Keywords In and Out of Context

some more thoughts and theories about keywords

  • Dominant Terminologies

    Still on the topic of relevant research published right around the time my own book was in press, so here’s another item of interest from the September 2023 issue of Journal of Data and Information Science. Yves Fassin and Ronald Rousseau suggest in their “The Notion of Dominant Terminology in Bibliometric Research” that, like the Continue reading

  • My Missing Foreword

    I have been contemplating the fact that I only cited Ronald Day once (his analysis of the “conduit metaphor” in Chapter 4) in my book, even though I have always admired his thinking, especially his continued work in critical theory. Anyway, I realized today, rereading his The Modern Invention of Information (one of the suggested Continue reading

  • Crossing the Symbolic Threshold

    Further related to my “semiotic thresholds” paper in the Journal of Documentation, I noted on page 1016 that “Eco’s upper boundaries (1976, pp. 21–28) are delineated by a presumed threshold between semiosis and symbolism, a milestone in hominin history, as symbolic cognition must have been present prior to the development of language capabilities and has Continue reading

  • On Thresholds

    I am happy to say that my most recent article (“On Thresholds: Signs, Symbols, and Significance“) has now been published in Volume 79 issue 4 of the Journal of Documentation. This was material originally intended for my book but which ended up not being as directly relevant to “keywords” as the other chapters so I Continue reading

  • Towards the Evolution of Information Research

    In chapter 1 I listed a number of researchers who are well known for their “evolutionary” approach to information (notably Marcia Bates) but I have only recently encountered Gary Marchioni’s perspective on a current issue in education for LIS, which is clearly related to research on information evolution as well: that is, the relationship between Continue reading

  • Closing the Book

    One of the problems with having finished a book is that it’s only then that you realize how much more you could have done with it. But my publisher has been enormously patient with me as I worked on this project, so it is clearly time for my final draft to be final: no more Continue reading

About THIS SITE

This site is intended to provide additional information related to my book Keywords In and Out of Context, published in Springer’s Synthesis Lectures on Information Concepts, Retrieval, and Services series.

I am Betsy Van der Veer Martens, professor emerita at the University of Oklahoma’s School of Library & Information Studies, and my most recent article is “On Thresholds: Signs, Symbols, and Significance” in the Journal of Documentation.

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