-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 'The Mapping of Knowledge'
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2004 10:26:04 -0700
From: Brian Bach <[log in to unmask]>

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Fellow Listservers,

I found this item in the 'Chronicle of Higher Education':

Brian


MAGAZINES & JOURNALS

A glance at the April 6 issue of
the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences":
The mapping of knowledge

As the sciences continue to advance into uncharted territory,
a new discipline is following on their heels to create useful
"maps" of knowledge.

"Mapping knowledge domains" is the process of "charting, mining,
analyzing, sorting, enabling navigation of, and displaying
knowledge," say Richard M. Shiffrin, a professor of psychology,
and Katy Boerner, an assistant professor of information science,
both at Indiana University at Bloomington, in an introduction to
a special issue.

Knowledge maps could help researchers use and make connections
with data from other disciplines that would have been
unavailable or unwieldy to study under previous systems, they
say. "The user will be able not only to visualize a few nearby
trees in the forest of knowledge, but also to understand the
entire landscape," they write.

The 19 articles in the issue discuss techniques that, if they
can be made to operate effectively, the authors predict, "may
well change the way that science is conducted and the way the
business of the world is carried out."

The issue is available online for subscribers.
Abstracts of the articles are available at
http://www.pnas.org/content/vol101/suppl_1



Brian P. Bach
Maps Specialist
Documents/Maps
Brooks Library
Central Washington University
400 E. University Way
Ellensburg, WA 98926-7548
USA
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