Is Knowledge Organization =
Information Organization?
Paper presented at the 12th International ISKO Conference
Mysore, India, 6-9 August 2012.
(Tuesday, 07th August 2012 10.00-10.30 AM, Track A, Auditorium)
Birger Hjørland
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1. Introduction
We are participating in an ISKO conference (International
Society for Knowledge Organization). Here the term
Knowledge Organization (KO) is being used.
Sometimes, however, the term information organization
(IO) is being used. This is the case, for example, in
Svenonius’ well known monograph (2000) The intellectual
foundation of information organization. Also, for example,
at the School of Information Studies at the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee the name of the subject has
recently changed from KO to IO.
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1. Introduction
We may therefore ask:
 Is
Knowledge Organization = Information Organization?
 Are
KO and IO synonyms?
In addressing this issue, my aim is twofold:
1) to argue which term should be preferred as label.
2) To provide a theoretical basis for answering the general
question: When should two concepts be considered
synonyms?
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2. Etymology and conceptual analysis?
Intuitively one might perhaps respond: The word
”knowledge” and the word ”information” are two different
words with different meanings. For this reason KO and IO
cannot be synonyms.
We might look up the meanings of the words “knowledge”
and “information” in dictionaries, encyclopedias (or the hard
way: studying the theoretical literature on each concept).
There has been (and may still be somewhere) a belief that
the true meaning of terms may be found by studying their
original meaning (i.e., their etymology) or in their inherent
(a priori) meaning.
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2. Etymology and conceptual analysis?
Today the etymological method of establishing the meaning
of terms is generally seen as problematic. Users of
language are not necessarily committed by the origin of a
word or how it has formerly been used. Scientific terms
change meaning with scientific theories. Basic physical
concepts, for example, do not have the same meaning in
the physics of Aristotle and Newton.
Conceptual analysis as a priori definition of concepts
(Hanna, 1998) is a philosophical approach that came under
heavy criticism, and by the end of the 1970s was widely
regarded as defunct.
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2. Etymology and conceptual analysis?
Conceptual analysis also seems to be an insufficient
method because the meaning of terms changes with
scientific theories.
We cannot, therefore, expect to find the true meanings of
the words “knowledge” and “information” by etymological or
by a priory philosophical analysis. We have to consider
their meaning in relation to the scientific theories of which
they form parts.
What kind of theoretical role do the concepts of knowledge
and information play in library and information science and
in KO?
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3. ”Information” and ”knowledge” in
LIS
I have been writing about the concept of information in LIS
for a long time and cannot go deep into this issue here. The
term came into LIS with the computer, but has in my
opinion never been theoretically well supported. I agree
with Furner (2004) that we could very well have
“Information studies without information”!
Often our concepts seem unfortunately to reflect what
Konrad (2007) termed “poor terminological hygiene”.
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3. ”information” and ”knowledge” in
LIS
Zins (2006) suggested “Redefining information science:
From information science to knowledge science”. That
would indeed point to KO instead of IO as the preferred
name for our field. I do not think it would be wise to follow
Zins suggestion because:
1. The terminology is confused enough already;
2. There are already other disciplines devoted to the study
of knowledge (e.g. “theory of knowledge”, sociology of
knowledge and “science studies”).
3. Information science/LIS is primarily about documented
knowledge (documents).
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4. Consistent patterns of use?
Wittgenstein defined the meaning of terms as their use: In
order to define a term you must study how it is used. I have
made a study in the Social SciSearch of four terms:
•
Information organization (IO),
•
Organization of information (OI),
•
Information architecture (IA) and
•
Knowledge organization (KO)
Each term studied both in the whole database and in the
part limited to LIS. For each term and each database were
ranked 1) the most cited authors 2) the most cited journals
or works and 3) the most cited references.
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4. Consistent patterns of use?
Knowledge Organization,
KO
In whole SSCI
Most
Rank #1
cited
HJORLAND B
authors
DAHLBERG I
BEGHTOL C
CHI MTH (cognitive science)
KOGUT B (knowledge
management)
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Knowledge
Organization
in LIS
Most cited
authors
Rank #13
HJORLAND B
DAHLBERG I
BEGHTOL C
RANGANATHAN
SR
SOERGEL D
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4. Consistent patterns of use?
Information Organization,
IO
In whole SSCI
Most
Rank #4
cited
MILLER GA (cognitive science)
authors SVENONIUS E
BADDELEY A (cognitive sci)
PORTER ME (management)
ZAND DE (management)
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Information Organization,
IO
In LIS
Rank #16
SVENONIUS E
BELKIN NJ (LIS not KO)
CHOO CW (knowledge management)
INGWERSEN P (LIS not KO)
TAYLOR AG
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4. Consistent patterns of use?
Organization of Information,
OI
In whole SSCI
Most
Rank #7
cited
DUNCAN J (cognitive science)
authors
WILLIAMSON OE (economics)
ALCHIAN AA (economics)
POSNER MI (cognitive science)
KAHNEMAN D (cognitive
Organization of Information, OI
In LIS
Rank #19
CASE DO (Information seeking)
DAVENPORT TH (knowledge management)
FIDEL R
KWASNIK BH
PATTON MQ (evaluation research)
science)
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4. Consistent patterns of use?
Information
Architecture, AI
In whole SSCI
Most cited
authors
1
Rank #10
ROSENFELD L
NIELSEN J
BRANCHEAU JC
WURMAN RS
MARCHIONINI G
Information Architecture
In LIS
Rank #22
ROSENFELD L
NIELSEN J
BRANCHEAU JC
DILLON A
MARCHIONINI G
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5. Interpretation
 Each
of the four concepts has a unique set of most cited
authors seemingly indicating that we are dealing with four
separate fields (which of course change if more than just
the top five are considered; data not shown),
 Two of the terms (KO and IA) seem to be reasonably
consistently used: in LIS both terms display a list of
connected researchers, in social sciences the term KO is
also used by researchers from cognitive science and
knowledge management, but with LIS as the dominant
field.
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5. Interpretation
 The
other two terms (IO and OI) are clearly not
consistently used to delimit a common field. Svenonius
(2000) and the well-known textbook Taylor & Joudrey
(2009) are clearly the publications that associate IO with
our field, but the terms are used by other fields as well and
no consistent pattern is visible (remark that another textbook,
Rowley. & Hartley (2008) Organizing knowledge. An introduction to
managing access to information tries to have it all by combining
knowledge and information in the title).
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5. Interpretation
Why do some researchers prefer IO to KO? There seems
to be no well-argued theoretical reason to do so. Svenonius
(2000) is clearly a book in the tradition of KO.
Does KO sound old-fashioned? Is that term more
connected to print culture than to the digital world? Or is it,
as Webber (2003) suggests, more a strategic choice made
in order to “sell” the field than it is based on theoretical
arguments?
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5. Interpretation
 Is
information architecture (IA) a new field? An emerging
discipline?
 Or
is IA just a new name for the field covered by KO?
 A course
in IA (or a book about IA) is clearly focused on
internet technologies, which is to day an important focus.
The influential text (Rosenfeld & Morville, 1998; Morville &
Rosenfeld, 2006) is a good one, also from the perspective
of KO.
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5. Interpretation
 The
decision to use the new term IA may be motivated:
 To
signal something new and cool
 To have a term/field delimited to KO on the Internet
 To have a term for a community different from our KO
community
Disciplines should be defined theoretically, not by
persuasive terminology just as basic principles should be
independent of media (print or Internet).
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5. Interpretation
My suggestion is therefore that KO is the field that
provides the basic principles also for IA (although clever
people identifying themselves with IA also contribute to
these basic principles).
KO and IA should certainly not be considered two different
fields/disciplines because the basic principles have to be
the same. We should not have separate courses in KO
and IA, but courses in KO covering different theoretical
approaches and different kinds of media and technologies.
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6. Conclusion
 The
choice of the name for the field is not just an empirical
question. Empirical studies can tell the uses of the terms,
whether there is a consistent pattern in the use of a given
label.
 To
choose a label is also to work for developing the field in
a certain direction. It concerns basic theoretical analyses.
 There
is a need to connect KO more to other knowledge
fields such as the theory of knowledge, the sociology of
knowledge/science and science studies.
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6. Conclusion
 Therefore,
my conclusion is that KO should be the
preferred term.

However, if the tendency to shift to IO continues, I would
have to follow the trend: One cannot isolate oneself and
one cannot maintain a private language that nobody else
uses.
I
still believe, however, that the term KO is worth arguing
for.
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References
 Furner,
J. (2004). Information studies without information.
Library Trends , 52(3), 427-446.
 Hanna,
Robert (1998). Conceptual analysis. IN: Routledge
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Version 1.0, London:
Routledge.
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References
 Konrad, A.
(2007). On inquiry: Human concept formation
and construction of meaning through library and
information science intermediation (Unpublished doctoral
dissertation). University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved
from http://escholarship.org/uc/item/1s76b6hp
 Morville,
P. & Rosenfeld, L. (2006). Information
architecture for the world wide web (3rd ed.). Sebastobol,
CA: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
 Rosenfeld,
1
L. & Morville, P. (1998). Information
architecture for the World Wide Web. 1st ed. Cambridge
Sebastopol, CA : O'Reilly.
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References
 Rowley,
J. & Hartley, R. (2008). Organizing knowledge. An
introduction to managing access to information. 4th edition.
Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate.
 Taylor,
A. G. & Joudrey, D. N. (2009). The organization of
information. 3rd edition. Westporet, Connecticut: Libraries
Unlimited.
 Webber,
S. (2003). Information science in 2003: a critique.
Journal of Information Science. 29(4), 311-330.
 Zins,
C. (2006). Redefining information science: From
information science to knowledge science. Journal of
Documentation, 62(4), 447-461.
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