¹

Affiliations
1 DRTC, Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore 560 059, IN

Abstract

Perhaps no other part of the world holds such a complex array of communities and cultures as South Asia does. Home to a fifth of humanity, the region is also home to scores of languages, scripts, faiths and philosophies. The region, home to the ancient Indus-Valley civilization, has a recorded history of over 5000 years. Given this it is only to be expected that the region also has an extremely rich and diverse literary and cultural heritage. Most countries in the region have come under colonial rule and have become independent only around the middle of the 20^th Century. Almost all the countries in the region are developing countries with a significant proportion of population living below the poverty line, and illiteracy is still a major issue.

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K. S. Raghavan , A. Neelameghan

Abstract

"Tamil, one oi' the classical languages of India, is also one of the few languages of contemporary India which has a recognizable and continuous classical past. According to Prof. S. Vaiyapuri Pillai it is difficult to fix with certainty the beginnings of Tamil language and literature. Perhaps, it is safe to assume that the Dravidian alphabet was used for literary purposes about the first century A.D. We might naturally expect that the Tamils had an ancient literature of which they can be legitimately proud. Their civilization is of great antiquity and their ruling dynasties played an important part in the third century B.C." (http://www.tamilnation.org/literature/index.htm)

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A. Neelameghan ¹, K. S. Raghavan ²

Affiliations
1 Contact: 216, 4th Main Road, 16th Cross Road, Malleswaram West, Bangalore-560055, IN
2 DRTC/ISI, 8th Mile, Mysore Road, Bangalore 560059, IN

Abstract

This paper presents an overview and some case studies of interfacing and mutual synergy between Tamil studies on the one hand and knowledge organizing tools on the other. The case studies arose from the ongoing work of designing and developing a Tamil-English bilingual information retrieval thesaurus for the digital library of the Central Institute for Classical Tamil, Chennai, naming practices and the related cultural practices, homonyms and homographs, literary devices and a new semantic relationship category (pseudo-antonym). An analysis of the nature of relationships between concepts in the bilingual thesaurus could be used as the basis for identifying ontological categories. Such studies of interfacing gives scope for comparative studies, knowledge discovery and identification of areas for further research in Tamil studies and in the field of knowledge organizing tools.

Keywords

Knowledge Organizing System, Knowledge Organizing Tools, Bilingual Thesaurus, Multi-Lingual Thesaurus, Interface with Subject Research, Knowledge Discovery, Cultural Practices, Homographs, Ontology, Concept Relationships, Pseudo Antonym.

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K. S. Raghavan

Abstract

ALIEP (Asia-Pacific Conference on Library / Information Education and Practice) 2009 held at the University of Tsukuba, Japan from 6^th to 8^th March 2009 was the third in a series of conferences that began in 2006 with the first ALIEP hosted by the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. The second ALIEP was held in 2007 in Taiwan. In the last four years since the series of conferences began ALIEP has emerged as a major forum for LIS professionals and educators from the Asia Pacific region and beyond to exchange ideas, share experiences and discuss major issues.

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K. S. Raghavan ¹

Affiliations
1 DRTC, ISI, Bangalore, IN

Abstract

The terms 'Information Society' and 'Globalisation' have been in vogue for sometime now. These have primarily been employed to emphasize the transformations that have been taking place in recent decades in the society. 'Information society' is a society in which the creation, distribution, diffusion, use and applications of information is a significant economic, political, and cultural activity. More specifically it refers to the changes that are takmg place as a direct consequence of the impact of ICTs on activities and processes related to information and knowledge including generation, accessing, transfer and communication, use and application. While there is no universally accepted definition of what an 'information society' is, most people agree that there has been a transformation which started some time between Ae 1970s and today and is brining about fimdamental changes in the ways societies work. Information Society is seen as "a society that makes extensive use of information networks and information technology, generates large quantities of information and communication products and services, and has diversified content industry". The sociologist Roland Robertson defined it as 'the tempering effects of local conditions on global pressures', popularized the term, which became prominent in delate 1980s. A third and related term is 'Knowledge Economy'. This refers to the use of knowledge and information to generate wealth and produce economic benefits. The phrase was popularised by Peter Drucker. Knowledge economy is the economic counterpart of tfie 'information society' in;which the ability to access and apply information is a major economic factor. Globalisation' and 'Knowledge Economy' clearly share a mutual 'cause and effect' relg^tion provided countries and organizations put in place effective mechanisms to derive positive benefits fix)m these developments.

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Neelamegha ¹, K. S. Raghavan ¹

Affiliations
1 Documentation Research and Training Centre, Indian Statistical Institute, Mysore Road, 8th Mile, Bangalore 560059, IN

Abstract

The use of seminal mnemonics implies the identification, at the near-seminal level, of similar subsets or groups of concepts (ideas) in subject domains and deriving a similar pattern of organization of the subsets in different domains. More specifically it consists in having the same digit or digit group to denote seminally equivalent ideas in whatever subject they may occur, even though different terms may be used to denote the ideas in the different subject fields. Seminal mnemonics are helpful in the organization of concepts - in the presentation of ideas in technical writing and in discourses, in designing schemes for subject classification, taxonomy etc. This paper examines the sequence of steps in the thinking process in different contexts, such as, systems analysis, systems design, knowledge management, problem solving, decision making, and the process of classifying subjects. Two main categories of concepts are identified, namely, concepts denoting attributes of the elements of the system studied and concepts denoting actions taken at each step in designing the system. The steps and their sequence are similar and parallel in the contexts examined. To facilitate remembering these systematic steps numerals and their ordinal values are used to organize or 'fix* the sequence. We also indicate the similarity in the association of concepts with numbers in some ancient traditions.

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A. Neelameghan ¹, K. S. Raghavan ²

Affiliations
1 Documentati(m Research & Training Centre, ISI, 8th Mile, Mysore Road, Bangalore S600S9.
2 Documentation Research and Training Centre, ISI, 8th Mile, Mysore Road, Bangalore 560059

Abstract

Several lateral relationships (non-hierarchic associative relationships) of the category Transformation/Emergence/Metamorphosis are presented with examples. These are modifications and additions to the earlier list of 54 types of lateral relationships grouped into 9 categories.

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K. Sivasamy ¹, K. S. Raghavan ¹

Affiliations
1 Department of Information Science, University of Madras, Chennai 600 005, IN

Abstract

Names of corporate bodies are among the important entities that are of value in identifying and retrieving a web resource. This paper describes a program developed and implemented to identify and extract corporate names from web texts. The program uses trigger words to identify corporate names. The paper also reports an expenment that was carried out to test the feasibility and utifity of the method. The results are analyzed and some problems for further research are identified.

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K. Sivasamy ¹, K. S. Raghavan ¹

Affiliations
1 Department of Information Science, University of Madras, Chennai 600 005, IN

Abstract

This paper describes a method for automatic identification and extraction of personal names from structured web texts. A set of rules were defined, using which a mechanism was developed and implemented to extract names of persons from a corpus of electronic texts. The results and the problems identified are presented

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G. Velumani ¹, K. S. Raghavan ¹

Affiliations
1 Department of Information Science, University of Madras, Chennai 600 005, IN

Abstract

This paper describes an experiment for the automatic identification and extraction of keywords from web resources, specifically HTML document. A natural language parser capable of extracting Iceywords from HTML texts in a domain would be useful in analyzing document content to support and facilitate information retrieval. A computer program - Autolndex -was developed to process and extract keywords from HTML texts. Evaluation shows that Autolndex works fairly well in terms of identification, recall and accuracy. The processing speed of the software is also at acceptable level.

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