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Brian Campbell Vickery Quotes (1918-2009)
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About Brian Campbell Vickery
Brian Campbell Vickery (September 11, 1918 β October 17, 2009) was a British information scientist and classification researcher, and Professor and director at the School of Library, Archive and Information Studies at University College London from 1973 to 1983.
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βCitation does not necessarily reflect current demand.β
βThe principles of information science apply, whatever the medium of transfer.β
βLooking back, I ask myself why so little of the basic research has had an impact on professional practice.β
βUser needs determine what functions should be provided, and different functions require different structures.β
βIt is with this whole cycle [between generation and use of information] that information science is now concerned.β
βDocumentation is a practice concerned with all the processes involved in transferring documents from sources to users.β
βThe job of our profession is to facilitate the provision of knowledge (in all forms) to those who need it (for whatever purpose).β
βThe crux of the retrieval problem is that selecting documents to read grows ever more difficult, and new techniques are continually needed.β
βClassification in its simplest terms, means putting together things or ideas that are alike, and keeping separate those that are different.β
βThe scientific study of the communication of information in society β βinformation scienceβ in the sense of an academic discipline...β
βFacet analysis results in more varied, multidimensional relationships, at least in theory, better reflecting the complexity of subject knowledgeβ
βFor 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.β
βInformation science is concerned with every aspect of the chain of information transfer activities, but the heart of its interest is information search.β
βThe old-established groups in the information profession... have come to recognise that many other social groups are concerned with information transfer.β
βDespite the fact that our profession constantly urges others to βconsult the literatureβ, I do not think we are distinguished nowadays by knowledge of our heritage.β
β[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).β
βI 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.β
βThe 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.β
βPerhaps an underlying cause [of doubt as to the future of information science] is in some cases... the apprehension that information science may become βsubmergedβ in the larger field of computer science.β
βVaried 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.β
β[The particular concern of the information scientist] is with the process as a whole β the interaction between the three elements [information behaviour, records, channels] that leads to people becoming informed.β
βIn scientific information, then, we find that subjects - the themes and topics on which books and articles are written - cluster into fields, each of which can be analysed into its characteristic set of facets of terms.β
βInformation science is identified as... the study of the communication of information in society. This meaning is only beginning to emerge from its practical background, the social activity of facilitating information transfer.β
βHistory presents a series of cultural epochs. Each is a span of years within which knowledge presents a more or less unified structure which can be expressed in a classification, but each new epoch requires a new classification.β
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Brian Campbell Vickery on Telecommunication 2 quotes
βInformation systems, at any level of complexity above that of speech, necessarily involve technologies such as printing, telecommunications, or computers. However, to information science technical potentialities and constraints are of importance mainly in that they affect the social relations concerned.β
Brian Campbell Vickery on Hermeneutics
βThere 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 β¦ The theory of a science should spring from deep immersion in its practice.β
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Ia C. McIlwaine on Brian Campbell Vickery
β[The Classification Research Group (CRG) members] Vickery, Coates and Mills... hold honoured places in the development of indexing techniques. The 1950s to early 1960s saw the publication of three major works on indexing, which between them span the retrieval problems of the whole spectrum of knowledge. This was the time when Butterworth were publishing a range of classic reference sources for the professional librarian. The first was Vickeryβs Classification and indexing in science (1958), followed by Foskettβs Classification and indexing in the social sciences (1963) and finally Langridgeβs Classification and indexing in the humanities (1976). These three works, though designed principally as textbooks, expound many universal principles as well as highlighting the specific problems that the various groups of disciplines present and the solutions that have been adopted.β
ISKO UK on Brian Campbell Vickery
βBrian was an enormously influential figure in the field of classification and information retrieval, a powerful force in the development of faceted classification and retrieval theory, and a prolific writer and researcher throughout his life.β
Blaise Cronin on Brian Campbell Vickery
βBrian Vickery was a true pioneer of Anglo-American information science, the embodiment of a style, both scholarly and personal, that is today little in evidence. He made lasting contributions to the field and will be missed greatly by many.β
About Brian Campbell Vickery
Brian Campbell Vickery (September 11, 1918 β October 17, 2009) was a British information scientist and classification researcher, and Professor and director at the School of Library, Archive and Information Studies at University College London from 1973 to 1983.