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Brian Campbell Vickery

86 quotes

“The principles of information science apply, whatever the medium of transfer.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The service professions such as medicine and teaching have proud and age-old traditions. Only relatively recently have we realised that serving people's information needs can be as socially valuable as looking after their health and educational needs.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We do not encourage initiative," said the factory manager. "What you must do is to learn to work to the safety rules." It was my first day in my first job, as a plant chemist in an explosives factory, located in the English countryside, in July 1941. Happily, he was quite wrong. We were not making some old, tried and tested explosive like nitroglycerine or TNT. It was the first large -scale production of a brand-new chemical, code-named RDX-Research Department eXplosive-developed by a government military research department.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After my first encounter with in the Patent Office, and subsequent use of the (UDC) for the Akers library, I became increasingly interested in problems of information organisation for retrieval. My first paper in the field was "The Structure of a Connective Index" (Vickery, 1950).”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The problems of subject search on the Internet are no different in principle: search engines may permit easy location of verbally expressed topics, but we still seek to improve our methods of navigation.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 11; As cited in: Lyn Robinson and David Bawden (2011).
“Bertie Brookes and I shared a common view that, beyond the practical activities of information provision, there could be discerned a more general science of information. He tended towards a mathematical formulation of this: I was more interested in its social aspects.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Varied views were put forward as to the content and priorities of information science, though there was general agreement that its central topics should be information organisation, dissemination and retrieval.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Theoretical research in information science is still marked by a tendency to play safe... it is still marked by timidity. It could now afford to be more boldly speculative, intellectually exciting and therefore more attractive to intelligent and ambitious students." Have things changed?”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 25; As cited in: Lyn Robinson and David Bawden (2011).
“Our profession is concerned with three "aspects of the world". First, how people behave when they feel a need for information; second, characteristics of documentary information that constrain how we can manipulate it; and third, characteristics of the physical media that carry the information, whether they be static books or dynamic electronic networks.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Looking back, I ask myself why so little of the basic research has had an impact on professional practice.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There does seem to be among some members of our profession a rather desperate search for a "fundamental theory of information", which leads them to attempt to derive our practice from disciplines such as epistemology, or hermeneutics, or discourse analysis, or semiotics, or even "cybersemiotics". Their derivations rarely make adequate contact with the realities of information practice … The theory of a science should spring from deep immersion in its practice.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Only in a very static profession can one be trained to slot in immediately to an available job, and our profession is far from static. It is more beneficial for the students to give them a generalised grounding in a wide variety of professional activities and concerns, so that they will have some background knowledge for no matter what job is first available. For those who seek it, our subject also has its cultural value, which can contribute to a general education.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I suspect that teaching the history of our subject is less frequent in our institutions than it was. We are getting short-sighted both in looking forward and in looking backward, to our detriment.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For the profession as a whole, it is necessary that our hard-won understanding of our discipline be handed on to the next generation in a formal way.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Information practice is concerned with facilitating the interaction between knowledge seekers – through channels – with knowledge (personal and recorded). Stepping back from practice, we may see the role of the science as exploring the characteristics of people and their “information behaviour”, the features of knowledge records of every kind, the variety of channels (oral, written, printed, graphic, digital) that may be used to transmit information, and how the three elements interact.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[The particular concern of the information scientist] is with the process as a whole – the interaction between the three elements [information behaviour, records, channels] that leads to people becoming informed.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All the elements of the process of “becoming informed”... are of interest to investigators other than “information scientists”… The totality of activity related to information today is necessarily a multidisciplinary exercise.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. xxiii; As cited in: Lyn Robinson and David Bawden (2011).
“[Information] science and technology are now so closely linked that analysis and experiment lead quickly on to invention, to the introduction of new channels (and documents).”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The structural tools developed by the profession – hierarchical classifications, facets, thesaural relations, topic maps, the predicates used in ontology – will still be of use, provided that they can in each case pass a test of utility.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Perhaps an underlying cause [of doubt as to the future of information science] is in some cases... the apprehension that information science may become “submerged” in the larger field of computer science.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. xxviii; As cited in: Lyn Robinson and David Bawden (2011).
“The job of our profession is to facilitate the provision of knowledge (in all forms) to those who need it (for whatever purpose).”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 246; As cited in: Lyn Robinson and David Bawden (2011).
“Mass communications analysts concentrate on “who sends what information, for what purposes, through what channels, to which people, with what effect”. The information profession is more interested in “who seeks what information, for what purposes, through what channels, from which people and sources, with what success”.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Perhaps the most important lesson that we can learn from information history is that information provision has been and must be closely related to information need, and that the information sources we provide must be closely matched to the tasks being undertaken by the community served.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am whole-heartedly in favour of the profession learning more about the history of [information transfer]. We have a tendency to focus on the newest forms of information provision … neglecting the continued existence and continuing importance of all the previous forms… But our profession is not that of the historian (or sociologist or philosopher) interesting as their work may be.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The analogy with bibliographic classifications and thesauri is obvious... despite the differences, it is to be regretted that 'ontological engineers' make little or no reference to work in information science. As a consequence, they do not appear to draw at all on the rich experience of constructing knowledge schedules … or... developing concept lexicons.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 284; As cited in: Lyn Robinson and David Bawden (2011).
“I would pinpoint 1958 as a special time in my career. I had for some years been working with the Classification Research Group in London, and in 1957 we had held a small but successful conference to which Jesse Shera, Gene Garfield and others had come from the USA. In 1958 I published my first book, Classification and Indexing in Science, and attended the International Conference on Scientific Information in Washington. This was my first visit to the USA - I flew in a US Army transport plane with . The Conference papers opened up all kinds of new information vistas - in many ways setting the agenda for the ensuing development of the field. I met many interesting people - some who stand out in the memory are Peter Luhn, , John O'Connor and Desmond Bernal. The experience of attending the conference, and of other visits I paid at that time, led to the writing of my second book, On Retrieval System Theory...”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Brian Campbell Vickery (1999) "New Information Vistas".
“Throughout life, all people are engaged in activities – practical or mental – trying to solve problems, activities that themselves give rise to problems. To solve these problems, people need knowledge. They can acquire this personal knowledge in two main ways. First, they can interrogate the world – natural and social – by means of closer observation, deeper analysis, controlled experiment, all forms of cognitive interaction. Second, they can enrich their personal knowledge by communicative interaction with the stock of public knowledge that mankind has built up over the millenia, thus acquiring what we may call information. The activities in which people engage also produce two other kinds of knowledge: that embodied in people (skills) and that embodied in their artefacts.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Brian Vickery (2005) "Information science, in 3 parts" on lucis.me.uk, 2005.
“John Desmond Bernal (1901-1971) was undoubtedly the most important of the "Western" scientists who, during the twentieth century, accepted the Marxist view of social development. He did more than "accept" it: he tried to sketch the whole history of science from a Marxist viewpoint; he wrote a number of articles explicitly expounding his view of the relation of Marxism to science; and from his student days he played an active role in Communist politics. He has been criticised: during his lifetime, for too readily accepting official Soviet policy, whether relating to society or to science; since his death, for having been too ready to hope that his vision of the use of science for human ends could be implemented by capitalist societies; and at all times, for an allegedly simplistic faith in science as the salvation of mankind.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Brian Vickery (2006) "J.D.Bernal: science and social development " on lucis.me.uk, 2006.
“What is now called ‘knowledge organisation’ in this context has a long history. The simplest forms of a knowledge organisation system (KOS) are, after all, the contents list and the index of a textbook. The knowledge is in the text; the KOS is a supplementary tool that helps the reader to find his way around the text. But as such finding aids have become more complex, and taken on wider functions, they have acquired grander names, such as retrieval languages, taxonomies, categorisations, lexicons, thesauri, or ontologies. They are now seen as schemes that organize, manage, and retrieve information.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: B.C. Vickery (2008) "On ‘knowledge organisation’" published on lucis.me.uk, 2008.
“Interaction is the mode of life of living organisms. Each must feed on its environment, ingesting chemicals or other organisms. This is something more than "interaction", it is activity directed towards the environment. Since the organism must be selective in what it ingests, it needs to discriminate among the entities in its environment. From very primitive forms of discrimination, the sensory mechanisms of organisms have evolved into the senses of man, interpreted by an internal cognitive apparatus, memories of past experiences, and an ability to take rational decisions. By "rational" I mean activity that achieves intended results because it is based on a reliable understanding of the nature of the environment. In interacting with each other to carry out tasks jointly, men have further developed language, leading to a shared understanding of the environment. This shared understanding is knowledge.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Brian Vickery (2009) "The development of knowledge" on lucis.me.uk, 2009.
“The most important characteristic of documentary classification is that it is concerned with subjects, not just entities of taxonomic classification. What is the nature of the specific subjects - the themes on which books, parts of books, articles or parts of articles are written? A study of book titles alone would suggest that literary subjects have simple names like 'War, Religion', 'Boats', 'Musica; pitch', 'Colour', 'Acridines', 'Wild flowers', and so on. But the study of articles on the documentation level reveals that such titles are simple in appearance only. Such a literary subject is in reality a complex aggregate of specific subjects, eahc which is the main theme discussed from one particular aspect.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 8; Partly cited in Nigerian Library and Information Science Review (1987). Vol 5-8. p. 44.
“Throughout the nineteenth century, apart from the division in theoretical sciences and arts, classifiers attempted to divide the sciences into two groups. Already they had before them the examples of Francis Bacon (speculative and descriptive) and Hobbes (quantitative and qualitative). For Coleridge, the sciences were either pure (Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, Mathematics, Metaphysics) or mixed. Arthur Schopenhauer’s similar groups were called pure and empirical, Wilhelm Wundt in 1887 called them formal and empirical, Globot mathematical and theoretical, and the St. Louis Congress of Arts and Sciences (1904) normative and physical. made similar division of the sciences into abstract and concrete”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Four years ago, when the first edition of this book was written, information retrieval was beginning to crystallize out as a unified discipline. The process has gone further today. Several other books... have also offered a general survey, although each has contributed its own special emphasis. Many conferences on the subject have been held, and a constant stream of new articles has appeared, both in documentation journals and in those in the data processing field. Information retrieval is now recognized as a discipline, and further advances in theory are being made, What I described in the first edition as the key operation in retrieval — the subject description of documents — is being explored theoretically and experimentally, although we are still a long way from reducing this operation to rule (Chapter 3). There has been less new work on the design of descriptor languages, although ideas on the display of descriptor relations through thesauri and 'semantic maps' have been developed (Chapter 4). Access to files has been examined, particularly by those experienced in data processing.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Preface to second edition (1965). p. v.
“The term “information science” first appeared in the guise of “information scientist”. Particularly in industry during recent decades, some qualified scientists moved out of research, development of production into a new occupational role, that of providing an active information service to their colleagues. They regarded themselves as “information” scientists rather than “research” scientists. As this kind of work expanded and became formalized the need was seen to provide training for those who would enter the occupation. In time, the content of this training came to be called 'information science'.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My first encounter with the concept of "information service" came with the reading of The Social Function of Science by Desmond Bernal, first published in 1939-a work that stimulated a whole generation of young scientists to think about the role of science in society, its organisation, its future. In it, he wrote that in every laboratory "there should be someone deputed to watch the whole of current literature for items which might be relevant to the work of the laboratory, and to be able to indicate without loss of time where such items are likely to be found." Such a person "would have to be chosen partly for his comprehensive scientific interests, which need to be much greater than those of the other laboratory workers, and partly for his inclination to systematic thinking." Already I felt that I might be suited to such a role.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Information practice... consists of two activities that we may call diagnosis and prevention. Diagnosis is identifying what is the most probable information need of a user in a particular state of information want. Provision is deciding what action is most likely to meet that need. Information science seeks to understand the potential range of user situations giving rise to information want and needs; to develop methods of identifying the actual information needed; to understand and expand the range of possible ways of satisfying information need; and to develop methods of deciding what way is most likely to be effective in a particular case.”
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. xxii-xxiii; As cited in: Lyn Robinson and David Bawden (2011).