5th International ISKO Conference in Lille, August 1998
The next international ISKO conference will be held in Lille, France. Thus, the original plans for Twente, the Netherlands, have been changed. Dr Widad Mustafa-Elhadi, UFR IDIST/CREDO, Université Charles de Gaulle, will chair the conference in Lille. Preliminary conference dates are 26-28 August 1998, right after IFLA in Amsterdam. Lille can be reached by train from Amsterdam, and is quite close to Amsterdam. Call for Papers will be issued soon, and published in the next issue of KO. The overall theme of the conference is "Structures and Relationships in Knowledge Organization". Dr Mustafa-Elhadi can be contacted at: UFR IDIST/CREDO, Université Charles De Gaulle Lille 3, BP 149, 59653 Villeneuve D’Ascq, France. Phone: +33 3 20 41 64 64 08, Fax: +33 3 20 41 63 79, e-mail: mustafa@univ-lille3.fr.
French ISKO Chapter Announces Its First Conference
Under the name of "Journees du Chapitre Francais de l’ISKO" the French ISKO group will hold its first national study conference in Lille, on October 16-17, this year. The topic is: “Knowledge Organization as element in representational and information retrieval systems”
In a preparatory meeting of the Chapter held in Paris on April 25, three main single themes were outlined for the “Journees":
T1 - Schemes of modelization of data and knowledge.
Semantic primitives, prototypes, statistic and neuronal modeling, classifications, thesauri, terminology, authority files, ontologies: objects and relations;
T2 - Processes of extraction and modeling.
Knowledge extraction from text, quantitative techniques of concept modeling, expression of qualitative and quantitative approaches;
T3 - Domains of applications
Structures of collections and of documents, design of access interfaces, especially in a distributed and multilingual context, Internet, data mining, technical editing, translation.
Proposals for papers (one sheet of paper or so) are invited to be sent in before June 30, 1997.
Acceptance of proposals will be notified till July 15, 1997. Papers, preferably in French, to be delivered till Sept. 15. All contributions will be published by Presses Universitaires du Septentrion (Presses universitaires de Lille). Place of venue: Universite Charles de Gaulle, Lille.
For all further questions, please contact:
Prof. Jacques Maniez
ISKO-France
61, rue de la Corvee
F - 21000 Dijon
Tel. 038 041 35 40
E-mail: 106407. 137@compuserve.com
Winfried Schmitz-Esser
German Thesaurus Committee working on Standards draft
The German Committee for Classification and Thesaurus Research met on May 16, 1997, in Frankfurt to discuss the progress achieved so far on its draft proposal for specifications of a machine-readable, domain-independent, multilingual semantic encyclopedia (thesaurus) capable of serving as knowledge base for both advanced linguistic engineering as well as information retrieval applications.
Another, equally important goal is more compatibility between thesauri so as to facilitate, e.g., exchange of thesaurus contents in different thesaurus types and on different levels of specificity.
Part of the discussions in Frankfurt was devoted to some peculiarities of the
French version of this draft which had been sent to the members of the ISKO chapter for comment some weeks earlier.The Committee also made itself acquainted with the basic ideas behind a four-language thesaurus project proposed for the World Exhibition of the year 2000 (to be staged in Hanover as “EXPO 2000"). This project is seen as an opportunity of a major test to verify the theses elaborated by the Committee. (A more detailed outline of this proposal will be given in one of the forthcoming issues of IC).KTF is a specialized body of the German Society for Documentation (DGD). It closely co-operates with ISKO on various levels and occasions, and with numerous KTF-members also serving on ISKO bodies. Winfried Schmidtz-Esser
3rd Spanish ISKO Conference in Madrid, November 1997
The third Spanish ISKO conference and national assembly will be held next Autum in Getafe (Madrid) on November 19-20th. The meeting will include panels on Knowledge Organization theory, teaching and research and development. The meeting will in particular consider the challenges our discipline is facing as eletronic and remote information systems become the standard knowledge organization environment. Hanne Albrechtsen, general ISKO president, will deliver the inaugural lecture on "Knowledge Organization and the Information Society - from Centralized and Standard Orderings towards Customized Information Ecologies?". Emilia Curras, the Spanish ISKO-Chapter president, will close the conference with a speech on "Dialectics and Knowledge Organization." Colleagues all around the world are invited to contribute. Contact person: Javier Garcia Marco. Facultad de Filosofia y Letras. Universidad de Zaragoza. 50.009 Zaragoza (Spain). Tfno: + 34 976 761000 ext. 3830. Fax: + 34 976 761506. E-mail: isko@posta.unizar.es