Keywords: digital humanities, OCR, READ‑COOP, artificial intelligence, Transkribus platform, HTR+, SKRIPTOR project, Andrej Kmeť, schwabacher, fraktur, antiqua, read & search
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Keywords: document, medium, document theory, communication models, IFLA LRM
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Keywords: Teplice, church music, thematic catalogue, collection of sheet music, composers, choir-masters, contrafacta, Gellert, 18th century, 19th century
]]>Keywords: non‑invasive survey safety, video spectral comparator, multispectral analysis, radiography, paper, leather
]]>Ing. Petra Vávrová, Ph.D., Mgr. Jitka Neoralová, Dana Hřebecká, Ing. Kristýna Kohoutová, MgA. Anna Kulíčková, Bc. Marie Matysová, Daniela Popelková, Tomáš Blecha / Odbor ochrany knihovních fondů, Oddělení vývoje a výzkumných laboratoří, Národní knihovny České republiky (Division of preservation of library collections, Department of development and experimental laboratories of the National Library of the Czech Republic), Klementinum 190, 110 00 Prague 1, Czech Republic
Introduction
Bookbinding represents a rich source not only of textual and visual information, but it is also a physical document of art and craft creation of a binder, contemporary trend of technology of production, and last but not least a document of history of proper existence reverberating in defects from wear and tear and from natural decomposition of materials. Technology of making books and their damages are often hidden beneath layers of materials, and it is possible to find them out without invasive intervention only with difficulty. By the help of through illuminative technology making use of X-rays, it is possible to penetrate not destructively below the surface of outer layers to inner structures and structural elements of bookbinding. Within the frame of the grant project of the Ministry of Culture NAKI II with name "Utilization of imaging methods for study of hidden information in books", the workplace of the Department of development and experimental laboratories of the National library CR (hereinafter also NL CR) was equipped with an x-ray box, a part of which is an X-ray source and digital detector of flat panel type. Information on used technologies, materials, and their conditions are fundamental also for historic, artistic and scientific understanding of bookbinding.
Box arrangement for digital radiography – x-ray system – contains shielded lead box, in which x-ray generator is placed for lower energy of 120 kV, and a flat digital detector making possible an active view and adjustment of image on recording in connected computer. Images are processed in original software X-Test, which controls at the same time the source of radiation, processes images, and saves the record in a form of static images and also videos. The box itself is equipped with electronically controlled sliding table, allowing moving in the horizontal and vertical directions.
This equipment was purchased for detailed testing of possibilities and limitations of X-ray in a survey, which focused on visualization of hidden elements, layers, or damages in layers of bookbinding materials. Possibilities of bookbinding survey in situ are very limited. It is impossible to penetrate to most parts of the binding structure without violation of upper layers. Recycled materials often occur in binding in historic collections, as cut parchment foils, sheets of books, letters, spoiled print waste, and other materials, which may be older than the specimen itself. It is possible to find them in a book back part beneath coating, on covers, as flaps, whole pasted papers of the covers, or endpapers. It is thus possible to obtain locked up information of priceless value of historic and also modern bindings just by the help of radiography.
For survey of book collections, X-rays of energies in order of values of tens keV is used first of all with respect to material composition (paper, textile, wood, leather, parchment, and in smaller extent also metal). The surveyed object is placed between the source of radiation and radiation detector in position enabling to obtain image of a given element of bookbinding, whereas taking of photographs proceeds inside the closed, radiation shielding box. The object is radiographed by radiation produced by X-ray tube housed in the upper part of the box, and image is photographed by image detector (flat, or flat panel) placed in the lower part of the box. Grades of grey in the obtained image represent higher or lower measure of x-ray absorption in the given part of the object. Darker shades correspond to materials more absorbing radiation (especially metals), lighter areas represent materials less absorbing radiation (paper, textile, leather, etc.). Another factor determining total quantity of absorbed radiation (and therefore also shade of grey in the image) is also thickness of radiographed material. Last but not least the grade of grey depends also on graphic adjustments, which were performed after acquisition of the image for the purpose of provision optimum visibility of details of X-rayed elements.
A part of the tasks of project NAKI being studied is research of utilization of x-rays for study of books with the use of x-ray box, which the workplace was equipped with within the frame of the project.
Materials typical for books are paper, textile, wood, leather, parchment, and in smaller extent also metals, but also plastics or bones occur. With respect to different physical properties of these materials, different setting of equipment is needed for optimal displaying the elements of bookbinding manufactured of them, their structure and possible defects. It especially concerns suitable setting of electric current and voltage on X-ray tube, distance of X-ray tube from the detector, and distance of X-rayed object from the detector. Selection of suitable position of the book is also fundamental (or for obtaining complex information step by step, more positions of the same books), and suitable construction, which keeps the book in required position and also the distance from the detector, including suitable materials of this construction.
No less important is also subsequent graphic adjustment, again corresponding to the element of bookbinding, which we want to display, and its material. Here it concerns especially sharpening the image, adjustment of brightness, contrast, gamma correction, exposition, levelling the image, for clarity also e.g. cleaning of book background, rotation, and cut off. Insufficient visibility of the required element on the image is possible to compensate using graphical adjustments.
Settings of selected parameters of the equipment placed in the National library CR, and also found internal structures of bookbinding, which are not visible without destruction of the book are presented in the following chapters. This visualized information will then make easy for restorers or conservators to decide, which steps will be or will not be necessary to carry out for preservation of the book, or how to care about the book.
Within the frame of project NAKI II with the name "Utilization of imaging methods for study of hidden information in books" an X-ray unit was purchased on the basis of selection procedure IXS1203 with the following parameters:
Parameter |
Value |
maximum voltage |
120 kV |
current of a closed lamp within the range |
0.05-0.3 mA (36 W) |
Focus |
0.05 mm |
The source has adjustable voltage serving for generation of X-rays.
Flat digital detector XRD 1622 AP14 with active surface of size 41 x 41 cm. Detector resolution 2048×2048 pixels (pixel size 200 lm), energy corresponding to voltage range 20 kV- 15 MV. The digital detector scans images in 16-bit depth, at the speed of 1 image/sec. The image itself is an average of eight images. A control computer is equipped with software for processing photographs and control of source of radiation. The software X-test was developed by the supplier, company Testima spol. s r.o.. It makes it possible to acquire static images and videos. More precise adjustments are carried out in software Photoshop.
Procedures of graphic adjustments of images acquired by the help of x-ray will be described in detail in separate paper, now under preparation.
Voltage applied on X-ray tube affects shape of energetic spectra of photons produced by X-ray tube, i.e. photons of what energies are produced, and in what proportion, but it also affects a total number of produced particles.
While using higher voltage on X-ray tube, formation of larger amount of photons occurs, and at the same time mean energy of these photons increases, and also maximum possible energy of each of produced photon. With increasing photon energy, simultaneously typically increases half-thickness, i.e. material thickness through which half of photons passes from bunch of photons of given energy.
With increasing material thickness it is therefore reasonable to select higher voltage in taking of photographs, so that sufficient particle number passed through this thicker material layer, and the image is then sufficiently light.
With increasing proton number Z of an element, half-thickness drops down for photons of particular unchanging energy. To achieve similar lightness of the image, and so that structures in material are perceptible, i.e. sufficient particle number passes through the material, it is then necessary to increase energy of passing through photons, i.e. increase voltage, with increasing proton number of an element, or effective proton number of material. On the other hand, structures formed of materials with low effective proton number are advisable to be displayed when using lower voltage, so that sufficient inhibition of a bunch in material occurs, and structures are recognizable in the image.
Voltage is adjustable within the limits of 40 – 120 kV in case of the apparatus.
For materials typically used in book manufacturing, the following can be stated on the basis of preliminary results: When displaying details of parts of a book, which are formed of paper, textile (including gauze, threads, etc.), leather or parchment, or thin layer of wood, it is advisable to set lower voltage from the given range. In case of thin layers of these materials, it is most suitable to use voltage of 65 – 70 kV. For thicker layers, e.g. wooden book covers, higher voltage, approximately 70 – 80 kV is more suitable because of necessity to radiate material through. For metals it is necessary to use high voltage (usually 120 kV) – if these are not in a very thin layers.
In addition to material of the component under examination, it is necessary to take into account also materials, which overlay the component – voltage must be big enough so that sufficient number of photons passes through the whole object to obtain a high-quality image. When placing a book to be X-rayed, it is necessary to observe that the component of bookbinding is displayed in the image under angle suitable for easy interpretation of the image. When setting the apparatus, but also suitable position of the book, when taking of photographs, it is necessary to consult within a cross-disciplinary team (specialist in the field of bookbinding, book designer, physicist).
By the help of x-rays passing through, it is possible to display presence of materials, and also proper structure of the material (textile structure, year rings of wood). In some cases the internal structure in the image needs to be suppressed so that complication in interpretation of other elements of bookbinding, which are overlapped by this material in the image, does not happen.
In most materials used for book manufacturing the internal structure is not visible in the image, when using our settings of the apparatus (usually because the structure is too small or too low-contrast in the image). When determining the material, it is therefore necessary to orientate oneself especially according to the extent of material darkness in the image in comparison with other (known) materials visible in the image. For example, formations in cardboard book cover may appear all likewise distinctive and dark at voltage 65 kV, however, while using voltage 100 kV, it is easy to distinguish, in which cases it concerns only more expressive inhomogeneities, and in which cases it concerns metal inclusions, because metal is in contrast to inhomogeneities also at higher voltages always expressively visible in the image.
At the same applied voltage, but higher current, the energy spectrum of produced particles has the same shape, however, the amount of produced particles increases. Whereas smaller quantity of particles is generally produced at lower voltages, than at higher ones and identical current, to achieve similar average darkness of the image, it is necessary to increase current with decreasing voltage while preserving values the of other parameters.
If it is possible, it is advisable to set current already while acquiring images so that the obtained image is reasonably light. Unfortunately, especially when using low voltage, this possibility is limited by maximum adjustable current, which is given by technical possibilities of the apparatus.
In case of the apparatus used in NL CR and its setting in the laboratory, current is adjustable within the limits 0 – 300 A. To achieve sufficient lightness of images at voltage of about 60 – 80 kV, the highest adjustable current 300 A is used. Especially at voltage 60 – 65 kV, number of photons impinging on detector is in such a case low, i.e. the images are very dark. When using higher voltages, no matter whether due to thicker material layers, or materials with higher effective proton number, it is advisable to correct current so that suitable lightness or darkness of the image is achieved in the area of interest.
With respect to divergence of bunch of x-ray photons, the image is acquired with certain magnification, when placing the book to non-zero distance from the detector, whereas this magnification increases with the object distance from the detector.
If the specimen is placed directly on the detector, it is advisable that the detector is covered with a layer of protective material, which prevents the detector from contamination and scratching in case of sharp components of the object to be radiographed. It is important to use a thin layer of material, which has the greatest half-thickness possible for photons of applied energies, i.e. the largest part of bunch of photons possible passes through it without changes. At the same time this material should not have visible internal structure so that overlapping of book components under examination does not occur in the image, which would make interpretation of the image more difficult. Polyester film Melinex was assessed as the most suitable from materials of thickness of 75 µm, which is inert to bookbinding materials, and does not change parameters of the image.
Similar demands apply also on construction material, which holds the book in required position and required height above the detector, as on protective material. With respect to book weight, however, higher demands are applied on strength of the bookbinding material, which wholly or from part eliminate some materials suitable for protection of the detector. It is necessary to fasten the book outside the area displayed on the image. In such a case it is possible to use also materials heavily absorbing X-rays.
The main reasons, why to change the distance of X-ray tube from the detector, are size changes of radiated parts of the detector, and possibility of pronounced enlargement of distance of the X-rayed object from the detector.
With respect to divergence of bunch of photons produced by X-ray tube, enlargement of diameter of circular radiated part of the detector, i.e. the part of the detector, where the image is formed, occurs with increasing distance of X-ray tube from the detector. This phenomenon, when increasing the distance of X-ray tube from the detector, is advisable to utilize in the event that we require the image of the whole book, dimensions of which exceed the radiated part of the detector. First of all, with respect to divergence of bunch of photons with increasing distance of X-ray tube from the detector, particle number impinging on radiated part of the detector on a unit of area declines, therefore, it is necessary to use higher current, or higher voltage, or both, at greater distance of X-ray tube from the detector to obtain similarly light image.
Increasing the distance of X-ray tube from the detector makes possible to locate the object to greater distance from the detector, whereby recording of a larger part of the subject may be achieved, or at taking of photographs of the whole object "in parts", a necessary number of images is reduced for make-up the image of the entire object. The disadvantage is a darker image, and necessity to increase current, while it may not be possible to sufficiently increase current for low voltage. In such a case it is necessary to increase voltage, which may reflect on lowered contrast in the area of the structures composed of lighter elements.
The distance of X-ray tube from the detector is in case of our apparatus at present adjustable within the limits of 49 – 92 cm.
To display fine structures formed of lighter elements (e.g. textile, etc.), it is advisable to X-ray with the largest magnification possible. However, it is necessary to take into account also changes, which were made during taking of photographs, as voltage setting for achieving acceptable (and to the suitable form graphically customizable) lightness of the image.
The results of radiography of bookbinding are obtained images, which are then basis for graphical work at investigation of book collections by the help of the x-ray system. Each image can be defined as a square with visible visual field of X-ray, therefore, the object under examination is inscribed into a circle, borders of which are black. The required resulting image can be found inside the circle, and in its first form it is very dark. A great number of images acquired at different settings is supplied for graphical adjustment. The largest number of items of important information remains preserved with such a procedure, which subsequently may be highlighted in a graphic programme.
An image saved in format .tiff makes it possible to preserve high quality of the image, and at the same time it is compatible with Adobe Photoshop programme. The performer can it directly open, and further also continue in saving it to the format after its modification, because its main advantage is preservation of layers of modifications, to which it is possible to return later.
The first part of systematic evaluation was carried out so far of what materials and elements of bookbinding are viewable by the help of the equipment, and in case of successful displaying - what setting at taking of images and what graphic modification are most suitable for the given material and element. A part of this subject is also systematic investigation focused on the type and material of the structure: what construction and which materials are suitable for holding the book in required position, and distance from the detector during taking of images, so that minimal possible interference of the image fixation system itself occurs. Examples of various settings of the apparatus and graphic modifications for different materials, or parts of the book, are given in Figs. 1 and 2.
Fig. 1, 2 A book at two various settings of the apparatus, images are also graphically modified in a different way. Damage of covering cloth in the area of folding on the upper edge of the book (it is unsticking and tucking up) can be seen on the first image. Details of metal pins are better visible in the second image (Fig. 2). In both cases the book is placed 36 cm above the detector covered with a foil, X-ray tube 49 cm from the detector, current 300 A; irradiation time for image acquisition is 1 s. The first image (Fig. 1): voltage on X-ray tube 75 kV; graphic modification: cut off; gamma correction 1.40; exposure -0,50; brightness1 70; contrast1 100; brightness2 50; contrast2 100. The second image (Fig. 1): voltage on X-ray tube 100 kV. Graphic modification: cut off; brightness 70; contrast1 50.
Sämtliche Werke, Anastasius Grün, 19th century
In this chapter concrete examples of application of above-mentioned principles on particular specimens of books are given with a view of setting the apparatus. Selection of the most suitable settings for obtaining optimum images proceeded by visual estimation of several images obtained at slightly different settings selected on the basis of mentioned principles. Modification of images proceeded in collective discussion in cross-disciplinary team – X-ray specialist, conservator, bookbinder, graphic designer. Here it concerns not only optimum extent of image lightness and suitable contrast; as it is obvious, in some cases it is necessary to make a compromise in selection of settings so that all requirements on image are satisfactorily met.
Radiography serves for detection of defects, it is possible to judge degree of degradation of an object as such. An important result is finding the method of the binding structure, condition of structural elements or unpredictable findings, e.g. inserted materials or other elements, secondary repairs or interventions, etc. – it all without damaging the original. Examples of particular results are presented here, acquired by this method with description of internal, hidden binding elements and structures – characteristic elements and defects could not be observable without application of this method.
It has been proved that hidden cavities, metal debris hidden in paper, pins and other metallic objects can be seen on the radiogram, which need not be visible on the surface. In addition to metal chips in paper, stains of iron oxides in paper, wire pins connecting twin sheets in a component, and other hidden metallic objects, there is a number of metallic components, which are visible. Also in the event of visible metallic components, radiography can bring new information. Metallic elements are most often made of iron, brass, or bronze. Elements made of iron may have surface treatment (e.g. surface layer of nickel) in order to increase resistance to corrosion.
Environment of books and book depository is chemically aggressive to metals. Volatile organic compounds, which cause corrosion, may release from paper, textile, parchment, leather, glues, and other materials. Optimum relative humidity in depositories is usually about 50±5 %. This combination is sufficient enough to cause damage to metal elements by corrosion. Metal elements may be of thin material, generally because of reduction of weight and price. If thin metal elements are weakened by corrosion, their strength can fall down so much that they fail to resist to mechanical strain, to which they are subject in books. Corrosion leads to dilution of material, to reduction of its strength, and migration of corrosion products to surroundings. It can be seen on radiogram. Migration of corrosion products can negatively affect the material, of which a book is made. Using X-ray radiation it is possible to observe also material defects in metal elements of bookbinding itself. All these observable phenomena make possible to estimate occurrence of aggravated mechanical properties, or lowered service life – and totally non-destructively. On the basis of this information it is possible to better select the most suitable restorer´s procedure, than without having this information.
Fig. 3 Separate wooden book cover partly coated with a metal plate. In the area, where metal layer is not placed, there are displayed (invisible by naked eye) year rings of wood itself. The book cover was placed directly on the detector covered with a foil, X-ray tube in distance 49 cm from the detector, voltage on X-ray tube 70 kV, current 300 A, irradiation time for image acquisition 1s. Graphic modification: cut off; retouch by the help of tools patch and pointed retouch brush; gamma correction 1.50; exposition +2.00; contrast 100 (application on the internal structure).
Nebeklíč, 19th century.
Fig. 4 Front board of the book. The bard is coated with bone slices, the sculpture is held in place with little metal nails. The book was placed 36 cm above the detector coated with a foil, X-ray tube in distance 64 cm from the detector, voltage on X-ray tube 110 kV, current 300 A, irradiation time for image acquisition 1 s. Graphic modification: cut off; levels: shift of white; brightness -30; contrast 100.
Albacha Posvátní zvukové, P. J. Herčík, 2nd half of 19th century.
Fig. 5 Book back sewn on raised bands. Ligaments themselves are formed of a simple cord. Seal up with strips of gauze is perceptible between the ligaments. Year rings are also well perceptible on wooden boards. The book placed 36 cm above the detector coated with a foil, X-ray tube in distance 49 cm from the detector, voltage on X-ray tube 90 kV, current 300 A, irradiation time for image acquisition 1 s. Graphic modification: cut off; retouch by the help of tools patch and pointed retouch brush; levels: shift of white; brightness 32; contrast 83.
Animadversiones in regulas et usum critices, R. P. Honorato and S. Maria, 1751.
Fig. 6 Book back with false ligaments. Incision for sewing in the backbone is distinctly visible, which is positioned outside placing of strips of false ligaments. The book placed 66 cm above the detector coated a foil, X-ray tube in distance 79 cm from the detector, voltage on X-ray tube 110 kV, current 300 A, irradiation time for image acquisition 1 s. Graphic modification: cut off; brightness 150; contrast 14; levels: shift of white.
Odyssey of Homer, William Cowper, 1855.
Fig. 7 Image of vertically placed book. Clips are fixed to the book cover with bent metal wire. The book placed directly on the detector coated with a foil, X-ray tube in distance 49 cm from the detector, voltage on X-ray tube 120 kV, current 300 A, irradiation time for image acquisition 1 s. Graphic modification: cut off; gamma correction 2.00; exposition +1.50.
Pomněnky ve vínek nebeský, Václav Beneš Třebízský, 19th century.
Fig. 8 Strips of clips of book cover. Damage of the wooden board with leather strips from perforated clips is perceptible in the upper part of the image. Migration of iron corrosion products and also fixation of strips by the help of little nails are perceptible in leather. The book placed directly on the detector coated with a foil, X-ray tube in distance 49 cm from the detector, voltage on X-ray tube 75 kV, current 300 A, irradiation time for image acquisition 1 s. Graphic modification: cut off; levels: shift of white; brightness 33; contrast 100; curves: increasing contrast. Animadversiones in regulas et usum critices, R. P. Honorato and S. Maria, 1751.
In some cases, when displaying units invisible by naked eye, it is difficult to determine their size, especially if there are not displayed any of its components of known sizes in a part of the book shown in the image. This problem can be solved by application of a scale manufactured specifically for purposes of radiography, as it is shown in Fig. 9.
Fig. 9 A hidden element in the front board of the book. The book (together with gauge with smallest division of 2 mm as a scale) placed 66 cm above the detector with coated foil, X-ray tube in distance 79 cm from the detector, voltage on X-ray tube 105 kV, current 300 A, irradiation time for image acquisition 1 s. Graphic modification: cut off; retouch by the help of tools patch and pointed retouch brush; gamma correction 1.50; exposition +1.10; brightness1 20; contrast1 100; contrast2 20.
Za černožlutou oponou (Behind black and yellow curtain), Jaroslav Kunz, 1st half of 20th century.
Non-destructive examination by the help of radiography will help non-destructively detect problematic material and its condition earlier, than serious damage occurs not only in material itself, but of the entire object – a book. Information acquired in this way serves for historical, artistic, scientific understanding of bookbinding. Radiography thus becomes an important tool for obtaining pieces of knowledge on bookbinding and its physical condition without destructive intervention. The method can be generally considered as safe for radiographed materials of bookbinding. Direct displaying follows only dispersion of particles in dependency on chemical composition of the material under examination. Parts of the object, which photons pass through without changes of energy, are shown as light spots in direct displaying (extent of interaction can be judged by comparison with surroundings of the object, where particles have nothing to interact with) – which is mostly just the case of paper and other organic materials, which do not contain heavier elements (other than C, N, O, H). Darker spots represent parts of the object containing heavy elements – classically metals (Fe, Cu …), they present areas, where interaction of primary particles of radiation occurs as well as loss of their original energy. The higher beam voltage, the smaller interaction with the material. A particle, which has kinetic energy high enough, will pass through the material without interacting with it anyhow – without loss of its energy. A particle with lower energy and longer wavelength, typically radiation of light, which the material is capable to absorb, calls up greater response with undesirable manifestations. Radiography thus represents for organic materials smaller stress than investigation in other wavelength of radiation.
In the paper, possibilities of the method are summarized, its parameters, but final evaluation of the method is possible only after research; now detection possibilities are pursued and influence upon radiographed materials. The objective of this paper is to introduce the particular method, not to compare it with other methods or describe them. Comparison of imaging methods will be a part of more extensive work, for example certified methods, as an output of the five-year experimental project. Testing of the effect of x-ray radiation on materials of bookbinding is a part of the partial phase of the five-year experimental project, which is still in progress. At present, possibilities of displaying individual materials are tested, and under what conditions it is possible to obtain relevant information. Examples of particular results acquired by this method are presented in chapter "Typical examples of suitable displaying components of bookbinding" – characteristic elements and defects could not be observable without utilization of this method.
This paper was created within the frame of endowment programme of the Ministry of Culture CR, NAKI II No. DG18P02OVV024 in particular, with the title "Use of imaging techniques for the study of hidden information in bookbinding" (2018–2022).
VÁVROVÁ, Petra, NEORALOVÁ, Jitka, HŘEBECKÁ Dana, KOHOUTOVÁ, Kristýna, KULÍČKOVÁ, Anna, MATYSOVÁ, Marie, POPELKOVÁ, Daniela and Tomáš BLECHA.
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]]>Ing. Magda Součková, Ing. Petra Vávrová, Ph.D., Ing. Jan Francl / Národní knihovna České republiky (National Library of the Czech Republic), Klementinum 190, 110 00 Praha 1
So-called preventive conservation appears as the most effective from the long-term point of view for protection and preservation of heterogeneous materials of book collections, which is a set of measures leading to prolongation of service life of book collections, or setting such climatic parameters, which will slow or stop degradation processes evoked by external degradation factors (temperature, relative humidity, dust particles, concentration of air pollutants …). Part of preventive conservation is also production of protective cover, or box from alkaline cardboard of archive quality, and subsequent storage in depositories, where there are adjusted suitable climatic parameters for long-term storage of book collections.
Experience of the National Library of the Czech Republic with monitoring of climatic conditions in depositories over the past several tens of years, and development of monitoring methods is summarized in the paper. Brief interpretation of requirements follows for air quality for storage areas of book materials, parameters as temperature and relative air humidity, and light conditions, indoor and outdoor pollutants. Methods of air quality measurement are presented, followed by description of various types of depositories of the National Library CR. Past and present measurements of air parameters in depositories are presented in the end, as well as examples of particular results and their evaluation.
Air or atmosphere is gaseous envelopment of the Earth. It is formed of mixture of gases (78.084 % nitrogen, 20.948 % oxygen, 0.934 % argon, carbon dioxide, neon, helium, hydrogen, methane, krypton, ozone, xenon, and nitrogen oxides), and water vapour, it contains also solid and liquid particles (Leporelo, info, on line).
The National Library CR has in its foundation documents as one of the basic subjects of its activities established protection of book documents and collections, and their preservation in good physical conditions for future generations. Most of conventional book materials is of organic origin, especially paper, parchment, binding leather, and textile, cardboard and wooden book covers, recently also plastics. Indoor air quality of areas, in which book materials are located (depositories, study rooms, exhibition rooms), markedly affects speed of their degradation, and thereby also possibility of their preservation for future generations. Physical characteristics of indoor air are important, i.e. air temperature, relative humidity, light, and chemical parameters such as content and composition of pollutants.
Recommended climatic conditions for long-term storage of archive and book materials are mentioned in standard ČSN ISO 11799 "Information and documentation – Requirements for depositing archive and library documents".
Physical parameters
Generally speaking, lowering temperature and/or decreasing relative humidity prolong service life of book materials. For paper, recommended temperature for stocking is 2–18\°C with admissible daily change ±1°C, relative humidity 30–45 % with admissible daily change ±3 %. For parchment and leather (collagen materials), temperature interval is 2–18°C with admissible daily change ±1°C, relative humidity 50–60 % and admissible daily change ±3 %. Temperature and relative humidity are the most often, and at longest monitored parameters of environment air in book depositories. In the past common thermometers and hair hygrometers were used for their measurement, which indicated current values of the parameters. Thermohygrographs with recorders already recorded temperature and humidity continuously all week long, up to a month, but it was necessary to laboriously evaluate results from the acquired graphic records. At present thermohygrometers with memory are often utilized, or cable and wireless measuring systems, data loggers (data recorders), or systems sensors, which keep results of measurement in their memory as far as to the moment of downloading to PCs. or even send directly measured values to PC, so that it is possible to respond immediately to undesirable changes of climatic parameters in depositories.
Even light markedly harms organic materials, both its ultraviolet part (UV radiation, 400–10 nm), and infrared component (IR radiation, 760 nm–1 mm). The premises should be illuminated by a sources of light without UV radiation or with eliminated UV radiation (UV filters, UV-foils). Recommended illumination level of materials of book bindings should not exceed 50 lx. For illumination in depositories, where continuous operation is not expected, approximately 200 lx above the floor level is recommended. Maximum limit for admissible ultraviolet radiation is 10 μW/lm. For measurement of light intensity luxmeters are used, or data loggers with a function of measurement of light intensity and UV/IR radiation.
Chemical parameters
Generally, pollutants are impurities in environment, which come from natural or man-made sources. They can be defined as reactive chemical substances in gaseous, liquid or solid state (particles), which can be found in environment. Pollutants are formed by both external, and internal sources.
Concentrations of external pollutants depend on local climate, geographic location, type of industry, and transport facilities, used fuel, and all that. Among external pollutants with the highest degradation effect on book materials belong sulphur dioxide and other sulphur substances, nitrogen oxides, and ozone (Hatchfield 2002).
External pollutants also contain small particles: dust and aerosols. Some of these pollutants come also from internal sources: dinitrogen tetroxide from gas ¨boilers, hydrogen sulphide from some utility materials and as human bio-waste, ozone may be produced by activities of xerox or older models of laser printers. Dust is a relatively complex pollutant, which contains particles of sizes of 1 nm–100 µm of various origin, shapes and composition (Morawska, Salthammer, 2003) Fine submicron particles (< 1 µm) contain especially soot and organic substances emitted from transport and local heating, secondary organic particles of ammonium sulphate and nitrate, and also metals from waste incineration and industrial emissions. Particles from smoking or emitted from office equipment contribute to them also in internal environment. Coarse particles (> 1 µm) contain especially mineral particles from dust and emissions from transport and construction activities. In internal environment their source is usually cleaning, construction work, and especially visitors. They contribute especially by mineral dust brought on shoes and dresses, textile grains from clothing, and particles of dead skin. Microorganisms and mildew spores also belong to coarse particles. Various harmful effects correspond also to different origin and composition. Fine particles deposit on all accessible surfaces. Soot and organic materials cause contamination, secondary organic and inorganic particles (they were formed by reaction of primary particles emitted directly to air) may be of acidic nature and contribute to degradation of materials, often with catalytic effects of present metals (ASHRAE 2011). Secondary particles are also hygroscopic, and support thus dampening of surfaces (Seinfeld, Pandis, 2006). Coarse particles deposit only on horizontal surfaces facing upwards. Mineral particles are abrasive, and cause especially mechanical damage, particles from building activities are of alkaline nature. Deposited particles also absorb gaseous pollutants, and are suitable nutritive substrate for growth of microorganisms.
Recommended concentrations of air borne pollutants according to standard ISO/DIS 11799 are mentioned in Table 1. Units SI are given – the values are recalculated to concentrations in SI units.
Table 1 Recommended concentrations of air borne pollutants
Acetic acid, formic acid, and formaldehyde are the most acting internal pollutants on book materials. They are released from wood, some glues, colours, and also from proper book materials (owing to degradation of paper, acetate materials, etc.). Table 2 gives concentrations of these materials in natural environment and concentrations recommend for storage premises for collection objects.
Table 2 Volatile organic compounds from internal sources, which can be found inside buildings (Grzywacz, 2006)
Presence and concentration of contaminating materials can be measured directly by advanced instrumental methods (chemiluminiscence, infrared spectrometry, photometry, and the like.)1, or air samples are taken either actively by suction (Draeger tube, low-pressure cascade impactors)2, or passively. Samples are subsequently evaluated in a laboratory. For long-term measurements in depositories, passive samplers are used, which are located for a longer time in the depository (often for one month), and after it they are evaluated again in laboratory using instrumentally or visually (A-D strips, Purafil coupons, sampler Radiello, dosage meters EWO and MEMORY, etc.)3 (Součková, 2009).
Generally, to achieve higher quality of internal library air, and thus slow degradation of book materials, it is necessary to find out and nominate risks of damage of particular collection materials. Quality of internal air is necessary to determine for that. Further running measurements of climate quality is important for keeping optimum storage conditions as a precaution before speeding degradation.
Measurement of temperature and humidity in depositories of NL CR
The National Library CR located its collections in depositories in three localities. Permanent depository NL can be found in these buildings at present: Klementinum – Prague 1, Hostivař – Prague 15, and Neratovice – Central Bohemia region. These depositories are very different in their essence, no matter whether due to their location, or building type and their age.
Klementinum
It concerns a complex of historical buildings located in the centre of Prague. It originated from 16th century, and it was converted in 1930s for the needs of library. At present, the entire building of Klementinum, including depositories, passes through expansive reconstruction. In Klementinum, about two millions of books (either modern or historic) are located. Whereas it concerns a cultural memory, structural and other modifications are limited there. In the given object, air-conditioned depositories can be found (temperature and relative humidity are conditioned), in partly air-conditioned ones (only relative humidity is conditioned by the help of air *dampers), and no air-conditioned ones (neither temperature nor relative humidity are conditioned). Collections of books are located on stationary and also sliding (compact) bookshelves made of metal or wood (historic). Climatic conditions (temperature, relative humidity) are in a given object permanently monitored either by the help of wireless measuring system Hanwell, or by the help of portable thermohygrometer Commeter S 3120.
*humidifiers
Central depository Hostivař (CDH)
The depository is situated in the Prague suburb in the proximity of incineration plant of communal waste and busy automobile transport in Průmyslová Street. It concerns an object formed of a combination of a new building from 2012, and an older building opened in 1996 after *reconstruction of a manufacturing plant of a one-time state contribution organization Exhibitions from the middle of 20th century. In Hostivař, over 7 million of library collections are located (the new building – 2 millions of library collections, the converted building – 5 millions of library collections). The depositories are situated *in four stories in the new building, and *in three stories in the converted one. The deposit premises in both objects are windowless. Only air-conditioned depositories can be found in the objects (adjusted temperature and relative humidity). The library collections are placed either on mobile metal *racks (new building), or on stationary metal racks (converted building). Air temperature and relative humidity are in both objects permanently monitored by the help of wireless measuring system Hanwell.
*the reconstruction of the exhibition area
*on four floors
*on three floors
*shelves
Depository of reserve collections in Neratovice
The building erected in second half of 20th century is situated in the Central Bohemia in the suburb of Neratovice in flood areas of Elbe, and in the immediate vicinity of Spolana chemical plant. About 300 thousands of book entities were placed there. At present, sorting of collections and partial transport to other depositories is under way. Storage area, in which reserve collections are deposited, is located in three above-ground windowless stories. The depository is partly air-conditioned, only temperature is conditioned by the help of heating and ventilators. Library collections are located on stationary metal racks. Temperature and relative humidity in the depository are permanently monitored by the help of cable measuring system TQS.
Premises, in which library collections are placed, have been and are continually monitored, and in case of need, climatic parameters in them adjusted and regulated. For climate measurement (temperature, relative humidity) in depositories, wireless measuring system Hanwell, cable measuring system TQS, and portable recording thermohygrometers Commeter S 3120 are used. For measurement of light conditions (intensity of illumination, intensity of UV radiation), portable luxmeter Hanwell ULM and combined instruments Elsec 765 C are used. For measurement of dustiness, portable instrument Casella Microdust Pro is used.
Wireless measuring system Hanwell (Klementinum, Hostivař)
Wireless measuring system has been installed in Klementinum since 1998, and in Hostivař since 2017, and it is continuously extended to other storage and working spaces. Wireless measuring system Hanwell is formed of sensors (thermal, humidity, light), which transmit signal (by way of amplifier) in a form of radio waves to receiver in the control unit. Here the signal is transformed to particular values, which are then saved in memory of the control unit, and the measured values are send from there to PC, with installed programme for other evaluation (graphic, tabular, statistical).
Cable measuring system TQS (Neratovice)
Cable measuring system has been installed in Neratovice since 2004. Cable measuring system TQS is formed of sensors (thermal, humidity), which transfer the sensed signals to a module, where they are transformed to particular numerical values and transferred to Internet network, from where it is possible to inspect and evaluate the given values (as graphs, tables) by the help of PC.
Portable equipment for permanent measurement of climate /recording thermohygrometers/Commeter S 3120 (Klementinum, Hostivař)
Portable equipment for permanent climate measurement (temperature, relative humidity) are deployed in storage and working premises in Klementinum and also in Hostivař depositories.
Portable equipment saves measured values in internal memory, and it is possible to download stored data and carry out evaluation (as graphs, tables) by the help of PC with installed software.
Portable equipment for measurement of light luxmeter Hanwell ULM and combined instruments Elsec 765 C
Portable equipment for measurement of light serves for actual measurement of light conditions (intensity of illumination, intensity of UV radiation).
Portable equipment for measurement of dustiness Casella Microdust Pro
Portable equipment for measurement of dustiness serves for actual measurement of dustiness.
In addition to already performed routine measurements of temperature and air dampness, and light conditions in depositories NL CR, measurements of air borne pollutants have been and are as well as at present in progress in selected localities of these depositories.4
The first measurements of air borne pollutants were performed by the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (ČHMÚ) in years 1991–1992, further in years 2006–2007 as a part of research programme of the Ministry of Culture "Research and development of new procedures in protection and preservation of precious written memories", which was solved in the National Library in years 2005–2011. It was thus possible to compare changes in pollutant concentrations after 15 years. Measurements were carried out using mobile measuring vehicle on the economic yard in premises of Klementinum (outdoor environment), and at the same time using separate measuring instruments for determination of SO2, NOx and O3 in depository of the Department of manuscripts and old printings – DMOP (internal environment). It concerned direct air analysis. It was found that quantity of SO2 in outdoor air compared to year 1992 significantly dropped (roughly six times), concentration of NOx increased both in external and internal environment of Klementinum, and ozone concentration in store room dropped compared to year 1991.
Measurement of concentration of air borne pollutants by direct air analysis is expensive, and therefore, several types of passive samplers were used for other measurements.
Indicator coupons Purafil are plastic bands half coated with a layer of silver, and half coated with a layer of copper, which may be located to environment under examination, and left there for a period of 30–60 days (Purafil 2020). It results in a layer of rust, which will be evaluated in laboratories of company Purafil, and its increase found out for a specific time interval. According to increase of a corrosive product, the monitored environment will be categorized to one of five classes of air cleanness. In depositories of NL CR, coupons were deployed in Klementinum (Slavonic library, so-called Fantovka, Baroque hall, Treasury DMOP, former Klementinum Gallery and cellar), in the depositories in Neratovice and in CDH in ground floor of the central store and in the store room of microfilms. Exposed coupon were evaluated in class C1 and C2, i.e. as fully clean and clean air, only room of Treasury DMOP was ranked to class C3 – medium air cleanness.
Other air quality measurements in NL CR were carried out using dosimeters EWO-G. This type of dosimeter was developed within the frame of European research project MASTER – Preventive Conservation Strategies for Protection of Organic Objects in Museums, Historic Building and Archives (CORDIS 2005). Measuring section of the dosimeter consists of glass platelet coated with a film of organic polymer of constant thickness. The polymer reacts with surrounding environment and becomes less transparent. The change is expressed as change in UV absorption at 340 nm measured using a spectrophotometer. Exposure time is three months, and after evaluation, tested environment is again ranked to classes 1–5. In premises of the National Library CR, four dosimeters in all were deployed. In Klementinum, measurements were carried out in the Treasury room DMOP, in th Baroque hall, and inside display case in former Klementinum Gallery. The last dosimeter was placed in the Central depository Hostivař in storeroom DMOP. The best quality of environment – Class 1, which indicate environment suitable for archives, was also found there. Remaining three measured environments rank to Class 2: suited rather for the needs of museums than depositories for long-term storage. The display case and the Treasury room DMOP at the same time approached Class 1 – suitable for archive storage, while the Baroque hall already was at the upper limit with Class 3 – unsuitable for storage.
Other type of samplers, which were used for measuring gaseous pollutants in depositories of NL CR, and till today they monitor concentration of sulphur and nitrogen oxides in the Baroque hall, are passive samplers of company SVÚOM. In years 2007–2008 they were placed in premises of Klementinum in nine measuring sites (depositories and study rooms), and in CDH on three measuring sites, both indoor and outdoor. The samplers were exposed for one month, and then evaluated in laboratory of SVÚOM.
Identified concentrations of SO2 in outdoor environment of Klementinum and Hostivař were comparable. Concentrations found in individual internal standpoints highly fluctuated. The highest values in Klementinum were found in the Baroque hall (entering of visitors), and in manuscript study room (opening of windows). In Hostivař, outdoor concentration of SO2 was higher than concentration in store room.
Concerning nitrogen oxides, large quantities are produced by automobile transport. One of samplers for measuring external concentrations of NOx was placed in Křížovnická Street at the level of 2nd floor, nevertheless, the values measured with it were higher than values of a sampler placed between ground floor and 2nd floor on courtyard of Klementinum. Values measured in CDH were lower, which again is connected with the building location. Values of NOx in depositories in CHD and in Klementinum are comparable and lower than the values in others premises of interest, routinely accessible to workers and visitors of the National Library CR.
Passive samplers of company SVÚOM have been used since 2012 for continuous measurement of concentration of sulphur and nitrogen oxides in the Baroque hall – Fig. 1.
Fig. 1 Measurement of NOx concentration in the Baroque hall in period 2012–2018 (μg.m3)
Research project "Monitoring and evaluation of internal environment in the Baroque hall of NL CR", supported by Norwegian funds dealt with evaluation of quality of internal environment of the Baroque hall in Klementinum, which serves partly as depository of historical collections, and partly as a section of visit route for public. The Health Institute with a seat in Ústí nad Labem carried out measurements of content of internal pollutants, VOCs (volatile organic compounds) in particular, in the Baroque hall and adjacent premises (a total of five sampling sites, including outdoor air) in July and November 2009, see Fig. 2. Air samples were collected, which were subsequently analysed in laboratory.
Fig. 2 Concentration of acetic acid in the corridor next to the Baroque hall and in adjacent depository (μg.m-3), active sampling, the Health Institute
Found concentrations of acetic acid, especially in closed areas of the depository, highly exceeded the recommended values (Table 3).
Table 3 Concentrations of formic and acetic acids in the Baroque hall, as measured by passive sampler NILU
High concentrations of acetic acid measured by the Health Institute are confirmed by the results of measurement of Norwegian Institute for Air Research – NILU, a partner of the project of Norwegian funds (Table 3).
Other partner of this project of Norwegian funds was the Institute of chemical processes of the Academy of Sciences CR (ÚCHP), which specializes on measurement of air quality in term of concentrations of dust particles and carbon dioxide. It carries out also chemical analyses of particles and measurement of gaseous pollutants using passive samplers. In a link to the study of air quality in the Baroque hall carried out with the use of the grant of Norwegian funds before reconstruction of the hall (2011), ÚCHP elaborated a comparative study in late 2017, which ought to find out, how air quality changed after reconstruction. In measurement in 2008, the Baroque hall was a part of visiting route, and tourists entered it. Measurement of concentrations of dust particles showed that presence of visitors increased concentration of particles up to six times. Increase in concentrations always started with entry of the first visitors, and reached a maximum at the end of opening hours. Particles concentration then gradually dropped to original values owing to their deposition on accessible surfaces (Fig. 3). Identical time course exhibited concentrations of carbon dioxide exhaled by visitors (Fig. 4).
Fig. 3 Time course of numerical concentration of coarse particles of size faction 2.5–20 µm in internal environment of the Baroque hall during measurement in 2008 (Smolík, 2018)
Fig. 4 Time course of concentration of carbon dioxide in internal environment of the Baroque hall during measurement in 2008 (Smolík, 2018)
During measurements in 2017, which were carried out already after reconstruction of the hall, change in opening hours occurred, in the first phase hall was still closed for public (13th Oct. - 13th Doc. 2017), and in the second phase (14th Dec. 2017 - 21st Jan. 2018) visits were already under way. It made possible to find out, to what degree visits affected air quality in the hall. External and internal concentrations of fine dust particles of fraction 0.3–1 µm are compared in Fig. 5. It can be seen from the figure that internal concentrations imitate the external ones, but they are markedly lower, and also that the presence of visitors (opened for visits in 14th Dec.) had virtually no effect on concentrations of fine particles.
Fig. 5 Time record of external (outdoor) and internal (indoor) concentrations of fine dust particles of fraction 0.3–1 µm (Smolík, 2018)
Time courses of external and internal concentrations of particles of fraction 1–2,5 µm are compared in Fig. 6. It can be seen from the figure that external air had very small influence on internal concentrations, because most of particles of this size was almost quantitatively captured by the buildings mass.
Fig. 6 Time record of external (outdoor) and internal (indoor) concentrations of dust particles of fraction 1–2.5 µm (Smolík, 2018)
Fig. 7 shows comparison of external and internal concentrations of coarse particles of fraction 2.5–10 µm. A pronounced effect of visitors, observed also in previous study in 2008, is perceptible from the figure.
Fig . 7 Time record of external (outdoor) and internal (indoor) concentrations of coarse dust particles of fraction 2.5-10 µm (Smolík, 2018)
Measurements of air quality on various levels have been and are in progress in depositories of NL CR . The basis is measurement of relative humidity and air temperature in all types of depositories. The depositories in Hostivař and Neratovice are not equipped with windows, light conditions are then necessary to be monitored preferentially in depositories in the historic building of Klementinum. In the new building of the depository in Hostivař regulation of climatic parameters is at very good level, and only check of possible variations or accidents is desirable.
Most information was found on air quality in the Baroque hall on the premises of Klementinum. It is given by the fact that it concereds both the depository of historic book collection, and the area incorporated into sightseeing route, and therefore accessible to public, even though only in limited extent. The Baroque hall is certainly also an attractive area in light of its historic value. Concentrations of external pollutants (SO2, NOx), internal pollutants (acetic acid), and dust particles were also monitored there. Just measurements performed in the Baroque hall show that entrance of a larger number of persons has a negative influence on air in the depository, and therefore also on condition on historic collections deposited in it.
The paper summarises information gained for several tens of years of monitoring of climatic parameters in various types of depositories in various types of buildings in the National Library of the Czech Republic (NL CR). This summary should serve for inspiration to libraries, how to monitor air quality in depositories, and how so-called preventive preservation minimizes damage of book collections. The costs on preventive preservation are in a result much lower than afterwards costly restoration of damaged pieces.
This paper was prepared within the frame of institutional support of the National Library of the Czech Republic by the Ministry of Culture CR as a research institution (IP DKRVO), Section 7: Protection of library collections.
ASHRAE, American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc. 2011. Heating, Ventilating, and Air-Conditioning Applications SI Edition, Part 23. Museums, Galleries, Archives, and Libraries, 1791 Tullie Circle, N.E., Atlanta, GA 30329, 2011, ISBN 978-1-936504-07-7.
CORDIS, 2005, available from: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/EVK4-CT-2002-00093
ČSN ISO 11799 „Informace a dokumentace – Požadavky na ukládání archivních a knihovních dokumentů", 2006, s. 8–9 (Czech standard ČSN ISO 11799 "Information and documentation – Requirements for deposition of archive and library documents", 2006 pp.8-9(.
ĎUROVIČ, Michal et al. Restaurování a konzervování archiválií a knih. Vyd. 1. Praha: Paseka, 2002. 517 s. ISBN 80-7185-383-6 (in Czech: Restoration and preservation of archival documents and books. 1st edition, Prague, Paseka, 2002, p. 517. ISBN 80-7185-383-6).
GRZYWACZ, C. M., Monitoring for Gaseous Pollutants in Museum Environments, 2006, s. 110. ISBN13: 978-0-89236-851-8.
HATCHFIELD, Pamela. B., 2002. Pollutants in the museum environment. Archetype Publications Ltd., ISBN 1-873132-96-4.
Leporelo.info Atmosféra (Air) available on: https://leporelo.info/atmosfera.
MORAWSKA, L. a T. SALTHAMMER, 2003. Indoor Environment: Airborne Particles and Settled Dust. New York: John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 978-3-527-30525-4.
PURAFIL, 2020, available on: https://www.purafil.com/products/monitoring/passive-monitoring/
SEINFELD, J. H. a S. N. PANDIS, 2006. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physic, second edition. Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 978-0-471-72018-8.
SMOLÍK, J. Kvalita ovzduší v Barokním knihovním sále Národní knihovny v Praze, Klementinum, zpráva 2018, ÚCHP AV (in Czech: Air quality in the Baroque library hall of the National Library in Prague, Klementinum, report 2018, ÚCHP AV).
SOUČKOVÁ, M. Měření polutantů v Národní knihovně České republiky, XIV. Seminář restaurátorů a historiků, Brno 2009, ISBN 978-80-7469-007-5 (in Czech: Measurement of pollutants in the National Library of the Czech Republic, XIV. Seminar of restorers and historians, Brno 2009, ISBN 978-80-7469-007-5).
SOUČKOVÁ, Magda, Petra VÁVROVÁ, Jan NOVOTNÝ, Jana DŘEVÍKOVSKÁ, Hana PAULUSOVÁ, Benjamin BARTL, Lenka BARTLOVÁ, Bronislava BACÍLKOVÁ, Roman STRAKA, Michal ĎUROVIČ, Ludmila MAŠKOVÁ a Jiří SMOLÍK.. Památkový postup „Zlepšení kvality vnitřního ovzduší knihoven a archivů s cílem významně omezit degradaci knihovních a archivních materiálů" NK ČR. 2015. (in Czech: Conservation procedure "Improvement of internal air quality in libraries and archives with the aim of significantly limit degradation of books and archive materials"). Available on: http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-260952.
Foundation document of the National Library of the Czech Republic, p. 2, available on: https://www.nkp.cz/soubory/ostatni/zrizovaci-listina-nk.pdf.
SOUČKOVÁ, Magda, VÁVROVÁ, Petra a Jan FRANCL. Měření kvality ovzduší v depozitářích Národní knihovny České republiky – metody měření a vybrané výsledky. Knihovna: knihovnická revue, 2020, 31(1), ..... ISSN 1801-3252 (in Czech: Measurement of air quality in depositories of the National Library of the Czech Republic – Measurement methods and selected results. Library: Librarian review, 2020, 31(1), ..... ISSN 1801- 3252.
1 Chemiluminiscence – measurement of light energy emitted in a result of chemical reaction infrared spectrometry – measurement of emission or absorption spectra, wave length of which falls to the region of infrared radiation.
Photometry – spectroscopic analytical method of measurement of light energy absorption by the help of photometers with visual detection.
2 Details on mentioned methods in the Conservation procedure "Improvement of internal air quality in libraries and archives with the aim of significantly limit degradation of books and archive materials"). Prague 2015, available on: http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-260952
4 Pollutant – a material polluting a certain environment, in our case depositories, or their external neighbourhood.
Draeger tube: designation of a detection tube – trade name, the tubes are used for detection of selected chemical substances, and are designed for orientation determination of harmful gases in air (e.g. oxides of sulphur and nitrogen, ozone etc.).
Passive samplers: Air analysis may proceed either directly, or obtained samples may be analysed. Sample collection is carried out passively or actively. Passive samplers requiring laboratory analyses are simpler for routine measurements. The user only exposes the equipment, seal it, and send it for analysis. Analytical laboratory determines volume of tested air, amount of detected pollutants, and calculates concentrations. In most directly readable samplers the user must take into account duration of exposure, compensate it to deviation from standard duration of exposure, and determine concentrations of pollutants according to colour changse. Because reading of colours is subjective, it may be a source of inaccuracy in results, an experience operator minimizes this problem. Price of passive samplers is relatively low. Qualitative directly readable passive samplers (coupons) are easier for use, less complicated, and cheaper than quantitative laboratory analysable equipment (open-path diffusion tube). Lower accuracy as compared to laboratory analyse may be sufficient for confirmation of polluted environment.
Low-pressure cascade impactors: They serve for determination of size distribution of mass concentration and chemical composition of particles, e.g. of type Berner; they separate particles to ten size fractions. Obtained samples are analysed by gravimetry, ion exchange chromatography (water soluble ions), and PIXE method (Particle Induced X- ray Emission, determination of elements).
A-D strips are coloured paper strips – indicators, which detect and measure relevance of so-called acidity syndrome in film pads or photographic materials manufactured from cellulose acetate. These strips inserted into box with films or negatives change colour according to the extent of acidity – with higher acidity strips change colour from original blue to green-blue, green, green-yellow, up to brightly yellow. The result is determination of damage intensity or degree of degradation of acetate films or negatives, and suitability or unsuitability of their present storage.
Coupons Purafil: filtration material Purafil Select Chemisorbant removes sulphane, sulphur dioxide, dinitrogen tetroxide, and formaldehyde from air. It is formed of ball-shaped, porous granules. The granules are manufactured of aluminium oxide and a bonding agent impregnated with potassium permanganate, which oxidizes gaseous pollutants and thus removes them permanently from environment.
Sampler Radiello is a commercial equipment or a personal monitor (badges), and varies from tubes by geometry. Active surface is closed in a plastic or teflon cover, and physical diffusion barrier is placed 1 mm up to 1 cm above the active surface. It concerns adsorption filling and diffusion body of porous polyethylene of various thickness, porosity, and pore sizes), manufacturer Radiello, Sigma-Aldrich, 2006.
]]>Mgr. Jiří Mikuláš, Ph.D. / Národní knihovna České republiky (National Library of the Czech Republic), Klementinum 190, 110 00 Praha 1, Česká republika
]]>Jela Steinerová / Katedra knižničnej a informačnej vedy, Filozofická fakulta, Univerzita Komenského v Bratislave (Department of Library and Information Science, Faculty of Arts, Comenius University in Bratislava)
Information environment and information behaviour of scientists are topics that have been taken up by information science of the present day to be analysed under the new circumstances of the digital environment. That is why the objective of this contribution consists in a novel definition of some concepts on a theoretical level, such as information environment, information infrastructure, digital science and open science, while using these contexts for the introduction of some selected results of the recent research focusing upon the information behaviour of scientists in the Slovak Republic upon the foundation of a qualitative study including international research of data literacy among scientists. Thus a certain image of the information environment and the way it is perceived by chosen scientists has appeared, in parallel with new questions originating in connection with the building of the information infrastructure and with some practical aspects of the functioning of academic libraries. We have chosen, from among the plurality of results, in particular the opinions of scholars concerning digital publishing, open science, information resources and proposals relating to the improvement of services of the academic libraries. An important context of this research is seen in the ecological aspects of the information environment for which we have suggested a new model of academic information ecologies as well as a model of an interactive ecological library.
The information environment in a broader sense can be characterized as a comprehensive system of interactions of mass, energy, persons and information in time and space, all that in connection with safeguarding the information process (Steinerová, 2018). The information process is formed by the life cycle of creation, processing, communicating and applying information. It takes place in a certain information environment, and that is why the information environment is seen as a certain framework within which the utilization of information gets materialized. In a broad context the information environment can be also defined as a part of the societal environment where the information process gets implemented.
If viewed from other aspects, the information environment is delimited as a plurality of information resources consisting of information objects (documents, databases), tools, systems and services that are used for managing and analysing information as well as information search (Lauri et al., 2016). There is yet another option to define the information environment, and namely as correlations between the person and the information objects within the context of the objectives of information behaviour and the search for information,. In this sense the substance of the information environment is represented by information interactions as mutual affecting between man and information, mediated by information services and systems. An information environment, seen from a practical viewpoint, contains an information infrastructure, databases, information systems, information services, tools, analytical and researching systems. Regarding science, the information environment is part of the societal and technical domain of the scientific and researching process in various contexts of scientific disciplines.
The actual foundation of an information environment is the person organizing the information process on an individual, communal (group oriented), organisational (institutional), national as well as international level. There are types of approach in information science highlighting also elements of time and space as important component parts of the information environment (such as the “sense-making” model suggested by Derwin). Other approach options stress especially the information resources: e.g. information objects and services. Technological viewpoints of approach prefer information technologies, such as the information environment of a given system, computer or network
Specifically, the information environment can be investigated in connection with the information management, existing knowledge and information ecology (Davenport & Prusak, 1997). In this case the information environment is handled as comprising and information strategy, an information policy, information behaviour and information culture, information professionals, processes of information management as well as information architecture. This is a certain structure enabling the functioning of diversified information oriented activities. Within the concept of information ecology (Davenport & Prusak, 1997), it is of importance to solve the diversity of sense in the information environment, while governing the information behaviour both on the level of individuals and of the collaborating communities. Many authors highlight also the context of information, respecting various styles of processing information, along with applying suitable information architecture.
Other ways of investigating the information environment are related to the varying working ambiance of people, the actual utilization of information and their information literacy.
The first one to have defined the environment of information use in the working processes was Robert Taylor (information use environment, IUE) (Byström, Heinström & Ruthven, 2017). The environment of the application of information consists of a set of elements affecting the flow and the use of information within the boundaries of a defined entity determining the criteria serving to assess information. It is reflected in a typical structure of problems of certain groups of people, their typical approach and the elements of solutions for tackling their problems. Then such groups can form communities connected by a certain common factor, such as employment (professional communities), scientific disciplines or interests (interest communities). According to the concept of R. Taylor the problems are characterized by the handled issues, by activities and by searching for sense. The information problems are not static and algorithms for their solution are not available.. The settings for certain environments represent a sort of restriction ensuing from the typical environmental elements, organization styles, domains of interest and approach to information. The solution of problems comprises also impulses for the use of information, factual or motivational factors related to the understanding of problems and information features, such as from the viewpoint of data, time etc. This model suggested by R. Taylor highlights the variable, developing, time dependent and rather chaotic context of information use. Recently this model has been adapted to form a model of workplace information environment (WIE) (Byström, Heinström & Ruthven, 2018). The model indicates the dynamics in the interrelations of humans, tasks and environmental setting in their development in the course of time. It highlights the personal information management, information literacy in the workplace environment, task sharing, various dimensions and types of problems (such as well structured or poorly structured problems), collaboration and information culture.
In connection with the information environment also the concept of digital information environment appears to be broadly used at the present day. It comprises a plurality of digital tools, objects, data databases, service types and systems ensuring the use of information and technologies in different contexts. It gets formed, e.g., in science, education, professions, workplaces or in the everyday information behaviour of man. The basic components of a digital information environment are digital objects, digital libraries, digital archives, digital museums, digital services and tools or digital repositories. An information environment in the technological sense can be represented by computers and by technological program oriented instruments enabling communication and information processing, its presentation and visualization, and also collaboration and participation, such as in computer networks. A digital environment can be structured on the level of one personal computer, but also on the level of computer networks.
These concepts of information environment, information infrastructure and of digital environment are modelled in the newer concepts of scholarly communication of the present day. We try to explain the principle of digital publishing in science, the changes concerning the utilization of electronic resources, the forming of new models of electronic periodicals. The present day information science is looking for better ways of communication and collaboration within scientific teams as well as for scientific reviewing with novel options and tools of the digital ambiance. New players are seen entering the stage, namely the producers of electronic resources, aggregators pf services and systems, developers of new electronic tools, such as reference managers, systems for handling scientific data etc. There is a question how these changes make themselves obvious in the real information behaviour of scholars, and also in their opinions concerning digital science and open science, and also relating to the newer possibilities of work with scientific data
Digital and open science represent important types of the information environment context, affecting its development in the direction of servicing the information infrastructure for the scientists. The digital science brings along the shift of scientific communication into the digital ambience and novel ways of using digital tools, resources, methods and data. The new methods of implementing science in digital environments are seen to transgress borders of space and time, to assist rich interactions between the scholars, the actual work with data, the sharing of data and of information resources as well as artefacts and tools in various disciplines (Steinerová, 2018).
The digital science develops following new models and new visions of scientific communication, new models of electronic periodicals, digital information services, including the open access to information resources The substance resides in the conversion of the scientific information interactions and the innovation of processes under the influence of the development of advanced technologies of information and communication.
Digital science comprises its information infrastructure and a new culture of collaboration and communication, participation and openness, which gives rise to creative innovations and transdisciplinary problems. The development of digital science is not related to the natural and the technological disciplines, but also to the humanitarian and social sciences where it highlights the role of experiment and of simulation in the digital environment.
Open science is a concept of scientific research highlighting the application of open access to the use of digital resources, data and education. The point consists in maximum transparency concerning the procedures, methods, data and explication of scientific results. The outputs of scientific research should be accessible also for the broader public. Public resources utilized for the support of scientific investigation should be used in combination with the private ones, while remaining transparent, in particular in the digital environment. In parallel, a search is going on that is looking for newer economic models of publishing and distributing the outputs of research as well as those of the innovations of the research process, including the value of information in scholarly communication, beginning from the actual creation down to publishing the results and achieving the ecological repeated utilization of data and knowledge.
The open science should be transparent in its methodology, when acquiring data, making observations and experimenting. Then the results and scientific data enable multiple utilization and public access. Digital and web related instruments in open science can be used for collaboration and presentation of the research. Open science is seen to apply principles of verification, objectivity, originality as well as the development of a community in a digital environment. For instance an experiment or the course of development can be repeated under different conditions, e.g. certain scientists make available also their program codes, enabling data to be used anew. It is important, in some types of research, to publish the used methodology in a detailed way, for being re-used in another context.
The principles of open access to scientific data and publications are targeted to the development of societal knowledge, in particular its accumulation and objective character. The openness of science can be interpreted on two levels. The essence of the internal level consists in contributing new ideas to the scientific process, whereas the external one means the option of using some existing ideas in a different context. The foundations of open science are scientific publications, research data, investigation methodology, expertise and supporting services. The actors of open science are research fellows, research teams, organisations, managing bodies as well as the broad public. There are also different degrees of openness, from interested professional communities, over the creation of opportunities for young scholars, for managers, down to the public. Various degrees of openness or closure of science depend upon legal and financial limitations of access to literature and data beginning in the cost of approach, licenses, possibly also the form of data and diversified forms of data and information protection. An important role in the open science is played by information structure and sustainable digital information service.
The development pace of the digital humanitarian and societal sciences is seen to be slower than that of digitizing natural sciences and technology including informatics (such as typical data dependent sciences astronomy and physics). There are many examples, e.g. NSDL (National Scientific Digital Library), California Digital Library, Perseus, Europeana. Topical problems of digital science consist in developing digital archives and repositories, collaboration projects, improvement of methods for the application of artificial intelligence, processing of huge amounts of data (sensory, astronomic, meteorological, social and cultural data).
Open science is a concept of transparent approach to the management of scientific research as well as transparent approach to data, methodologies, outputs, collaboration in science with the application of digital environment. In addition to the transparent information infrastructure and transparent strategies the trends consist of collaborative projects and systems, open access to publications and data, visualisation of scientific data a novel methods for assessing outputs.
Essential factors of the digital and open science are seen to be the digital information infrastructure, transparency and open access to information resources. These factors bring about also changes in the structure of the information ambience of the scholars, their methodologies, their process in managing scientific data and, last but not least, also publication strategies. This is the context within which the research concepts of information behaviour of the scholars in Slovakia have been handled, while referring to the results of this qualitative investigation (Steinerová, 2018).
In 2015–2017 we began tackling the information related behaviour of scientists from the viewpoint of certain problems of the information environment. The results have been commented upon in a publication (Steinerová, 2018). It focused upon how the scholars in this country behave in the light of information. Having applied the methodology of interviewing 19 chosen experts representing diversified disciplines, we handled groups of domains comprising natural sciences (astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine), humanities (archaeology, history, linguistics, philosophy, logics, religion science, sinology, literary science), societal sciences (ethnology, sociology, political science, economics) and informatics (representing technological sciences). The demographic distribution of our respondents were 13 men and 6 women; their average age was 54,4 years and the length of practice amounted to the average of 30 years. The length of interview averaged 72 minutes; the collection of data continued from October 2015 to May 2016. The criteria for the choice of respondents were, in particular, their extraordinary scientific results, international experience, handling large amounts of data and scholarly expertise. Detailed information about the procedure, the respondents themselves and the methodology have been published (Steinerová, 1918
As concerns methodology of research, certain original methods of content analysis were applied as well as qualitative analysis and concept modelling. Relating to the design of investigation our focus was directed to the structure of the information environment comprising a number of component parts, such as the process of research, the information process, the information infrastructure and factors of influence. All that served as basis for the formulation of 25 questions for the following semi-structured interviews. The results of analyses were interpreted in the light of the structural aspects of the information environment. The data derived from interviews were encoded (open and selectively coded), the follow-up analyses of the contents ere multiple, i.e. processed by a number of investigators, and the final synthesis was achieved with the help of 23 conceptual maps utilizing the C-MapsTool software (Novak & Cañas, 2010). The conceptual maps identify two types of interpretation repertories used by the scientists; the critical and the constructive one (Steinerová, 2018).
This contribution focuses upon some interesting results of the research relating to both the shared processes and the differences between the disciplines as concerns publishing, digital publishing, open science, information resources and suggestions as to how the services of academic libraries can be improved. Thus a certain image of the information environment of the scholarly communication in Slovakia has been achieved, and namely one that can be of interest also for the neighbour countries. From the viewpoint of the information behaviour of scientists the results indicate some common processes on the methodological level, but also some rather substantial differences between the domains.
The shared patterns of information behaviour of scholars are characterized by critical analytical information processes along with deep expertise as well as motivation of the scientists. Professional experience is reflected especially in the excellent orientation in the information resources, by steady monitoring of resources enjoying authority in the field, personal networks of contacts with the international community of scholars. The information behaviour of scholars shows also the transdisciplinary character as well as the social and technological complexity of the information procedures of today. The mentioned expertíse comprises also monitoring of novelties in the field, utilization of reviewing made by colleagues, using digital resources, and also digital publishing, collaboration and data sharing in digital environment.
Such common processes were introduced by us also in the ecological framework of scientific information interactions (Steinerová, 2014 ; 2016). A model of information oriented interaction (Steinerová, 2018) contains factors of methodological character, those of expertise as well as open science factors. Methodological factors represent conceptual processes of understanding, description, exploring, explaining / creation of sense, prediction / modelling, collaboration and meta-literacy / project management. The factors of expertise are based upon cognitive processes of analyses, interpretations, heuristic procedures, comparison, representation, measuring //experiments, observation. The factors of open science are represented by component part of open access, data management, digital transparency, participation, promotion and electronic publishing.
This framework points to the dominant analytical and synthetic processes related to processing scientific data, highlighting the publishing, the digital information environment collaboration and participation. In general, they are bonded by by the basic principles of investigation, namely curiosity, searching, problem solving and creating sense. The model reflects indirectly how the scholars are integrated in academic communities and how the academic culture gets formed, while acknowledging also the importance of managing the research projects. The necessity has been discovered to strengthen the correlation of science with the public, in particular within the digital environment. As regards information handling, it is also essential to improve the scientific and methodological information literacy, with special focus upon the young scholars. The scientific information literacy is understood to be the application of information interactions in the course of utilization of information in scientific research, while highlighting the process of research, the personal basis of knowledge, including experience and expertise in the domains. The methodological literacy means especially the ability to discover and use methodologies that are well suited for the given discipline (Steinerová, 2013).
From the perspective of variations between the disciplines we have identified some marked differences in the information interactions of scholars between the groups of disciplines, especially the natural sciences, the humanities, the social sciences and informatics. We have been able to confirm the dependence of the information work upon the given context as well as upon the depth of immersion of the scholarly information related to interactions of academic disciplines and cultures. Tab. 1 provides a visualization of the model. The most marked differences appeared in the issues to be solved, in the methods and procedures used, the types of data, the publishing schemes, the information strategies related to acquiring and processing information. There are also differences concerning the use of digital tools and the creative outputs. That is why it should be underlined that one single model for all disciplines does not appear to be appropriate from the viewpoint of assessing the outputs, the quality of research or of its management.
Tab. 1. Model of differences in the interactions of scholars between the disciplines2
Information environment |
||||
Information behaviour of scholars |
||||
Natural science |
Humanities |
Social science |
Informatics |
|
Issues |
Life, Nature, the AllNatureatureoda, vesmír |
Man |
Society |
Systems algoritmy |
Problem solving |
Interpretation time , priestor |
Social phenomena |
Problem solving |
|
Methods |
Experiment |
Interpretation |
Investigations |
Simulation |
standardized measuring |
qualitative analyses |
socio-economic, behavioural analyses |
Data analysis |
|
Data |
Special analyses |
Text, objects |
Social data, Statistics |
web – data |
analytical SW |
restructuring |
interpretation |
models, visualisations, special SW |
|
Publications |
CCC periodicals |
Monographs, studies |
Periodicals, monographs |
Conference proceedings |
Systems |
Tools, digital archives, specific systems |
Specific systems |
Social archives |
Special SW, digital libraries |
Information strategies |
Intelligent technologies, models |
Text analyses |
Analyses of texts and data |
Data analyses |
Values |
Practice, life |
Retrospective |
Community |
Projects, products |
Contexts |
Narrow context |
Broader context |
Broader context |
Narrow context |
Information objectives |
Understanding, solving, discovering |
Understanding, discovering |
Understanding, formulae |
Designing |
Creativity5 |
Invention, patent, method |
Precedency – topics, discovery, method |
Topics, formulae |
System, patent, method |
Cooperation |
Team |
Individual |
Individual,teams |
Teams |
Let us indicate the differences in publishing between the groups of disciplines related to their academic culture, in order to provide some examples of deeper analyses connected with the information behaviour of the scientists. As such the differences of publishing between the groups of disciplines correlated to the respective academic culture can be suggested. The question has been formulated thus: Where do you publish most often in your field (types of resources, rules, reviewing)? The discussion of scholars reflects the typical publishing modes in three groups of sciences (humanities and social sciences, natural sciences, technological sciences). Scholars active in the humanities and social sciences prefer to publish monographies, but also broader scientific studies, conference papers and papers in periodicals. Owing to the fact that scholars in the mode of humanities focus preferably upon man, his products and culture, they make use in particular of interpretation, heuristics, restructuring of knowledge, sometimes including their own experience and emotions. Their specific publications comprise, e.g., (philosophical) reflexions, essays, translations. Social scholars, in their turn, often chose processes of investigation, analyses, interpretations and deep categorisation of information. Their research tends to focus upon man, social communities and developmental aspects of society. They often use electronic resources, if an electronic environment is available, such as data of social archives, international social and economic databases. They often publish in periodicals and in conference papers. The publishing schemes in social sciences are seen to depend upon the chosen ways of research. The qualitative method gets close to the humanities, whereas the quantitative methodologies are rather near to the natural sciences.
Preferred publishing in the natural sciences has unambiguous orientation to high standard periodicals registered in WoS and Current Contents, with high impact factor. Let us give an example:: „There are typical 10 high quality periodicals in our discipline. We try to publish in CC („currented “ ) periodicals with high impact factor “ (R15). The scientists working in the regime of natural sciences focus in particular upon solving issues of Life and Nature, their practical methodological expertise comprising especially observation, experimenting, measuring. Their typical information behaviour includes monitoring the well-known high standard periodicals representing the essence of the discipline. These sciences carry on outspoken traditions of digital repositories, discipline oriented information systems and international networks (such as ArXiv.Org, PubMedCentral, Medline, ChemicalAbstracts). The information needs of these scholars are characterised by deep search in electronic resources (databases). In publication strategies they prefer top professional periodicals registered in WoS. Collaboration and high degree of co-authorship are seen to be a typical publishing scheme of the natural scientists; in particular digital reports, documentation and digital archives are frequent among their specific resources. The scholars also share publications and data in the digital environment.. As to the publication strategies of the technological sciences, articles in periodicals and conference papers are seen to prevail In this case there is a blend of information infrastructures, computer networks, databases, academic networks, electronic resources, datasets, digital tools, websites and publishing. The methodological modus of the technological sciences focuses upon the solution of practical problems, the development of new methods, tools and systems, utilizing simulation, designing, experiments. The scholars prefer electronic resources and digital libraries (ACM Digital Library). In some modes of investigation and publishing we were able to note inter-disciplinarity: e.g. “conversion” between disciplines, sharing of scientific data in novel contexts. Some scientists formulated also questions of correlation between quality and quantity of scientific publishing, Meanwhile we also noticed the necessity to strengthen the information infrastructures of digital humanitarian and social sciences and the management of scientific data.
When studying the information behaviour of scientists, we kept an eye also on the aspects of their approach to digital publishing, open access and open science. We formulated the question: Do you recognize the principles of the resources of open access (OA and open science; do you make use of OA periodicals in your discipline (electronic periodicals, data archives)? The discussion of scientists enabled us to identify factors of open science, such as the promotion of results for a broader public,, transparency of processes, publishing and open access. Further effective factors that were discussed comprised participation, collaboration, networking with colleagues and information sharing The natural sciences and „data“ sciences utilizing particularly huge data amounts, such as astrophysics, physics, genetics, archaeology, social sciences, economics informatics) enabled us to note strong bonds with advanced technologies. However, also the humanities display interesting projects focusing upon the development of digital sets, digital libraries and digital archives, especially related to cultural heritage. Let us offer some examples: the digital system with map of historical monuments in Bratislava (PamMap), the atlas of Slavonic languages, archaeological digital systems, digital sets of Mayan culture, sets of digitized literary texts etc.
As regards open science, the scholars expressed their opinions also about information policies, assessment of outputs, approach to data and publishing. Rather weaker factors were, e.g., the academic social networks, sharing of information and data and alternative metrics (altmetrics). In this context we divided the discussion of the scholars in two types from the viewpoint of open science; the supportive discourse and the critical one. In the supportive discourse the scholars highlighted the advantages of open science and of open access, especially the increased number of references, some spotlights on the persons of scholars, the speed of publication. On the other hand, certain apprehensions were heard in the critical discourse, and namely related to commercial influences and the problem of evaluating digital publications. Some scholars expressed their approval of the European trends of open science (Open Science, 2017, whereas some others considered possible quality deterioration of digital publishing. By way of example: „It is too early for some sort of final assessment or judgment at the present moment, experience is variable. OA has brought an unbelievable invasion, the origin of periodicals offering possibilities of publishing. These are the most numerous, but they present the least interest. This is apparent in the promotion – looking like some sort of publishing mill –speed of publishing in the first place. Some serious periodicals switch over to this model... they enjoy tradition, and in spite of the imperfections, they possess an impact factor in WoSe“. (R6). An analysis of opinions of scholars concerning digital publishing and open access is shown in the conceptual map (Fig.1).
Fig. 1 Conceptual map Publishing in the digital environment and open science in the light of approach of academics
Having used the question: Which barriers stand most often in the way of your scientific work? (such as the administrative burden etc.)? we have identified a plurality of groups of hindrances in the work of scientists from the viewpoint if information environment (Steinerová 2017). The point is in individual, social, technological, administrative, financial and systemic barriers (including those related to social environment) The most apparent hurdles were overburdening by administrative chores, lack of funds, insufficient access to grants. One respondent formulated the issue thus: „We would need better funding of infrastructure. I don´t have the payroll in mind, but this particular need… (R19). In general the scholars indicated barriers concerning access to infrastructure and problems related to research financing. As concerns the social framework, they criticised also the lacking interest of society in high quality research. A constructive discourse enabled the scientists to formulate suggestions for improving the access to information, in particular concerning, integrated information services, management of scientific data, organising and managing the research process, digital libraries and repositories, information sharing and interdisciplinary networking.
Special attention should be given to young scholars who need support from experienced colleagues including a transparent system of evaluation and the perspective of their profession in the future. The scholars also highlighted the importance of advanced technologies and services for the digital humanities. The problematic aspects concerned the drawbacks of coordination and lack of scientific strategies, such as: „...disintegration of scholarly communities, fragmentation, small communities,, weak collaboration and coordination “ (R15). Most in demand for the scientific strategies, according to the discourse of scholars, are factors of quality control in the disciplines, infrastructure funding, setting of priorities, support of academic culture. The field of developing open science also requires common strategies, comprising not only the universities, grant agencies, research institutions, information institutions and libraries, but also the media and the private sector.
Our focus in the domain of information infrastructure was the utilisation of information systems and databases,, the problems related to the service of libraries and the proposals how to improve the information infrastructure and the library service, Questions in this respect were formulated as follows: “Which tools – such as information systems and databases – are most often used in your scientific discipline?
The importance of electronic information resources was confirmed by all respondents. We split these resources into the category of digital libraries and that of digital archives /ACM Digital Library, arXiv.org etc.), further the specialised professional international systems of information, web suites of institutions and experts,, specialised international databases (WoS, SCOPUS) and the resources of specialised international systems (IAEA, WorldBank, Eurostat ai.). In general, the international networks of experts were highlighted as effective information resources, however, with certain variations among the disciplines. The natural sciences enjoy a functioning consolidated community with highly developed information and technological infrastructure, e.g. systems and instruments in astronomy. A specific case is archaeology, at the boundary between the humanities and natural sciences, making use of specialised information systems (geo-information systems, photographic databases).Other disciplines note close links of their resources with the commercial informatics domain (bioinformatics, genomics), while highlighting the solution of problems of the practice.. Example: „We should orientate according to the practice where we ought to look for research problems, as they exist there in unbelievable numbers. Our output can have both the form of some application comprising our novel idea, and that of papers “ (R7). On the other hand we ought to point to the fact that the use of information resources tends to be combined with the creation of own systems and databases, especially in the humanities. The digital system of historical monuments, web sites of archaeological studies, digital collections of songs, digital archives of linguistic studies can serve as examples. Some respondents underlined the utilization of their own (personal) digital sets. An interpretation repertory focusing upon information resources, tools and systems is represented by a conceptual map in Fig.2. It shows information systems and databases as tools, but also as resources for research with diversified content and degree of advanced technologies. Again, the dependence upon the given discipline context is seen to be confirmed by the specific resource context in the natural sciences opposed to the humanities and social science. The types of resources in the map represent open systems on various levels of international collaboration, down to personal digital systems and archives.
The matter of interest in the following part is the utilised library service and suggestions how to improve the same. The following questions have been formulated: Which libraries do you use most often? Which services do you appreciate as the best? (What can you propose to improve their services?) In this connection we had especially in mind the work with documents and information. All respondents use electronic resources; especially in the natural sciences and in informatics they are seen to prevail. In spite of that the respondents utilise also the traditional libraries in Bratislava, Prague, Vienna. Some interesting proposals related to the library services pertained to the contextualisation of libraries and to the education of students and PhD students. Example: „There is a problem in that the researcher can find and study certain specific narrow issues, but he may need also the context of the discipline (which is often a problem for the young). If the library is able to help them to broaden the horizon of context – well, I can´t imagine a better service “ (R7). A large proportion of respondents appreciated the documentation of feed-back to publication activities, the purchase of literature and editing work in the course of publishing preparations. A general statement can be made that the information demand of the respondents is related to many-sided assistance to their scientific activities, publishing and access to electronic resources. Quite a number of them consider also the social academic networks to be valuable resources, in particular for sharing information, documents and data. In proposals concerning novel services of libraries the scholars also appreciated digital repositories; as to the humanities they mentioned also digital museums. The most cherished aspects of service are speediness and flexibility, data protection and service modes for the scientists in form of analytical information services, such as the trends of research, novelties, discipline contexts.. As concerns differences between the disciplines, the preference of the natural sciences of the approach to licenses information resources could be confirmed, whereas the humanities focused upon the building of digital archives and digital libraries.
Requests to integrate services and systems, to support the management of projects, to introduce know-how sharing, to avoid duplicated research – these issues have also been among the suggestions of improved services. The respondents gave a thought also to the upkeep of the technological infrastructure and the system of organising publications and data. Interesting suggestions concerned the positions of scientific assistants and information experts as members of the team. . Many interviewed stresses the need “to keep ballast under control” (R16), the verification of information, context search, analyses and management of scientific data. An important service for the scholars from the side of libraries resides in the promotion of their work and achievements. The interpretation repertory of the respondents focusing upon suggestions how to improve the service of libraries is shown by the conceptual map in Fig. 3. The map reveals certain specific contexts of various disciplines and academic cultures in the light of preferences and proposals of the respondents, as well as rather recent trends of the functioning of information professionals assisting the scientific activities.
Fig. 2 Conceptual map Information systems and databases
Fig. 3 Conceptual map Proposals for improving librarian services
In addition to the qualitative study of the information related behaviour of the scholars in 2017–2018, we joined also the international survey of the scientific data literacy and of the management of scientific data in Slovakia,. This survey was organised by experts from Great Britain, France and Turkey (Ünal et al., 2019). As to Slovakia, the distribution of a questionnaire was organised for scholars from the universities and the Slovak academy of sciences. We evaluated the total of 257 filled-in questionnaires from these scientists.. The greatest plurality had scientific workers (70,8 %) and the natural sciences (75 %). More detailed information about the given survey can be found in other works (Steinerová, 2018b). That is why we can restrict ourselves to pointing briefly to some interesting results that round-off the image of the information environment of scholars in Slovakia, by way the first one of this type in our country.
The investigation confirmed the interest of scholars in scientific data. Whereas some domains enjoy standardised procedures (data sciences), some others show rather intuitive proceedings as regards acquiring and processing information In fact, scientific data can be explained as a representation of objects within the frame of scientific research; as entities utilised as part of evidence within the scientific investigation (Borgman, 2015). Sometimes the scientific data form component parts of information infrastructures, but they bear contextual traces f the respective disciplines. In the open science trend sometimes also open data are characterised. Problematic aspects of scientific data are their typology, representation, mobility, and in particular their interpretation and value, possibly also the philosophy of data (Steinerová, 2019). The scientific data literacy, on its turn, reflects ability and knowledge with regard to the utilisation of scientific data, depending upon academic culture, expertise and the personality of each scholar. At the present day the aspects of scientific data are indelibly connected also with the management of scientific data as a comprehensive process including service in the course of developing a data service for the scientists.
The results of our survey indicate the highest proportion of data production within the frame of standard MS Office documents (texts, tables, presentations), To a smaller extent also graphics, Internet and web data as well as archive data are in use. The scientists produce by far less data than the amounts they use; in this respect the higher proportion of utilised “raw” data, graphics, configuration sets and resource codes are found in the natural and the technological sciences. The scholars also largely share their data in the digital environment, especially with researchers of the same team or their own institution.
We were able to identify certain apprehensions of scholars related to sharing data. The most concerned lest data be misinterpreted showed the social scientists. Experts from the natural sciences, on their turn, confirmed the most pronounced fears of data misuse. The most respondents admitted that they have not prepared any data management plans down to the present day The younger colleagues and women show more interest for getting tutored in the field of scientific data management. More detailed information regarding further results can be found in other contributions (Steinerová and Ondrišová, 2019).
At any rate this survey has ascertained the existence of standardised procedures of data processing in some fields (data sciences) The return side of advantages brought by data sharing are fears of scientists, lest data be misinterpreted, misused and insufficiently protected by ethic and legal regulations. The differences in the work with data are due to varying academic cultures and variations in contexts of the disciplines, but we have identifies also differences between the younger and the older scholars. However, in general the scholars are interested in sharing data in digital environments, in education focusing upon data management, as well as forming strategies and service demand for proper data handling. The benefits of systematic work with scientific data have been confirmed also by many similar foreign surveys, such as Tenopir et al. (2015), Borgman (2015).
The two surveys among the scholars in Slovakia, namely the qualitative on-line study and the questionnaire investigation, enable us to gradually compose the particles to form an image of the information environment of scholarly communication based upon findings about the information behaviour of scientists. Typical processes of their information related behaviour are overall observation, search, navigation, verification, dialogue, discussion and data interpretation. The basic common processes shared by the disciplines involve monitoring of the resources (the nuclei of periodicals, topics), associative ideasyet including, reading, studying and creation (writing). Certain trends can be confirmed that have been revealed by other surveys of academic information behaviour, such as collaboration in the digital environment, data sharing communication within the academic social networks where, however, the scholars are seen to focus especially upon searching partners and presenting their achievements (Greifeneder et al., 2018). Of importance is the support and the popularisation of science in the public; in this respect more support is required by the digital humanities and the social sciences (MacKenzie and Martin, 2016), asking for better scientific information literacy.
The scholars perceive the image of their information environment with both critical and constructive approach. Certain problems pertain to the societal environment, the position of science in society, as well as to the management of science, of the projects, of scientific institutions and grant agencies. Further problems are related to funding and to the accessibility of grants, the organisation of the research process and the functioning of the information infrastructure. The information environment is comprehensive, yet including a plurality of gaps and unsettled issues. This is why we have suggested a model of academic information ecologies (Fig.4) as one of the possible approaches to the solution of problems of the information environment.
Fig. 4 Model of academic information ecologies
This model represents the strata of ensuring the information interactions of scholars. The academic information ecologies are characterised by being dynamic and variable sites and rooms of interaction between scholars and information in academic communities. They depend upon the context of the given disciplines and academic cultures. Their typical expression is the immersion of the information process into that of research. The dominant values within the academic information ecologies are those leading to systems, services and tools. The features of academic information ecologies comprise the adaptation of persons and information in the scientific communities, the management of information resources and data in the information ecosystems, the social/technological and the social/cultural evolution of the communities, information and technologies, the context dependent specificity and diversification of information processes and data.
The information infrastructure and the sustainable digital information services, in particular the access to information resources, are shown to be the foundation of the model of academic information ecologies The information process and the research process are developed upon this basis, the top level being reserved to the values affecting the information procedures. The influences conditioning the work with information are indicated on all strata. These are: collaboration, participation, creativity in the digital environment.. Concerning the level of information process, there are factors of open science and science policy, the evaluation of outputs and barriers in the social environment. Concerning values we identify the importance of contexts and cultures of the disciplines, as well as the environments of scientific communication. The ecological coordination of these factors helps to support the creative exploration and creative scientific products as common parts of scientific investigation and scholarly communication. The academic information ecologies depend upon their context, upon scientific interpretations and scientific dialogue and discussion, embodying a continuous construction of scientific knowledge along with the utilisation of information resources. The digital environment enables to broaden the scope of information ecologies within the network collaboration of scientific communities, supporting digital publishing and digital literacy. Having in mind the further development of the information environment, it is essential to cultivate the academic information ecologies in the context of new models of the digital and open science, digital publishing and digital information.
The development of academic information ecologies is founded upon the building of the information infrastructure within which the libraries form also new services. Quite a number of studies have already indicated such challenges highlighting the building of integrated centres of excellence for the support of science and research in the digital environment (Kirchner et al., 2015; MacKenzie and Martin 2016) and, last but not least, also the Manifest of Academic Libraries (Bourg et al., 2011). That is why, in accord with the cited trends, we have worked out a newer model of an academic library based upon the results of our study, and namely as an interactive room founded upon a collective dialogue of scientific communities. The mode applies the proposals regarding the services of academic libraries, as formulated by the respondents of the qualitative study. The innovated services pertain to three dimensions of the academic information ecologies; the managerial, behavioural and semantic one (Fig. 5).
The substance of this model are services with value added, shifting the informative interactions of the scholars into the digital environment. This brings about changes of certain processes concerning the use and management of electronic resources, access to digital information, but also relating to the creation and strategy of digital publishing Not only these services can be extracted in some linked interactive libraries, but also certain benefits expressed by the scholars in the discourses, and namely from the registration of publications and citations, over analyses of the trends, services of digital libraries and repositories, down to the evaluation of research, preparation of publications, visualisation, education, support of information literacy and creativity, promotion of science and international collaboration.
Fig. 5 Model of an interactive academic library
The image of information environment in the eyes of scholars in Slovakia indicates certain white spots and gaps of the information infrastructure in the light of the ever more demanding information needs of the scientists. This concerns both the services of academic libraries and of the digital ones. Their newer models in the digital environment are shown also by foreign studies (MacKenzie and Martin, 2016; Kirchner et al. 2011),however, a really comprehensive picture can be provided by frameworks of information ecology involving aspects of the economic, environmental and social sustainability of digital information in science (Chowdhury, 2014). Yet the perspective opened up by the shift of the scientific communication and information into the digital environment reveals also new questions, such as what correlations can be found between the quality of scientific publishing and the economic models of open and digital science. Open questions relate to the character of prestige enjoyed by publication in the digital environment, to commercial interests and, finally, also to the non-commercial services of the academic libraries Meanwhile newer players are seen to enter the stage, in particular the producers of digital resources and scientific databases, companies providing commercial services of digital libraries, and also aggregators of web sites, publishers, research institutions and universities.
An ideal vision in the societal context might be an integrated knowledge infrastructure whose component parts would be innovated and innovative academic libraries. The scientists need services and tools with value added in the digital environment, irrespective of whether the point is in collaboration or in the management of scientific data and the support of digital publishing. Accordingly, concepts of digital and open science are seen to be the new challenges. The results of our investigations enable us to identify three main hurdles of scientific work: lack of funds, administrative overburdening of scholars and problems related to information policies and the position of science in society. The information environment in the eyes of scholars in Slovakia is a comprehensive one, gradually developing in the direction towards digital environment, while especially the services of the academic libraries can expect massive changes in the context of the development of institutional information strategies. Essential improvements pertain to the management of information systems, the management of scientific data and databases, the assessment of the scientific results and the creation of new tools, in particular digital libraries with their services.
The most important component parts of the academic information ecologies, however, are held to be the values interlinked with the social practice of scientific communication. Motivation, experience and creativity of the scientists, shaping their information behaviour, are seen to play a great role. Accordingly, in addition to the information infrastructure, we wish to highlight especially the support of creativity, innovations, original thought, combined with lasting interest in the solution of problems, impulses provided by data and interdisciplinary inspirations in the communities of scholars.
The recommendations for the strategies of science comprise, among others, the support of the technological and knowledge founded infrastructure, as well as the search for the combination of technological and social aspects. The changes of the research work will require the assistance to on-line collaboration and participation, the sustainment of trust in the digital information space and to the verification of information. In spite of the enormous progress and the shift of scientific communication to the digital libraries, repositories, digital publishing, information and data sharing, academic social networks or blogs, a high standard assessment by experts in the given art and those of the international scholarly community remains the undisputed foundation of quality of the information environment of scientific communication.
As to the information policies, the recommendations comprise better integration of the processes of management, of the plans and the decision making in the research process and the information process, both being closely correlated. An essential strategic factor forming the information environment of science is the support of young scholars on the level of the perspective system from the viewpoint of estimation and positioning of a scholar in society. Further also the deepening of the international dimension of the information environment, accompanied by integration in the international projects has been recommended. One of the challenges is looking for harmonious relations between theoretical and applied research, as well as between the public and the private sector. The development of open science should reflect in its strategies the factors of transparency, approach and participation, promotion and relations between science and the public. These factors comprise implicitly also the functions of the new information professionals, in particular managers of information resources, managers of scientific data, digital librarians, information assistants of research teams, keepers of repositories, publishing assistants and promoters of science. These new information professionals should play a great role in the quality control of scientific communication, especially on the international level, but also in tune with the strategies of open science and digital publishing. In parallel, the information professionals will have to pay more attention also to the ecologic functions, especially to the “cleaning” of the information environment, namely by discarding inappropriate, poor or untruthful information, further to data protection, to the protection of the scholars against information overburdening, or also to the security of digital libraries and information. In this sense a role is reserved to the development of theory and practice of the information ethics, founded upon the values of information in society and information as resources, products and aims.
The image of the information environment of scientific communication has shown the necessity of sustaining the important values of science for the society, while developing the academic culture and the culture of the community of each discipline. However, strengthening the concept of research and the esteem for the scientific information environment in society through the intermediary of getting young people interested should start as early as upon the elementary levels of developing the information literacy and educating the youth. Let us hope that also our probe into the information environment of science may help to improve the understanding of the contribution of scientists and information professionals for the benefit of society.
The paper was worked out in the framework of the task APVV 0508-15 HIBER and the project “Scientific University Park” of the Comenius University in Bratislava No ITMS 26240220086.
The author wishes to express her thanks to all participants of the quality survey focusing upon the information behaviour of scholars as well to the respondents of the same..
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1The contribution has been worked out on the basis of the published monograph Steinerová, Jela. (2018). Information environment and scientific communication: information ecology. Bratislava: UK, 2018. 230 p..
2Comments to the table. The left column contains the basic categories representing the structure of the information environment and the leading questions in the interviews. These categories were the outcome of the analyses, emerging as the fields that characterize the differences between the selected groups of sciences. The key representations from the conceptual maps are indicated by bold, whereas italics marks illustrative examples relating to problems, methods and data. The acronym CCC stands for Current Contents Connect.
]]>PhDr. Jiří Stodola, Ph.D. / Kabinet informačních studií a knihovnictví, Filozofická fakulta, Masarykova univerzita, Arna Nováka 1, 602 00 Brno (Division of Library and Information Studies, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno),
The traditional Aristotelian Science considers definition and classification the basic building blocks of every science (see Gredt, 2009, p. 112; Skácel & Skácel, 1945, p. 84). Within the framework of the relevant discourse, science is largely defined by its subject matter – it is the same as are the things it studies (Stodola, 2011a). For this reason, every branch of science starts with a conceptual definition of its subject matter, based on which other concepts are deduced and classified.
The above procedure is still used in formal sciences (Anzenbacher, 1990, p. 26), such as mathematics and logics, which start with establishing a set of axioms (see Tarski, 1969) from which other statements are deduced.
Modern natural sciences have for some time abandoned the above-described methodology and have, due to the influence of empiricism (Bacon, 1990) and positivism (Comte, 1865), focused primarily on data collection and classification. Scientists in the humanities and social sciences have attempted to pursue the same approach, although it was subject to criticism from the very beginning (Dilthey, 1990).
New findings and the related philosophical reflections (Popper, 1997; Kuhn, 1997) have gradually turned natural sciences away from pure positivism. The current opinion held by natural scientists as well as by social and humanities scientists is that, conversely to the view of positivists and logical positivists, scientific knowledge is not cumulative; rather, it has the form of a series of shifts through which existing paradigms are replaced by new ones (Glazier, 2004, p. 288–290). A paradigm is viewed as a conceptual and theoretical framework used as a prism through which the studied subject is approached. Despite being incompatible, the individual paradigms can often be found to coexist within a single subject field (both at the diachronic and the synchronic levels) (Glazier, 2004, p. 292). Knowledge is no longer considered absolute; instead, it is viewed as a relative concept, one that always needs to be viewed in relation to a given paradigm and a theory that has been accepted under this paradigm (Ochrana, 2009, p. 44).
Because every theory consists of a set of related and hierarchically ordered concepts, the new conception of science brings back the need of precise definition and classification.
In information science, a key role is played by the concept of information (Losee, 1997), whose definition and classification have been attempted by numerous scientists influenced by a diversity of theoretical approaches (see Bates, 2010). A further complication is posed by the fact that the concept of information is part of not only information science but also of a range of other subject fields (Capurro a Hjørland, 2003, p. 396). Examples include cybernetics, systems theory, theory of communication, cognitive psychology, cognitive science, genetics and, last but not least, philosophy (Steinerová, 2011, p. 9).
The present study analyses a selection of definitions of the concept of information generated by information science and the related subject fields, from the point of view of methodology and epistemology. The paper consists of two parts, a theoretical and an analytical one. The theoretical part lays the epistemological and methodological basis for the work.
The theory is then applied on the concepts, definitions and classifications in information science. The analytical part deals with the analysis of selected texts with respect to both their epistemological and methodological background, and to the role of concepts, definitions and classifications in the respective schools of philosophy. The primary goal of the paper is to establish a connection between defining and classifying the concept of information in the field of information science on the one hand, and the key philosophical questions on the nature of concepts on the other. The study aims at the information scientists who are knowledgeable in philosophical questions and the highly abstract topics of the information science.
Methodologically, the study draws on critical realism, which posits that human knowledge is objective (i.e. not actively constructed by the cognizing subject, although the role of the subject is not entirely passive); true (i.e. an accord can be reached between knowledge and reality, with knowledge being defined by this accord; cognition which does not accord with reality is not knowledge but a fallacy) and certain (some cognitions can be said to be certainly true). A necessary condition of the objectivity of knowledge is that there is an objective reality independent of the cognizing subject and that this reality is structured in itself (cognition does not introduce a structure into the reality but derives it from the real world). In order to be able to decide whether a cognition is true we need to have direct access to the real world (otherwise, no accord can be identified) and we need to be able to discriminate between the parts of cognition that have been derived from the real world and the general aspects that have been “added” by our cognising structures. In the present study, the above statements of the “robust” critical realism have not been selected arbitrarily; we do not adhere to them because they are likeable but because indirect evidence can be obtained for them by converting opposing propositions into a contradiction.
The methodological tools used in the study included conceptual analysis, a traditional method of philosophy adopted by information science, and content analysis as used by library and information science. With conceptual analysis, concepts are defined through their essential properties and classified, with relationships being identified among them. Content analysis served to identify the basic content units of the analysed texts and to discuss them with regard to the basic questions presented in the theoretical part of the work.
Science is a type of human knowledge which is characterized by its emphasis on methodology and methods (Skácel and Skácel, 1945, p. 85). At a general level, knowledge is the subject matter of a branch of philosophy named epistemology (noetics, gnoseology, theory of knowledge). Being a type of knowledge, science has adopted various ways of solving epistemological problems from philosophy (Demjančuk, 2002, p. 9), both explicitly and implicitly. Based on the adopted strategies, science creates its own methodology, an analysis of the methods applied to science in general as well as those specific to particular scientific disciplines.
Although discipline-specific methodology is created by scientists in a given field, methodology is, similarly to epistemology, a scientific tool rather than a discipline per se (Anzenbacher, 1990, p. 22). Discipline-specific methodology focuses on the study and on the development of methods for a given discipline, determining which methods are acceptable in a given field, which are to be used for research into a particular type of problems, and how the methods are to be applied. The methods that have been decided upon are then used for solving particular scientific problems. For the process of the application of a method the term “methodics” is used. The relationship between epistemology, methodology, methods and methodics is shown in the diagram below.
Fig. 1: The relationship among epistemology, methodology, method and methodics (cf. Ochrana, 2009, p. 11)
As already indicated above, epistemology and methodology are philosophical tools that stand separately from the specialised scientific disciplines. Epistemology is the study of the possibilities and the structure of human cognition. Methodology is both a philosophical discipline dealing with the study of scientific methods in general and the study of the methods pertaining to a particular subject field. A method refers to a way of investigating phenomena that is used in science in general or in a particular subject field. Methodics is the instructions on the application of methods (cf. Ochrana, 2009, pp. 11–12). The present study focuses primarily on the epistemological and methodological questions.
Although epistemology is the basis of every scientific discipline (Fuchs, 1995, p. 127),
in many disciplines this fact is not reflected. General epistemological questions and the scientists’ own methodology are usually not questioned or revised until problems occur; that is, until the application of particular methods fails, leads to a scientific impasse or yields paradoxical results that defy common sense (cf. Kuhn, 1997, pp. 75–97). A typical example of this is quantum mechanics (Heisenberg, 2000), whose findings sparked a wave of interest in epistemological questions in physics due to their seeming disaccord with the principle of contradiction, the fundamental principle of scientific research (to this day, no universal agreement has been reached among physicists on the interpretation of the results).
In the field of information science, the groundswell of interest in epistemological questions was connected primarily with paradigmatic turns (Steinerová, 2011, pp. 13–15). The cognitive, sociological, contextual and linguistic turns directed their attention to the problems related to the creation, representation and use of information, which are closely linked to the theory of knowledge. Naïve realism, which laid an epistemological basis for the object paradigm in information science and which considered knowledge unproblematic, was replaced by empiricism or rationalism (cognitive paradigm), social constructivism (sociological paradigm), relativism (contextual paradigm), and by semantic analysis (linguistic paradigm).
Naturally, the new epistemological bases affected the respective methodologies used in information science. Empiricism, which accepts only sensory experience as a valid source of knowledge, promoted the study of observable information-related behaviour of individuals (Fisher, Erdelez, McKechnie, 2005). Rationalism, on the other hand, which stresses the importance of rational analysis, introduced into information science the modelling and study of conceptual frameworks of information users and creators (Belkin, 1980). In line with its assumption that knowledge is socially conditioned, social constructivism stood at the basis of the sociological turn in information science that emphasized the study of how knowledge is affected by social structures (Hjørland and Albrechtsen, 1995; Cornelius, 2002). Epistemological relativism, as a denial of generalizations and unconditioned truths, can be considered an instigator of the contextual turn which promoted placing information into the context of unique, one-of-a-kind situations (Goguen, 1997). Within the linguistic paradigm of the information science, logical semantics and semiotics were prominent, stressing the importance of the study of information that is encoded in signs (Floridi, 2011b).
The present paper aims primarily at answering the question of how the formulated epistemological questions and the related methodologies affect the understanding of the role of concepts and their definitions in science, and also how this is reflected in the attempted definitions and classifications of the concept of information.
Epistemology is a key discipline for all the ways of gaining knowledge that are to be built on a solid foundation. It is the starting point of not only the other philosophical disciplines (ontology, ethics, etc.), but also of the specialised scientific disciplines. The Czech philosopher Jiří Fuchs describes epistemology’s position as follows:
"But why is noetics a logical first among philosophical disciplines? All other disciplines base the possible certainty of their conclusions on a noetic solution to the general problem of certainty – whether it is even possible. Without the backing of noetics, the conclusions of other sciences are subject to permanent, fundamental doubt. Noetic investigation of the possibility of scientifically certain conclusions, on the other hand, is not contingent on the results of any other philosophical discipline. And since noetics is in principle not otherwise dependent on the special conclusions of the individual disciplines, it must be positioned at the outset of philosophical cognition. [...] Thus, ontology bases its validity in the noetic evaluation of the instrument of philosophy, while noetics, in principle, does not require an ontological solution of the issue of existence for its conclusions. Here, the logical dependency is one-sided. It is therefore logical to precede ontology with noetic investigation.” (Fuchs, 1995, p. 27)
Epistemology focuses on addressing two key questions which determine whether science is even possible and what approach to investigating reality is adopts (cf. Fuchs, 1995, p. 127). We can formulate these two questions as follows (cf. Skácel and Skácel, 1945, p. 90):
1. Can knowledge have value (i.e. can it be objective, true and certain)?
2. What structure does the cognition process have (what is the role of the object and subject, what processes take place during cognition, etc.)?
A positive answer to the first question is provided by realism, a negative one by scepticism.
In the context of the second epistemological question, the conception of the role of the subject and the object in cognition plays an important role (Glazier, 2004, p. 284). Overvaluing the significance of the object is characteristic of objectivism; the subject is typically overvalued by subjectivism. It can be said that realism as a response to the first question goes hand in hand with a tendency towards objectivism when answering the second question. On the other hand, scepticism in relation to the first question is usually associated with subjectivism as the answer to the second question.
A modified objectivism-subjectivism continuum by Jack D. Glazier (2004, p. 284) can be used to illustrate the positions of the individual approaches from radical objectivism to extreme subjectivism.
Extreme Subjectivism |
Rationalism |
Realism |
Empiricism |
Extreme Objectivism |
|
Social constructivism |
Cognitive paradigm Hermeneutics |
Domain approach |
Aristotelian approach |
Conception of information related to the created personal identity |
Physicalist paradigm, Evolutionary approach |
Table 1 Subjectivism-objectivism continuum
In information science and related fields, we can distinguish a wide range of stronger and weaker variations of realism, from the naïve physicalist realism (1990, 2002; Gackowski, 2010) and the object-oriented paradigm (Otlet, 1934; Briet, 2006) to a strong version of epistemological realism associated with Aristotelian philosophy (Barn, 2010a; 2011b) to a weaker version in the form of metaphysical realism (Hjørland, 2004).
Similarly, the sceptical epistemology contains both moderate and stronger variations. The more moderate versions of scepticism include, for example, a hermeneutic approach in information science (Capurro, 2003); the stronger scepticism stems mainly from postmodernism and French post-structuralism (Frohmann, 1994).
From a methodological point of view, it is clear that while realism gravitates towards creating theories (Bates, 2005; 2006), scepticism either deals with their criticism from different standpoints (Hjørland, 2011) or focuses on simple positivist data collection (Otlet, 1934).
Extreme objectivism and subjectivism is characterised by the reduction of subject to object and vice versa (objectivism considers cognition a way of existence of the object; subjectivism views existence as a way of cognising the subject). The approach closest to extreme objectivism is physicalist paradigm (Stonier, 1990) and all the approaches based on evolutionism (Bates, 2005; 2006; Bawden, 2007; 2011). Extreme subjectivism, on the other hand, is typical of social constructivism (Savolainen, Tuominen, Talja, 2005), according to which reality is socially (i.e. subjectively) constructed, not cognised.
Between these two extremes we find a myriad of variations which to a greater or lesser extent gravitate towards objectivism or subjectivism. A distinctly objectivistic approach is empiricism, which views the subject as constituted by the objects of cognition – by the flow of information (Floridi, 2011b). Midway between objectivism and subjectivism lies realism, which seeks to evenly reflect the role of the object and the subject. Aristotelian realism is closer to objectivism (Stodola, 2011b), while domain analysis is closer to subjectivism (Hjørland, 2004). The two approaches relatively close to subjectivism are those that are rationalism-based: cognitive paradigm (Ingwersen, 1996) and integrative hermeneutics (Capurro, 2003).
In the context of methodology, objectivism is characterised by a wide speculative scope (Stonier, 1990) and generously conceived empirical projects (Otlet, 1934). Subjectivism focuses more on the analysis of the subjective conditions of cognition (whether the subject is taken individually or collectively), usually tending towards methodological reflection (Capurro and Hjørland, 2003). The approaches in the centre lean towards cognitive optimism combined with critical examination of the assumptions of cognition and of the theoretical and methodological bases of research (Stodola, 2011b).
Understanding of the role of concepts and their definition and classification is closely related to the answers to the basic epistemological questions. Naïve realism considers definitions and classifications unproblematic (Bates, 2005; 2006), whereas scepticism views them as impossible or harmful (Day, 2001). Thus, the attempt to carefully define concepts is more typical of the authors whose approach is not at either end of the continuum (Losee, 1997; Floridi, 2011a).
Extreme objectivistic approaches consider concepts more or less identical to the objects of investigation (concepts are in a way part of reality) (Gackowski, 2010), while extreme subjectivistic approaches view objects as conceptual constructs (reality is only shaped by the creation of concepts) (Cornelius, 2002).
The topic of concepts and their definitions and classifications with regard to the epistemological and methodological bases will be examined in a greater detail in the following subchapters.
Concept can generally be characterised as a way of presenting a part of reality (object) in cognition (subject) (Novák and Dvořák, 2007, p. 38). Scientific concepts are general, meaning that a single concept can capture a quality with a multiple occurrence in reality (for example, through the concept human we express what is common to all the people who have lived, live and will live on Earth) (Ochrana, 2009, p. 29). It is necessary to distinguish between concept as an abstract entity and as a term (a particular language expression) by which the concept is labelled. The term is a material sign designating the concept; the concept is the meaning of the term. The concept represents an object in cognition; the term is a language entity that refers to the object. The relationship between terms, concepts and objects is often shown using the triangle of reference (Ibidem, p. 28). Wolfgang G. Stock (2010, p. 1952) depicts the triangle as follows:
Fig. 2 Semiotic triangle in information science by W. G. Stock (2010, p. 1952)
4.1.1 Detailed Structure of Concept
The relationship between terms, concepts and objects shown above corresponds to the spirit of moderate realism. Word is synonymous with term (Novák and Dvořák, 2007, p. 40); concept corresponds to the subjective (formal) concept (Ibidem, p. 43), i.e. the concept in the human mind. Property is what traditional logic
Fig. 3 Triangle of reference
calls objective concept, i.e. a concept that is viewed as independent of human thinking (Ibidem, p. 48). The set of objects to which the concept is assigned is the scope of the concept, that is, its extension (Ibidem, pp. 57–58). Material objects are objects with everything that pertains to them. At the general level, the overlap between a material object and a property (objective concept) is called the content of the term – intension. With respect to subjects the overlap is called a formal subject. A term has a meaning in the form of a formal concept and a denotation in the form of an objective concept. At the same time, it refers to a set of material objects. Formal concept refers to the intension and extension. Formal concept is a representation of objects; term is the expression of the formal concept.
4.1.2 Concept and Basic Epistemological Questions
The varying conceptions of concepts and of their relation to reality are associated with different answers to the basic epistemological questions that we addressed in the previous chapter. Namely, the way of understanding concepts is related to the second epistemological question because it focuses on the structure of knowledge; however, it needs to be borne in mind that the answer to the second question is linked to the answer to the first question. In order to model the different approaches to concepts we will draw on the classical philosophical conception of concepts (Skácel and Skácel, 1945; Novák and Dvořák, 2007; Gredt, 2009); to investigate the relation of the above questions to information science, Popper’s three worlds (Popper, 1991) and Dervin’s Information 1, 2 and 3 model (Dervin, 1977) will be used. It is clear, therefore, that we will focus not only on the concept of information as such, but also on the relationship between information and concepts. While it is the concept of information that is of primary interest here, information as a concept will be investigated secondarily.
Within the objectivist approaches, two basic conceptions of concepts can be distinguished: an extremely realistic and a moderately realistic one (Novák and Dvořák, 2007, pp. 80–89). The subjectivistic understanding of concepts is represented by conceptualism and nominalism (Ibidem, pp. 90–93). The above distinction is shown in the table below.
Objectivism (Realism) |
Subjectivism (Scepticism) |
||
Extreme realism |
Moderate realism |
Conceptualism |
Nominalism |
Table 2: Basic approaches to the understanding of concepts
4.1.3 Extreme Realism
Extreme realism considers concepts to be objectively existing (either in the material world or in the transcendental realm of ideas) in the same form in which they are present in thought, that is, including the general aspects that have been added by the cognising structures. Extreme realism exists in two forms: Platonic and Scholastic (the latter is called ultra-realism).
According to the Platonic realism, there are concepts that exist separately from and ahead of the material world, with the physical things being what they are because of their participation in concepts (Plato, 1993; Novák and Dvořák, 2007, pp. 80–81). The concepts in human minds are innate; the physical things make it possible for a person to recall a concept that they already know (Plato, 1994). The concept is present in the human mind because before birth the human soul resided in the realm of ideas (Plato, 1993).
In information science, a conception close to Platonism is Popper's theory of three worlds (Brookes, 1980; Dervin, 1977). According to Popper (1991), World 1 is a world of physical objects, World 2 is a world of the mental processes of the cognising subject, and World 3 is objective knowledge (the realm of ideas). Brenda Dervin (1977) views
World 3 as that of predetermined human behaviour that serves as information input (Information 3) for human communication and information retrieval, and that affects the communication between Information 1 (World 1) associated with the physical world and subjective Information 2 (World 3). Information 3 is similar in its aprioristic status to the objectively existing and at the same time innate Platonistic ideas.
Fig. 4 Platonic realism
The scholastic extreme realism (ultrarealism) places concepts in the realm of the material world, but at the same time argues that there is always a single and general occurrence of the concept in everything it can be assigned to (Novák and Dvořák, 2007, pp. 82–83). The cognising subject views the concepts directly, experiencing them precisely in the form in which they exist.
The scholastic type of extreme realism (ultra-realism) places concepts in the realm of the material world but at the same time argues that there is always a single and general occurrence of the concept in everything the concept can be assigned to (Novák and Dvořák, 2007, pp. 82–83). The cognising subject views the concepts directly, experiencing them precisely in the form in which they exist.
Fig. 5 Extreme scholastic realism
The conception of information that is closest to the extreme scholastic realism is that of a “factor in form” (Gackowski, 2010) which can freely and in an unchanged form be transferred from one system to another. However, the physicalist view rejects subjectivity, that is, World 2. Essentially, the physicalist view only knows World 1, to which World 3 is immanent as the information structure of material things that is transferable from one system to another.
Extreme realism considers all concepts univocal, i.e. unequivocally attributable to objects. This is evident, for example, in the attempt to create a unified theory of information (Hofkirchner, 1999) and in the characterisation of information as a “model of organisation” (Bates, 2006). Such a concept of information can, according to its authors, be unequivocally attributed even to entities seemingly as different as DNA and an e-mail (see Capurro, Fleissner and Hofkirchner, 1999).
6 Moderate Realism
A central position between objectivism and subjectivism is occupied by moderate realism (Novák and Dvořák, 2007, pp. 83–89). According to moderate realism, concepts are located in the mind of the cognising subject. In the realm of reality, all the objects that can be captured by a single concept are of the same nature, which, however, is individualised in every object (the same kind of difference exists between the biological concepts genome and genotype, with a genome containing the information common to all the individuals of the same species, and a genotype is a genome individualised into a phenotype – a particular individual of a given species). During cognition, individual differences are abstracted away, leaving only what is common to all the individuals of a given species. In this way a concept is created, an abstract entity that is characterised by the generic features, meaning that a single concept can be used for many objects. It can be said that a concept exists in material objects as potentially general, with generality lending itself to be abstracted. The general concept is found in thinking.
Fig. 6 Moderate realism
Moderate realism sees World 3 as intelligible, that is, able to be grasped by reason. An attempt to introduce into information science a moderately realistic conception of concept was done by Jiří Stodola (2010a; 2011b).
Moderate realists distinguish between univocal concepts (Novák and Dvořák, 2007, p. 74), which can be unequivocally assigned to objects (in their entire content), and between analogous concepts (Ibidem, p. 78) that are assigned to objects in different ways (every object is only assigned a part of the content of the concept) based on structural similarity. The analogous concepts are transcendental (Ibidem, p. 66), meaning that they extend beyond all categories and are assigned to everything that is. The concept of information was found to be an analogous one (Stodola, 2010).
4.1.5 Conceptualism
Conceptualism is similar to moderate realism, with the difference that concepts do not exist in reality but are constructed by the cognising subject using their cognitive structures (Novák and Dvořák, 2007, pp. 90–92). The participation of reality consists in providing sensory data, based on which the concepts are created by the subject.
Conceptualism is characterised by a complete absence of World 3. In philosophy, a typical conceptualist is Immanuel Kant (2001); in information science, conceptualism is associated with the cognitive paradigm (Belkin, 1990) and integrative hermeneutics (Capurro, 2003). In the conceptualist view,
Fig. 7 Conceptualism
all general terms are either analogous or equivocal (Novák and Dvořák, 2007, pp. 74–75). Only parts exist; the general is a construct with no basis in the reality. Therefore, only singular concepts, which are assigned to a single individual, can be unequivocal. General concepts are either analogous or equivocal, because there are no natural properties that would be common to multiple individuals and that could be captured by a general concept. Thus, general concepts are not general in the true sense of the word; rather, they are sets of the rather fuzzy natural properties of the individuals. Therefore, no general concept can be unequivocally (i.e. using the whole content of the concept) assigned to an individual.
4.1.6 Nominalism
Nominalism (Novák and Dvořák, 2007, pp. 92–93) displays the most extreme approach in understanding concepts. According to nominalism, a concept merges with the term (material sign), that refers directly to objects of the material world. The meanings of the terms are determined by the conventions of the community that uses them.
Fig. 8 Nominalism
It may be noticed that nominalism considers terms and the objects referred to by these terms to be fully immanent to the physical world, i.e. World 1. However, this does not mean that nominalism is not subjectivistic. Conversely, it is extremely subjectivistic. The whole community that uses signs to designate objects is a subject, and the community’s convention governs the relationship between terms and objects. The meanings of terms are determined by agreement rather than by the natural relationship between the object and the concept in the knowledge of the subject. In information science, nominalism is associated with social constructivism (Savolainen, Tuominen, Talja, 2005) and discourse analysis (Frohmann, 1994).
According to nominalism, general terms are equivocal, meaning that every object is unique and its contents cannot be captured by a general term. Attaching words to objects itself does not capture the structure of reality, but serves as a communication tool between people.
The above conceptions of concepts have a crucial impact on methodology. Proponents of extreme realism believe that concepts and the reality essentially merge. In practice, this merging can lead to a failure to realise the differences between the reality and the theory through which we try to grasp reality. Using concepts the extreme realists believe that they are in a direct, unmediated contact with objects. Within the discourse of extreme realism, the epistemological and methodological questions are entirely marginal (Stonier, 1990; Bates, 2006; Bawden, 2011).
The moderate realists, on the other hand, are aware of the difference between objects and the concepts assigned to them. They understand that a concept is an abstraction from reality, at the same time believing that it corresponds to reality in a way. Therefore, they show an interest in epistemological questions, investigating the extent to which concepts correspond to the reality (Dretske, 1981; Losee, 1997; Stodola, 2011b).
Conceptualists, for whom the relationship between a concept and the reality is loose, are more interested in the subjective side of conceptualism, that is, in the cognitive structures of the subject. Conceptualism is characterised by an emphasis on the subject as an individual – its representatives are proponents of methodological individualism (Hjørland and Albrechtsen, 1995). They are interested particularly in the internal consistency of a system of concepts (Belkin, 1980; Ingwersen, 1996).
Nominalists, too, are interested in the subjective side of concepts (terms), but they understand the subject from the point of view of methodological collectivism (Hjørland and Albrechtsen, 1995). Here, the main topics of interest include the social side of the genesis and of the transfer of scientific terms and the way they are used in scientific discourse (Frohmann, 1994; Day, 2001).
Wolfgang G. Stock (2010, s. 1953) presents the various ways of understanding concepts in information science using the following diagram:
Fig. 9 Epistemological schools and theories of concept in information science
The above scheme is incomplete due to the absence of realism. Rationalism and hermeneutics can be classified as conceptualistic, pragmatism, empiricism and critical theory as nominalistic. From the point of view of theory, at minimum, realistic conceptions should not be missing; however, it is quite likely that realism in social sciences and humanities has such a weak voice that it can easily be missed.
A definition is a unit of thought expressed in words that explains what the defined thing is (that is, it tells us about its essence) (Skácel and Skácel, 1945, pp. 76–77; Materna and Petrželka, 2008).
When defining things we start with a verbal (nominal) definition which says how a term is to be understood based on its etymology and common use. Nominalists usually do not go beyond the verbal definition. In science, nominalists are interested in how the term is used in professional discourse, rather than what it actually refers to. Realism goes beyond the verbal definition to a factual one, which characterises what a given thing is.
Factual definitions can be external or internal. An internal definition explains what a given thing is through the thing’s basic aspects (for example, a cultural artifact is a thing that aids human adaptation to the environment). An external definition explains what a given thing is using aspects and principles that are external to the object (a cultural artifact is a man-made object).
An internal definition can be substantial or descriptive. A substantial definition expresses the essence of a given thing (car is a cultural artifact used as a means of transport). A descriptive definition explains the thing through its properties (car is a cultural artifact that has four wheels).
Substantial definitions can be divided into metaphysical and physical ones. A metaphysical definition expresses the principles that are constitutive of the thing (man is a reasonable animal). Metaphysical principles are essentially the same, differing only conceptually (the core of a metaphysical definition is always the defined thing). A physical definition characterises a given thing based on principles that are different from each other (a human being is a unity of body and soul).
The goal of defining is to achieve an internal substantial, metaphysical definition. A definition consists of the defined term (definiendum), which refers to a particular concept and, through this concept, to a particular thing, and of two terms (definiens) referring to particular concepts which are combined to construct the defined concept.
Fig. 10 Realistic conception of definition
Through this concept the defined thing is expressed. For a definition to be true, the defined term and the defining terms need to refer to the same concept and the same thing. Genus (family) concepts are defined using the nearest genus and difference (a man is a rational animal).
An extremely realistic definition disregards the difference between a concept in thinking and a concept in the reality; a conceptualistic definition disregards things, a nominalistic one disregards concepts.
A definition is to be clear, composed of the nearest genus and difference. It should not be negative, vague or too wide or narrow.
From the point of view of epistemology and methodology, three types of approaches to definitions can be distinguished:
realistic,
instrumentalistic,
definition-rejecting.
The realistic approach associated with realism and objectivism views definitions as more or less corresponding to the reality, that is, as more or less true. Marcia J. Bates (2005; 2006) takes a realistic approach to definitions. Instrumentalism, which is associated with a more moderate version of scepticism and subjectivism, sees definitions not as true or false, but as more or less useful for the purposes of a given theory. Rafael Capurro and Birger Hjørland express this in the following words:
In scientific discourse, theoretical concepts are not true or false elements or glimpses of some element of reality; rather, they are constructions designed to do a job in the best possible way. Different conceptions of fundamental terms like information are thus more or less fruitful, depending on the theories (and in the end, the practical actions) they are expected to support. (Capurro and Hjørland, 2003, p. 344)
Extreme scepticism rejects definitions completely as essentially harmful (Day, 2001).
Division is the breakdown of the whole into parts based on a particular viewpoint (Skácel and Skácel, 1945, pp. 77–78; Gredt, 2009, pp. 53–54). Multiple dividing is called classification2.
A whole is what is composed of parts or can be notionally divided into them. The whole can either be real, that is, composed of physical or metaphysical parts, or logical. A physical unit consists of parts that differ from each other at the level of reality (parts of the human body); a metaphysical unit consists of parts distinguishable at the level of virtuality (this latter distinction, too, has a basis in reality; an example may be the difference between genotype and phenotype in biology, or between the content and form of a document in information science). A logical whole can be divided into parts only notionally; it has no parts at the ontological level (for example, a general concept contains a number of potential, logical parts).
The combination of parts into a whole can be essential (without its parts the whole cannot be what it is, e.g. a phenotype cannot exist without a genotype); random (that is, not constitutive of the essence of the whole; for example, a person who loses his or her finger remains a human being); or integral (not constitutive of the essence of the whole but necessary for its completeness (a person without a finger is a human being but it is a human being that is lacking something). Parts of a whole can be homogeneous (the same; for example, water molecules), heterogeneous (diverse; for example, a garbage dump) or organic (each part performs a certain function in a whole, such as the organs of the human body).
We distinguish several types division and classification based on the nature of the whole and its parts: real or logical, physical or metaphysical, substantial or random. The process of division should adhere to the following principles:
the parts into which the whole is divided must be proportional to the whole (they need to correspond to it);
no part shall contain more than the whole or shall not be equal to the whole;
no part of the whole shall include another part of it;
a classification contains primarily the parts that are directly constitutive of the whole; only then can these parts be understood as a whole and further divided.
In a vein similar to the above, several approaches to classification are distinguished: According to realism, a definition corresponds to the reality; therefore, realists attempt a real classification (Bates, 2006). Instrumentalism considers classifications to be our aids, which implies that from the instrumentalist point of view, every classification is logical (Floridi, 2011a). Extreme scepticism rejects classifications completely (Day, 2001).
This analytical section focuses on assessing the various definitions and classifications of the concept of information with regard to the epistemological and methodological examinations that were carried out in the first part. The method utilised in this part is qualitative content analysis (as used in library and information science) and interpretation. Our starting points are realistic, meaning that:
we do not consider a text to be a distinctive structure that exists on its own; rather, we view it as a set of signs expressing the ideas of a particular author;
the ideas of a particular author are viewed as more or less corresponding to reality.
Content analysis (what a text says explicitly or implicitly) is therefore inherently associated with conceptual analysis (what the conceptual structure of a text is); conceptual analysis, in turn, is associated with semantic analysis (what the concepts refer to). For the above approach to analysis and interpretation, the most suitable method appears to be reconstructive hermeneutics (Stodola, 2011b), whose goals are proper understanding and interpretation of a text. The basic principles of reconstructive hermeneutics are the following:
the canon of the autonomy of the object (this prohibits the wrong attribution of ideas and intentions to the author of the text; this principle is a part of information ethics);
canon of completeness (a text needs to be interpreted from a broader perspective; therefore, we will attempt to put the text into a context comprised by the social and individual conditions of its origin);
canon of the actuality of understanding (it is clear that we cannot disregard our own subjectivity and that we can only understand the text “in our own way”, that is, using our own conceptual framework and our own thinking; however, this does not exclude that we can more or less correctly understand the text);
canon of the adequacy of understanding (we should try to harmonise our own subjectivity with the input received from the text).
The selection of texts was done based on the epistemological and methodological research presented in the theoretical part of the paper. The selected texts are representative of all the approaches described in the theoretical part, starting with extreme realism and objectivism to extreme scepticism and subjectivism. In addition, we based our selection on the approaches to the definition and classification of the concept of information provided by Marcia J. Bates (2010). Bates distinguishes seven of them.
approach based on communication and semiotics,
activity-based approach,
propositional approach,
structural approach,
social approach,
multi-type approach, and
deconstructionist approach.
The structural and multi-type approaches can be linked to can be associated with extreme realism and objectivism (Bates, 2006). Moderate realism is represented by the propositional and communication-semiotics approaches. With respect to the latter approach it is necessary to take consideration of the way in which the role of propositions and signs is understood by the author. If they are understood in a realistic way, they can be classified as realistic (Losee, 1997; Derr, 1985; Dretske, 1981). On the other hand, a conceptualistic view of propositions and a nominalistic approach to signs are associated with subjectivism (Fox, 1983). The activity-based approach (Pratt, 1977) as well as some of the variations of the semiotics-based approach are associated with moderate scepticism and subjectivism (Floridi, 2011a). The social (Goguen, 1997) and deconstructionist (Day, 2001; Frohmann, 2004) approaches are connected with extreme scepticism and subjectivism.
The authors were selected primarily based on the typicality of their viewpoints. Our analysis focused on the questions discussed in the theoretical part. We were particularly interested in the following: How does the author approach epistemological and methodological questions (are they implicitly contained in the text or explicitly discussed)? How does the author view concepts (in a realistic, conceptual or nominalistic way)? How does the author understand the role of definition and classification in science? How does the author define and classify the concept of information and how this is linked to the answers to the previous questions?
Extreme realism and objectivism in information science can be viewed as including the physicalist paradigm (Stonier, 1990), some of the structural (MacKay, 1969) and evolutionism-based (Bates, 2005; 2006; Bawden, 2007; 2011), approaches; the latter also includes some of the multi-type approaches.
Tom Stonier views information as a “capacity to organize a system – or to maintain it in an organised state” (Stonier, 1990, p. 26), considering information, alongside matter and energy, to be a basic property of the Universe. He proposes the existence of an elementary particle of information which he calls an “infon”.
Donald MacKay understands information in the Aristotelian sense as “that which determines form” (McKay, 1969, p. 160). He defines information associated with knowledge as “that which adds to a representation” (MacKay, 1969, p. 63). He distinguishes three types of information content: structural, metric and selective.
Zbigniew Gackowski (2010) defines information as “anything in form”. By using the transcendental concept of “anything” (Gredt, 2009, p. 341) that accommodates everything that is, Gackowski suggests that he views information as a transcendental concept. Because there is no other classification of the concept of information in his work we assume that Gackowski considers information to be a univocal concept. At various points in his work, Gackowski refers to information as a “factor in form” or “pattern in form”, using the two terms synonymously.
Drawing on Popper's Three Worlds, Brenda Dervin (1977) distinguishes Information 1 (related to the material world), Information 2 (related to the subject) and Information 3 (located in the abstract realm of ideas that investigates the relationship between Information 1 and Information 2). Dervin’s distinction is in a way similar to Plato's epistemology (Plato, 1993; 1994), according to which a man is able to understand material things only insofar as they help to recollect innate ideas.
David Bawden (2007; 2011) distinguishes three types of information. The first type is information which is related to the physical world and associated with organization and order; the second is biological information associated with meaning and viewed as the “incarnation of knowledge”; and the third is social information whose prerequisite is understanding and which is considered to be the “recorded knowledge”. (Bawden’s classification is similar to the conception of Marcia J. Bates which is discussed below.)
A similar, hierarchically ordered conception of reality can be found in Fleissner and Hofkirchner (1996), who distinguish a physical, biological and cultural levels of information. The physical layer of information is associated with the systems that are self-structuring, the biological layer involves self-reproducing systems, and the cultural level contains self-creating systems. The physical layer is associated with the syntactic level of information, the biological layer with the semantic level and the cultural layer with the pragmatic level.
For analysis we chose an evolutionary conception of information by Marcia J. Bates (2005; 2006).
Marcia J. Bates is a Professor Emeritus of information science at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California. In her professional career she focuses mainly on information behaviour and on proposing user-oriented information systems. In her work she draws on methodological individualism. When defining and classifying the concept of information (Bates, 2005; 2006), Bates draws on the evolutionary conception of information, describing her own approach as a structural and multi-type one (Bates, 2010).
For Bates as a representative of the evolutionary approach, a “naïve” approach to epistemological questions is typical. Generally speaking, evolutionists can be characterised by placing ontology before epistemology (Šmajs, 2008, p. 39). Drawing on the ontological premise of the existence of evolution processes the evolutionists understand knowledge as a property associated with certain types of systems that formed in the course of evolution. For these systems, knowledge is a means of adaptation to the environment; therefore, it must be in accord with reality. However, such an approach to knowledge is characterised by unacceptable circularity. Evolutionists rely on that knowledge allows us to regard evolution as reality; as such, evolution then ensures the adequacy of knowledge.
Bates (2005) focuses on epistemological and methodological issues particularly with regard to the difference between the understanding of information and the cognitive and social paradigms in information science. She does not see these as opposing each other, though. At this point it should be noted that while Bates’ objectivistic, evolutionary and ontologically-oriented view can accommodate subjectivist approaches (for objectivists, the subjective is a part of the objective), epistemologically-oriented subjectivists and social constructivists view her approach as one of the possible epistemological approaches influenced by many different factors (for subjectivists, the pursuit of objectivity is a subjective way of understanding the world). Although both approaches can exist side by side, viewing each other “in their own way”, communication between them is quite difficult, as can be seen in the polemics between Bates and Hjørland (Bates, 2011; Hjørland, 2011).
Bates (2005; 2006) defines the information as a pattern of organization. She distinguishes between patterns of the first order (the patterns immanent to structure, formal cause) and patterns of the second order (viewed as something to be achieved, the final cause). Nevertheless, she does not consider the above distinction to be important for her conception of information. Bates (2005) is aware that her definition presents information as related to everything that exists, but at the same time rightly notes that information can be seen as an immaterial pattern of organisation (thus, her approach can be viewed as a form of ontological dualism).
It is clear, though, that Bates considers information a transcendental concept. The above makes it possible to excuse the circularity of her definition (information and organisation can be viewed as having the same meaning and thus establishing insufficient difference; however, elementary concepts only lend themselves to circular nominal definitions). As Bates aims for a precise classification of the concept of information, she appears to consider the concept to be more analogous. Lacking a sophisticated methodological basis, her classification seems rather chaotic at first glance. However, a deeper analysis reveals the absence of any serious classification errors.
Bates (2006) considers all information to be natural. This term seems somewhat redundant from the point of view of classification, given that according to Bates, no information other than natural exists. The basic classification of information is between information related to living systems and that related to non-living systems (though this distinction is only implicit). Information related to non-living systems is not addressed at all. Information associated with living systems is referred to as represented information. The differentiation from the other types of information consists in that represented information is either encoded or embodied. Such a double disjunctive terminology is rather unfortunate; a better solution would be to distinguish between encoded represented information on the one hand and embodied represented information on the other.
Represented information is divided into genetic, neural-cultural and exosomatic.
Genetic information is encoded in a genotype and embodied in phenotype.
Neural-cultural information is encoded in the brain and embodied as experienced information, enacted information and expressed information. The distinction here is between knowledge, action and communication. Given that Bates draws a difference between information encoded in the brain and between experience, she seems to hold a form of dualism with respect to the relationship between the body and the mind (Havel, 2001, pp. 57–60). In any case, she does not hold the physicalist opinion that the mind and the brain are synonymous.
Exosomatic information is embodied in a material artifact (it is probably also encoded in the brain, although Bates does not explicitly mention this). Exosomatic information is actually an extended phenotype (Dawkins, 1999). Such artifacts can be of two kinds: either they are the result of instinctive activity (beaver dam) or rational activity (automobile). Bates sees no significant difference between the two types of artifacts. Exosomatic information can be practice-oriented and not involving signs. Bates labels such information as embedded; examples include manmade tools. Sign-based information on a physical media is recorded information. This last category includes all types of documents and works of art. The classification of the concept of information by Bates can be illustrated as follows:
Fig. 11 Classification of information by Bates
Bates further distinguishes between Information 1 and 2. Information 1 is the objective pattern of organisation. Information 2 is based on Information 1. It is a pattern of organization that is given meaning by living systems with knowledge. It is evident here that Bates draws a distinction between the order of being and the order of knowledge and that she takes a realistic viewpoint. Knowledge is information which is given meaning (Information 2) and is integrated into other knowledge.
In addition to Information 1 and 2, Bates (2005) distinguishes data 1 and 2. Data 1 constitutes what is readily available in the information environment. It is precisely this availability that makes data 1 different from Information. When data 1 is given meaning, it becomes Information 2. Data 2 represents the information environment of the human culture. Information 2 is derived from data 1. Thanks to Information 2, the human culture is created (given as data 2). People draw information from data 1 and 2.
According to Bates (2006), her definition and classification of information can be used in information behaviour research, research in information genres and for the characterisation of the collections of memory institutions.
When investigating information behaviour we can distinguish several basic types of information. When a person searches for information, they already have some experience (experienced information) they seek to expand. During the search, they affect their environment (enacted information) and communicate with other people (expressed information), using physical tools (embedded information) and sign-encoded information (recorded information).
We can distinguish three types of information genres: performative (expressed information), fine art (embedded information) and literary genres (recorded information).
Library collections contain recorded information in published form; archives collect recorded information in unpublished form; and museums deal with collecting physical artifacts (embedded information).
In summary, it can be said that Marcia J. Bates is representative of a moderate version of objectivism, particularly because she does not thoroughly consider epistemological questions and, in line with evolutionists, places ontology before epistemology, which leads to circular justification of the value of knowledge and to rejection of discord with other existing paradigms of information science. Her distinction between Information 1 and 2 acknowledges both the subjectivity of living entities and the fact that cognition is based on information found in reality itself; by this she approaches moderate realism.
From the point of view of classification theory, her classification of concepts is not particularly precise. First, some of the terms are redundant (natural information); second, the use of differences is not symmetrical. At the highest level, the difference is disjunctive (encoded or embodied); at the second level, it is missing completely; at the other levels only the terms encoded and embodied are used. In addition, the second of her two classifications, in which she distinguishes Information 1 and 2, bears no clear connection to the first classification. Neither is she clear about the relationship between Data 1 and Information 1.
A moderately realistic viewpoint can be found among the authors who, unlike nominalists, consider information to be distinct from a sequence of signals or signs, seeking it in meaning of signals or signs, that is, in the idea they represent, and who, in addition, include the category of truth in their conceptions, which sets them apart from conceptualists.
One such author is Richard Derr, who argues that “information is an abstract, meaningful representation of determinations which have been made of objects” (Derr, 1985, p. 29). The above definition is elaborated on using five criteria. Crucially, information in his view is abstract, i.e. independent of the means through which it is communicated (which is contrary to the view of nominalists) and is at the same time determined by the object rather than created by the subject (which is in opposition to conceptualism).
Dretske defines information as that which “is capable of yielding knowledge, and since knowledge requires truth, information requires it also” (Dretske, 1981, p. 45)”. It can be seen in the above that Dretske has a realistic view of knowledge, considering it adequate to reality (true). If information is to expand knowledge, it must be true as well. Jiří Stodola (2010b, pp. 66–70) holds a similar view.
Frederik Thomson sees information as “a product that results from applying the processes of organization to the raw material of experience, much like steel is obtained from iron ore” (Thomson, 1968, p. 305). This metaphor is reminiscent of the way moderate realists view the creation of concepts: sensory perception supplies material for abstraction; the general concept is potentially present in the sensory material, just as steel is potentially contained in iron ore.
We can also use the realistic approach to interpret the definition of information by B. C. Brookes (1980) expressed with the well-known formula K(S) + ΔI = K(S + ΔS), where K is knowledge, S its structure, I is information; when knowledge interacts with information, it changes in structure. The realistic nature of the equation can be seen in that the Greek delta symbol is transferred to the other side of the equation, indicating that the structure of knowledge is enriched with the structure of information.
The following subchapter analyses the communicational approach to information by Robert Losee (1997).
Robert M. Losee works at the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received a bachelor’s degree in linguistics and a master’s and a doctoral degree in information science. His professional interest centred around the communication aspect of information.
Losee (1997) begins his work with a methodological discussion of the role of the concept of information in different subject fields. His aim is to create a definition of information that would be broad enough to be applicable in all the disciplines that work with the concept of information and that would, at the same time, be accurate enough to be of use for scientific disciplines working with precisely defined concepts. In the above it can be seen that Losee does not consider the concept of information to be equivocal; thus, his view lacks the common core of many of the definitions created in varying subject fields. He aims to identify this “core”, describing it with a more general definition of information. It should be noted, though, that Losee does not deny the individual disciplines their right to a unique definition that would best suit their needs. Based on the information given above it can be assumed that Losee does not view the concept of information either as univocal, that is, as having an identical content in all the possible areas of its use, or as a genus concept that fully captures the essence of its subject. He believes that using a general definition it is possible to describe what all the possible definitions of information created in different subject fields have in common. Such a general definition could then be tailored to the needs of the individual scientific disciplines. It follows that Losee probably considers the concept of information to be either analogous or a univocal genus concept that can be refined through differences.
At the beginning of his paper, Losee tentatively defines information as “the output of a process”. In the paper he investigates the plausibility of this initial definition and attempts to refine it via other concepts.
He first discusses the common understanding of the concept of information (attempting a nominal definition), finding that the concept of information in both common and professional discourse is associated with the following characteristics:
information is something (energy, substance or an abstract concept);
it provides “new” knowledge (a repetition of previously received messages is not informative);
it is true (a lie or false or counterfactual information is not information);
it is “about something” (it has a semantic dimension in addition to the syntactic one);
Losee identifies the above characteristics in the works by selected authors and proposes his own tentative definition of information as the “values in the characteristics of the processes’ output” (Losee, 1997, p. 256). He then moves on to a factual definition of the concept of information. He starts by examining what requirements the definition should meet, concluding that it should, above all, capture the essence of the defined object and at the same time should be sufficiently precise. In other words, it should clarify both the similarities and differences between the defined concept and related concepts. The concepts related to information include meaning, certainty and knowledge.
Losee argues that the definition of information should not be too narrow (such as viewing information as an entity connected with the human mind) or too broad (Losee believes that, in line with Occam’s razor, what is not needed should be excluded from the definition). He believes that the concept of information is a fundamental concept of information science.
He proceeds to examine the concepts he used for his definition, namely process, value (characteristics) and output. As already mentioned above, Losee believes that information is always informative, that is, “about something”. He considers information to be the characteristics of the output of the process, these being informative of the process and the input. He divides processes into reversible and irreversible. For a reversible process, the value of the output and the knowledge of the process can be used to accurately reconstruct the input. This is not the case for an irreversible process. According to Losee, all processes produce information and can be accurately described, provided that sufficient resources and time are available. Therefore, it appears Losee considers some processes irreversible only due to our inability to accurately determine all the values, not irreversible from an ontological perspective.
Losee defines a process using the mathematical concept of function. A function is a process (algorithm) through which the input value is transformed into an output value. If f(x) = x + 1, then for x = 1 it holds that f(x) = 2. Every function must have a physically implemented channel, a mechanism that converts input values to output values. A function is reflective of the information transmission process. The output value of the function provides information about the function as such and its input.
Losee argues that information is neither the process, its input nor output alone. In his view, information is the output value in the context of the input and the process; that is, the value of the output insofar as it is reflective of the input and the process.
Fig. 12 The communication process by Losee (1997)
Based on this functional conception Losee creates a hierarchical model of human communication. During information transfer the knowledge is encoded in language expressions, which are then encoded in sounds. Sounds are decoded into language expressions and the process of decoding language expressions creates knowledge. The communication process is hierarchical, with the lower levels “feeding” the higher levels. Losee himself considers the hierarchical model of communication to be a generalised version of the model by Shannon.
Fig. 13 Hierarchical model of communication by Losee (1997)
In Losee’s view, encoding is understood as a function f and decoding as its inverse: f -1. If f is raised to the power of two, then f(4) = 16 and f -1(16) = 4. It holds that F -1 (f(x)) = f (f -1(x) = x. During encoding, the input value x is converted into a particular form from which the output value y is derived during decoding which equals x. The above obviously assumes functions with lossless operation (that is, no information is lost, e.g. due to information noise). The communication process may be represented by the following:
Knowledge (phrase (phoneme(phoneme-1(phrase-1(knowledge-1(x)))))))))
According to Losee, information must always be transmitted through a series of physical processes. The communication channel through which the transmission process takes place is identical to Buckland’s view of information-as-thing (Buckland, 1991).
Here, the informativeness consists in transferring the characteristics from one level to another, which determines the level of precision of the representation. For example, our visual organs provide our brain with the information that an apple is red, but we do not learn anything about its taste, which means that not all the characteristics of the object were transferred and that the representation is imperfect. This is true of most representations (they are imperfect compared to the original).
Losee divides the process of cognition into three hierarchical layers: perception, observation and understanding/belief. Perception is simple reception of information from the outside world; observation consists in active work with this received information, and belief is the attitude of the cognising subject to the object of knowledge, which is incorporated into the hierarchical structure of knowledge. Losee holds to the classical view of knowledge as a justified true belief, explicitly subscribing to the correspondence theory of truth which states that the truth of a statement is determined by the extent to which it corresponds to the world. In his view, knowledge is information that is both true and justified;
false information is still compatible with his model for it is explained as information with an information loss. From an epistemological point of view, false information can be viewed as unjustified information. A lie can, according to Losee, be seen as precise information about both the input and the process if we are familiar with all the circumstances (including, for example, the motive for the lie).
Losee’s work can be described as a typical example of a moderately realistic viewpoint. In his work, much space is devoted to epistemological discussions of the concept of information, including its definition and the requirements that it needs to meet. He first formulates a nominal definition of the concept of information and then proceeds to the factual one, carefully examining the concepts he aims to use in the definition (process, value, input, output). He understands knowledge as a more or less accurate representation of objects. The concept of information is considered to be inherently associated with the concepts of truth and justification. His model also explains misinformation as the result of an information loss that occurs during the communication process. Losee does not share the view of emergentists that there may be more information at the output of the process than at the input; he believes that the amount of output information is either identical to or lower than the amount of input information (if a loss occurred). This corresponds to the Aristotelian conception of causality. Losee does not deal with classifying information because his aim is to create an umbrella (family) concept to which every discipline can add its own differences between species.
Of the approaches in information science, cognitive approach is the closest to conceptualism. Cognitive approach views information as something that changes the internal structure of the cognising subject. However, this change is not caused by the information transferring the structure of objects; rather, the information encourages the subject to create or change its own image of the world. This image is unique to every cognising individual. Conceptualism is characterised by an exaggerated emphasis on subjectivity.
A. D. Madden defines information as a “stimulus which expands or amends the World View of the informed” (Madden, 2004, p. 9).
Allan Pratt argues that the information “is alternation of the Image which occurs when it receives a message. Information is thus an event; an event which occurs at some unique point in time and space, to some particular individual” (Pratt, 1977, p. 215).
Michael Buckland (1991) distinguishes between three meanings of information: information-as-process, information-as-knowledge and information-as-thing. Information-as-process is the action of being informed; it causes a change in the subject’s knowledge. Information-as-knowledge is the result of this change. Information-as-thing is anything that has the potential to be informative (e.g. document).
Jiří Cejpek (1998) and Peter Ingwersen (1996) use the term “potential information”. Potential information is a record of signs that becomes real information when in contact with a human mind. Jiří Cejpek places a great emphasis on the subjective character of information:
The process of subjective perception and experience of the world, referred to as information reception, must be considered a living source, a benchmark and correlate of any speculation on information, for every rational discourse has its roots in first-person experience. [...] Therefore, I believe that the core of theoretical information science is information as a psychophysiological phenomenon and process, such as human interaction with the outside world and with self. This means that information science should be anchored in information processes taking place in human consciousness. (Cejpek, 1998, pp. 139–140).
Another type of conceptualism can be seen in the existential conception of information by Michal Kaščák. Kaščák says:
When we as “creators” of information make a transition from the personal – experience, signal, “raw material” (Thompson, 1968, p. 305) – to “impersonal” (that is, to information, which is the output of this process), we find ourselves in the opposite role of information users: how do we get from the impersonal information, that is, from the “information universe”, which is now – in relation to us – the raw material, to the personally relevant knowledge (that should in this case be the ultimate “output” of our interaction with information)? (Kaščák, 2011, p. 177)
The next subchapter examines the concept of semantic information by Luciano Floridi (2011a), which is a typical example of the neo-positivistic approach.
Luciano Floridi teaches at several European universities. He is a philosopher by education. He focuses mainly on the philosophy of information and on information ethics.
Floridi (2011a) considers information to be a multifaceted phenomenon; in his view, it is a polysemous term that can be defined in varying ways, depending on the level of abstraction. He provides an overview of the meanings of the concept of information structured in a hierarchical way.
A useful definition of information, in his view, is one based on the concept of data. Information consists of a combination of data and meaning. He formulates a general definition of information which requires that three conditions are met in order to obtain semantic information:
Fig. 14 Basic classification of information by Floridi (2011a)
information consists of data;
the data are properly arranged,
properly arranged data is meaningful.
Because the above definition is data-based, Floridi focuses on defining the concept of data. He elaborates the general definition by suggesting that data can be understood as a lack of uniformity, that is, as difference (diaphora). Three general categories of data are distinguished: diaphora de re, de signo and de dicto. Data as diaphora de re refer to a lack of uniformity in the real world; they are “proto-epistemic”; we do not know them but can infer them from experience. They are similar to Kant’s noumenon and Locke’s substances. Data as diaphora de signo reveal a lack of uniformity in the perception of physical states. Data as diaphora de dicto show a lack of uniformity between symbols (conventional signs).
According to Floridi, data is taxonomically, typologically, ontologically and genetically neutral. Taxonomic neutrality means that there is no data “about itself”, i.e. data that would be identical only to itself and that would not be in a difference relationship to other data. Typological neutrality means that data can consist of different data types. Floridi distinguishes primary data, secondary data, metadata, operational data, and derived data.
Ontological neutrality means that no information exists that would not be represented by data; however, Floridi does not employ a materialistic interpretation of the above statement, according to which being represented means to be physically implemented.
Genetic neutrality refers to the independence of the data of who is informed, meaning that information can exist on its own, without any informed entity. However, what he has in mind is not the strong realistic thesis that information can have its own semantics without an intelligent creator.
The possibility of the existence of data independent of the observer is important for the conception of environmental information. According to Floridi, environmental information is defined by its relationship to the observer and is based on data to which the observer does not have a direct access. The existence of this data is inferred from other data that are accessible to the observer. Both types of data must be related to each other.
Floridi focuses at length on a mathematical theory of information because it is, in his view, the basis for a definition of data-based information. The core of his paper is information as semantic content. He then divides information into two categories: instructional and factual.
Instructional information is a guide on how to perform a particular activity. All the instructional information has its own semantic side – it can be meaningful and interpretable. In this way instructional information is connected with factual information, which is a description of a particular state of the world. Factual information depends on the level of abstraction, that is, on the interface between the observer and the observed. The level of abstraction determines the range and type of data for generating information.
Factual information as a description of the state of the world can be true or false. The question is whether false information is factual information. Floridi advocates the concept of factual semantic information as “properly organised, meaningful and true data”.
If properly organised, meaningful data is false, it can be either misinformation (if the falsehood is unintentional), or disinformation (if the deception is intentional).
Floridi, however, does not uphold the correspondence theory of truth. Knowledge is not considered to be a representation of the world; rather, it is a data-based construct. This construct is not arbitrary, though, because it is limited by the data from which it is generated.
Floridi focuses on the philosophical approaches to semantic information, claiming that some are heavily dependent on the mathematical theory of information while others only mildly. The common link between all of the approaches and the mathematical theory of information is the model of communication by Shannon and the inverse relationship principle, according to which the amount of information is inversely proportional to the probability of occurrence of that information. In other words, the less probable a symbol, the greater informativeness it displays. For the above reason, some authors consider tautology (a statement that is true in every possible interpretation) to be a statement that carries zero information content because the probability that it is true equals one. This, however, leads to the paradoxical situation of a contradiction, for which the probability that it is true equals zero, carrying the greatest informative content. Here, the conception of weakly semantic information is used for which the truthfulness or falsehood of a statement is irrelevant. A possible solution to this paradox is provided by the theory of strongly semantic information, according to which the statements that are internally contradictory have zero information value. This is based on the conception of semantic information as properly organised, meaningful and true data, with tautologies and contradictions having zero information value. The most informative are those statements that are correct, accurate and randomly (i.e., not necessarily) true. Such information is the closest to the real state of the world (tautologies and contradictions are the farthest from it). Between the two extremes there are a number of statements whose informativeness is greater than 0 and but less than 1, depending on the completeness and accuracy of the data with respect to a particular state of the world. The varying degrees of informativeness are shown in the graph below.
Fig. 15 Degrees of informativeness according to Floridi (2011a)
Floridi’s approach described in his paper is a classic example of a neo-positivistic approach combined with some of the modern analytical philosophy approaches. This philosophy places great emphasis on the precision of expression (sometimes even technical) way of expression; also, it defines concepts using sufficient and necessary conditions and pays attention to distinguishing subtle differences between concepts. For the above reason the works by modern analytical philosophers may seem extremely objectivistic. However, this is not true. Modern analytical philosophy considers concepts but epistemological aids that more or less elegantly serve the purposes of a particular theory; they are not concerned with the concepts’ relation to reality (neo-positivism considers definitions and classifications to be instruments for the classification of facts but it does not view them as corresponding to reality). The works by modern analytical philosophers are reflective of the structure of the researcher’s abstraction rather than of the structure of reality.
Floridi explicitly subscribes to conceptualism in several places of his work; he does so, for example, when describing data as diaphora de re, which are inaccessible to our cognition and are similar to Kant’s noumenon. An open profession of realism can be seen in Floridi’s conception of knowledge as a data-based construct and in his rejection of the correspondence theory of truth. Therefore, when Floridi mentions truthfulness as a necessary condition for the existence of semantic information, he has quite a different type of truthfulness in mind than, for example, Losee, who understands truthfulness in the sense of realism.
When investigating the concept of information, nominalism and extreme subjectivism delve into the etymological and historical contexts of the use of the word information. These approaches consider concepts to be social constructs created to serve particular purposes. They distinguish themselves from the correspondence theory of truth and in the most extreme cases reject the practice of defining and classifying concepts altogether.
Rafael Capurro and Birger Hjørland (2003) consider definitions to be more or less useful for the purposes of a given theory (rather than “true”). They focus at length on the etymological contexts of the word information, investigating the varying ways in which the term is defined by different authors. The conception of information as such is only covered in a short chapter concluding that it is important to distinguish between information as an objective thing and information as a subjective concept. The latter conception of information is always associated with interpretation of meaning that depends on the social context (Capurro and Hjørland, 2003, pp. 396–397).
According to Ian Cornelius, “information is properly seen not as an objective independent entity as part of a ‘real world’, but that it is a human artefact, constructed and reconstructed within social situations” (Cornelius, 1996, p. 19).
Jonathan Furner (2004) considers information to be a concept that does not relate to epistemology but to the philosophy of language, i.e. the physical tool of communication.
Berndt Frohmann (2004) believes that the attention of information scientists should be directed to documents, which again stresses the importance of physical instruments of communication rather than of information as an immaterial entity.
According to Ronald Day (2001), information is a social construct that serves to promote the utopian vision of society and is a tool of totalitarian power.
In the next subchapter, a paper by Joseph Goguen's (1997) attempting a social and ethical definition of information will be analysed.
Joseph Goguen (died in 2006) was a mathematician by education. He was a professor of computer science at the University of Carolina. He was concerned with software engineering, fuzzy logic, algebraic semantics and semiotics, user interface design and with social and ethical aspects of information technologies.
Goguen (1997) develops his conception of information in the context of the design of an information system. In the introduction to his work he notes that there is no theory or definition of information that would meaningfully reflect the fact that we live in the Information Age. In the creation of his own definition he takes into account the social context in which information systems are created and used, intending to base his definition on sociology, logics and semiotics. He argues that in this sense his definition is postmodern. According to Goguen, a definition of information should meet the following criteria:
it should be applicable on the ways in which information systems are understood as well as designed;
it should address the importance that users attach to events;
it should address ethical issues;
it should take into account the fact that individuals and social groups construct meanings in different ways; to achieve this, the theory should have a strong empirical basis formulated as follows:
no pre-prepared categories can be brought into empirical research; and
the researcher must obtain “hard data” such as video recordings.
Goguen believes that it is necessary to create a ‘social’ information theory rather than a statistical or a representational one. He also argues that an information theory cannot be objectivistic or realistic in terms of a distinction between the subject and the object and the assumption of an objective real world. Therefore, it cannot be based on traditional semiotics, according to which signs refer to real things, but on social semiotics.
Goguen considers it necessary to distinguish between a member of a group or a group that is a potential user of an information system, and between an analyst or designer (individual or group) who analyses or designs the system. In addition, it is necessary to be aware of the difference between the object level, on the basis of which formalisation is created, and the “meta-level” represented by the language used to express that formalisation. The object level models the world of the members of the user group; the meta-level is the language of the analyst.
Goguen proposes the following tentative definition of information: “A unit of information is an interpretation of a configuration of signs for which members of a particular social group are responsible.” Thus, information is seen as identical to the socially constructed meaning of signs. Therefore, meaning is seen as relative to the group among which it is created. He draws a distinction between “dry” and “wet” information based on the extent to which the interpretation is dependent on the context (dry is less dependent). Formalisation is seen as the efforts to make information “drier”, that is, less dependent on the situation. In addition, formalisation makes it possible to explicitly express so-called tacit knowledge, i.e. knowledge that is used without being communicated verbally. Formalisation is successful if it displays immutable mobility, which is a sociological term denoting a type of representation whose interpretation remains immutable in different contexts.
According to Goguen, information has the following characteristics:
it is situated (it can only be understood in relation to a particular situation);
it is localised (interpretation is constructed in a particular context);
it is emergent (it can only be understood at the level of a group of individuals, not at the level of the individual);
it is random (interpretation is the result of a particular situation in which the interpretations of previous events may be included);
it is embodied (i.e. represented in a tangible manner, which may have a decisive impact on the interpretation);
it is vague (only the information that is needed for the task at hand is expressed);
it is open-ended (it can never have a definite form for it must remain open for revisions);
According to Goguen, interpretation can be relatively stable and context-independent only when events are explained post hoc (retrospective hypothesis).
In the next section of his work, Goguen focuses on the ways in which the information (that has previously been defined) can be obtained, examining some of the methods used in humanities and in social sciences. The methods include introspection, questionnaire, interview, group-focused method and protocol analysis. Goguen concludes that although the methods may be useful, they take little account of the social nature of knowledge. This disadvantage may be overcome by employing ethnomethodology, a method that responds to the traditional objectivistic approach in sociology and examines how social order is produced in and through the processes of social interaction. An ethnomethodologist must get as close as possible to the studied group to be able to understand the system of its values. Ethnomethodological semiotics examines how the meaning of signs is created in group interaction. According to Goguen, ethnomethodology should be the basis for the social theory of information. In his view, the main limitations of ethnomethodology consist in the following:
it requires data obtained by observing interactions in normal situations that are not disturbed by observation (this is not easy to achieve);
it requires the analyst to understand the concepts and methods of each member of the group, which can only be achieved to a certain extent;
it requires that the observations be done under certain conditions in which interactions take place (but the design of the technical equipment requires the use of abstraction and formalisation); and
it is effortful and time-consuming.
According to Goguen, ethnomethodology makes it possible to study the results of interactions between the members of a group that are shared by these members.
In addition, he focuses on discourse analysis. In his view, the main features of a discourse are definable boundaries, which he considers to be social, and an accurate internal structure. Discourse contains narrative presuppositions that are related to the chronological order of events in the text, and evaluation explaining the events through the system of shared values. Goguen believes that discourse analysis does not reveal the truth hidden in a text; rather, it explains how the text is related to its context. Discourse analysis combined with other methods can be used for a case study examining the value system of a group.
Goguen’s work falls into the category of extreme scepticism particularly because he rejects the correspondence theory of truth and considers knowledge to be a social construct relative to a particular community. In addition, he can be considered an extreme subjectivist on account of rejecting the distinction between the epistemological terms of object and subject and viewing knowledge as created by a collective subject. His connection to nominalism consists primarily in the belief that the relationship between signs and the entities they refer to is purely arbitrary and depends on social convention (ethnomethodological semiotics). However, his scepticism, subjectivism and nominalism are not absolute because he believes that there are exact methods of “drying out” information through which information can be made less dependent on the social context. As regards information definition, he does not avoid it completely but employs a rather lax approach, providing a somewhat vague definition of an information unit instead of defining information per se. He provides a quite narrow definition of information as the interpretation of signs. It is clear that the above definition cannot become universal; it was created for the purposes of information system designers. The distinction between “dry” and “wet” information is based on the degree of dependence on the context.
The subject of our analysis were texts by four selected authors: Marcia J. Bates, Robert Losee, Luciano Floridi and Joseph Goguen. The texts were selected as typical representatives of all the approaches to the understanding of concepts described in the theoretical part of the paper: extreme and moderate realism (associated with epistemological realism and objectivism) as well as conceptualism and nominalism (associated with epistemological scepticism and subjectivism). The selected authors’ approaches to our questions of interest can be classified using the following table:
Author |
Epistemological and Methodological Bases |
Approach to Concepts |
Approach to Definitions and Classifications |
Definition of Information |
Classification of Information |
Marcia J. Bates |
Realism and objectivism, evolutionary approach |
Extremely realistic |
Realistic |
Pattern of organisation |
Natural information is divided into information related to living systems and that related to non-living systems. Information associated with living systems is referred to as represented and it can be genetic, neural-cultural or exosomatic; another classification divides information into Information 1 and Information 2 |
Robert Losee |
Realism and objectivism, communicative approach |
Moderately Realistic |
Realistic |
Information is the characteristics of the output of the process, these being informative of the process and the input. |
No classification is done; according to Losee, classification should be left to the individual disciplines dealing with the concept of information. |
Luciano Floridi |
Moderate scepticism and subjectivism, neo-positivism |
Conceptualistic |
Instrumentalistic |
Information consists of properly arranged data; factual information = properly arranged, meaningful and true data |
Information is either environmental or semantic; semantic information can be divided into two categories: instructional and factual. |
Joseph Goguen |
Extreme scepticism and collective subjectivism, ethnomethodology, discourse analysis |
Nominalistic |
Instrumentalistic |
A unit of information is an interpretation of a configuration of signs for which members of a particular social group are responsible. |
Information is divided into “wet” and “dry” based on context-dependency. |
Table 3 Definition and classification of information in the works by selected authors
There is no consensus, among either the analysed authors or those that were mentioned only marginally, on the genus concepts and the difference concepts used in the authors’ definitions. The above fact can be explained in two ways, depending on which epistemological view we decide to take.
As sceptics, we would say that information is an equivocal term (Novák and Dvořák, 2007, pp. 74–75) which has different meanings in different contexts, i.e. that it is a term denoting different concepts. In this case, the meaning of the term “information” is relative to the context in which it is used.
As representatives of realism, we could say that the difficulties associated with defining the concept of information are caused by the transcendental nature of this concept. A transcendental concept (Novák and Dvořák, 2007, p. 66) is a concept that is in a way related to everything that exists. Such a concept is very difficult to define since it is impossible to find the nearest genus or suitable difference. Therefore, transcendental concepts can only be defined verbally with the use of an analogy. In view of the above it is not surprising that different authors use different words to define information. Nevertheless, a certain similarity of the definitions could be noticed. For example, both Bates’ “pattern of organisation” and Floridi’s “properly organised data” refer to the concept of order. Losee's “values in the characteristics of the processes’ output”, Floridi’s “meaningful data” and Goguen’s “interpretation unit” emphasise the fact that information is “about something”, i.e. that it has a semantic dimension.
The same is true for classifications. It can be noticed that both Bates and Floridi make a basic distinction between information as a structure and information that has meaning. The former is called Information 1 by Bates and environmental information by Floridi; the latter Bates refers to as Information 2 and Floridi as semantic information. Losee does not classify information at all; Goguen only distinguishes between “wet” and “dry” information. The lack of classification is probably due to the fact that the two authors only deal with information as en entity that has meaning, disregarding information as a structure.
It can therefore be concluded that the problem with defining and classifying information is due to the very nature of this concept, which allows only nominal definitions. Thus, the fact that no general definition of information has been adopted by information science can be ascribed to the enormous scope of the concept rather than to insufficient efforts of information scientists. It does not appear advisable to extend the current number of nominal definitions of the concept of information; instead, information science should consider whether it really needs such a broad concept.
The paper focused on the definition and classification of the concept of information in terms of epistemology and methodology. First, the concepts of epistemology, methodology, method and methodics were defined and the influence of epistemology and methodology on the various approaches in information science were investigated. Second, two basic epistemological questions were formulated and a distinction between realism, scepticism, objectivism and subjectivism was drawn based on the answers to these questions. We investigated their relation to methodology and provided a selection of examples of the above approaches from the field of information science.
We defined the term “concept” and differentiated between four basic conceptions of concepts: extreme realism, moderate realism, conceptualism and nominalism, and provided a selection of examples of these concepts that can be found in information science.
Furthermore, we investigated the concepts of definition and classification and established three different approaches to defining and classifying concepts: realism, instrumentalism and definition-rejecting approach.
In the next part of our work, texts by four authors (Bates, Losee, Floridi and Goguen) were analysed who are typical representatives of the above approaches to epistemological and methodological questions.
We came to the conclusion that information is a transcendental concept that can only be defined verbally and therefore, its further use in information science should be subject to consideration. For the purposes of information science, the concept of information can either be narrowed down3 or replaced with another concept, for example, with that of document, as suggested e.g. by Frohmann (2004).
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1 The paper is a substantially extended version of a paper entitled “Pojem informace jako epistemologický a metodologický problém” (The Concept of Information as an Epistemological and Methodological Problem) published in 2013 in Knižničná a informačná veda XXIV (Library and Information Science XXIV). The analyses described in the present paper were published in an altered form in a book entitled “Filosofie informace – metateoretická analýza pojmu informace a hlavních paradigmat informační vědy” (Brno, 2015) (Philosophy of Information – Metatheoretical Analysis of the Concept of Information and the Main Paradigms of Information Science). Nevertheless, the present paper in its entirety is a new contribution to the discussion of the concept of information.
2 The terminology comes from Aristotelian philosophy.
3 Bawden and Robinson (2013) believe that the most successful attempt in this respect is Floridi’s definition of semantic information analysed above. However, the concept is a philosophical one and thus it is too broad for the purposes of information science.
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Mgr. David Mach / Národní knihovna České republiky (National Library of the Czech Republic), Klementinum 190, 110 00 Praha 1
Previous research has placed the texts written in the Czech language and printed in Roman type mainly at the end of the 18th century and at the first half of the following century. Today František Jan Tomsa and also his younger successors from the ranks of the second and third revival generation, for example Josef Jungmann, Václav Hanka or Josef Kajetán Tyl, are considered as pioneers of this important emancipation step of the Czech nation. The transition from Schwabacher typeface and blackletter to the Roman typeface is commonly interpreted as an attempt to break free from the dependence on the German social and cultural influence and the literary culture of German speaking countries. However, the aim of this article is to show that these attempts to print Czech language texts in Roman type had occurred even before the activities of Tomsa, and that at this early stage it did not necessarily have to be isolated acts of individual printers but rather a wider activity which was intentionally repeated and motivated by various reasons. National causes which have dominated the period of the Czech National Revival probably did not play such a significant role yet. This contribution wants to draw attention to new particular findings that may help to create a more accurate and complete picture in the future concerning the origin and role of Roman typeface in the printing of Czech language books.
The Roman typeface is placed between so called humanistic scripts which had already been developing since the middle of 15th century and which forms, besides the neo-Gothic scripts,2 the second basic group of the early modern period scripts. While the family of neo-Gothic scripts represented the completion of the developmental trends of the previous medieval Gothic period, the humanistic scripts, on the contrary, were returning back to the legacy of ancient and early Christian history. Despite this fundamental ideological difference both groups existed in parallel for more than four hundred years and their mutual coexistence was discontinued only in the middle of the 20th century. The humanistic scripts, same as the neo-Gothic scripts, alternated the form of a neat book font or a brief semi cursive letter or cursive letter;3 in addition to its handwritten version, it also had a typographic variation at disposal. The Roman type has best applied within the humanistic scripts exactly in the field of printed communications. Its specific definition says that it represents a vertical shadowed font which has a uniformly composed whole of all upper-case letters and lower-case letters of the alphabet.4 The upper-case letters of Roman type, in other words the capital letters, are based on the ancient Roman inscriptions of capital letters, while the lower-case letters accurately imitate the early medieval bookplate Carolingian minuscule and written ring-shaped script of humanistic Latin manuscripts of the 15th century. The characteristic structure and aesthetic features of the Roman type are contrasting shading, consistent round shapes, upright stem finishing with the bottom shaft or serifs, and the brightness of the font image.5 The specific letters of the Roman type are mainly the double lobed lower-case letters "a" and "g".
The Roman type was used in book printing soon after its discovery and expansion. There have been several foreign typographers since its birth and gradual improvement. For example, at the very beginning it was German printer Konrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz or Venetians like Nicolas Jenson and Aldo Manuzio. These and then another printers and letter makers also focused on solving the theoretical problems of its appearance and structure, in addition to the practical usage of the Roman type. Therefore, it is possible to follow the stages of successful development in the history of the Roman type, represented for example by the French version of the Roman type of Claude Garamond, the unified Roman type of William Caslon the Elder, the simple and distinct Roman type of John Baskerville and classicist Roman type of Firmin Didot and Giambattista Bodoni, but also the stages of its qualitative decline. These are represented, for example, by the group of fallen scripts of the 19th century, where one can find the Egyptian, Italian, and Tuscan scripts, whose usage has been found in the area of accidental typography or as decorative components of title pages.
In the oldest period of the existence of the Roman type an unwritten custom was already established that this type of script was used only for printing texts which were written in Latin, while neo-Gothic fonts were used for the national languages. However, this rule has not been followed consistently and individual countries (i.e., Italy, France, England) have began to use the Roman type even for printing non-Latin texts. The humanistic script came to the Bohemian lands in its written form already in the 15th century via notes in the royal papers of Ladislav Pohrobek and Jíří z Poděbrad. Its further expansion, however, was very slow and without much detail, even in Catholic groups where we would have expected stronger support and faster procedures.6 The print version of the Roman type arrived a few decades later. It was first used in Bohemia for printing larger textual passages written in Latin by the Prague printer of a Nuremberg origin Jan Had in 1536. In Moravia the private Chateau Print Workshop in Náměšť nad Oslavou maintains the order of first importance (see below).7 The humanistic script both written and printed, thereafter, shared a similar fate. Due to the interplay of various circumstances, it was given a place only in Latin writings and printed materials. It became usual for the Czech language in general after several, mostly unsuccessful, attempts until the middle of the 19th century when in connection with the phonological revision, the revival struggle for a graphical change of written and printed fonts was successfully completed.
On the following lines, we will undertake a more detailed analysis of the few attempts to apply the Roman type into the Czech language printed texts, which had occurred before the appearance of František Jan Tomsa and the younger revival generations. It is especially a period ranging from the thirties of the 16th century until the beginning of the seventies of the 18th century. We will be interested in the Czech typographers who used the Roman type for the printing of Czech books, whether limited to short passages (e.g., imprint, front pages, headlines) or whole books which were printed in the Roman type straight away. Václav Jan Tibelli was reportedly the first who decided to do that with the prayer-book Nebeský budíček duše křesťanské [A Heavenly Reveille of the Christian soul] (K18657, hereinafter A Heavenly Reveille) published in 1738. The analysis of this and similar titles will conclude the characteristics of the whole pre-revival Roman type period.
The oldest home printers already possessed the Roman type in their typesetting cases (according to the previous Printers of Arnošt's statute or the Printers of the Prague Bible, for example Mikuláš Konáč). They limited themselves to the ownership of the letters "C", "I", "L", "V", "X", which were necessary for the printing of Roman numerals and for the navigational functions within prints. However, the full scale of the Roman type wasn't needed, because the neo-Gothic script had a clear monopoly in the printing of both Czech and even Latin texts at the beginning. The expansion of the Roman type was prevented by several specific factors. Confessional disputes and strong anti-Catholic moods were among them, then there were the direct influence of the German print workshops on our domestic typography, conservative thinking of printers and readers and, finally, the technical difficulties in adapting the Roman type fund for printing texts in the Czech language. Domestic typographers were not equipped with the appropriate Roman type set of fonts which would have been suitable for reproducing the Czech language. It required letters with specific characters for expressing the Czech diacritics. In the ideal and also in the most expensive case, the printers had to have made a new such high-quality printing font. If they could not have afforded this method for financial or time reasons, they had other less elegant choices. Afterwards, the template form was supplemented with additional diacritical marks or used for making such accented letters which at least narrowly expressed through circumflex, two dots, or left reversed acute accents above the corresponding letters of the alphabet expressing the length of softness of our vocals and consonants. The easiest to manufacture, historically proven, and therefore the most frequently used option was a typesetting with a digraph or a complete omission of diacritics.
These procedures have not changed significantly and have persisted until the revival reforms in the 19th century. Although the Counter-Reformation offered new and more suitable confessional-political conditions for the expansion of the Roman type, nevertheless, this printing script did not catch on as a dominant in Czech language books nor the then large institutional print workshops (e.g., Jesuit or Archbishops printing workshops) did not show any initiative to make some changes. It was due to a strong dependence of the Czech readers on the neo-Gothic types. This psychological need had already been cultivated by the printers in the late Middle Ages, then fastened by the practice of typographers of the 16th century, and traditionally maintained from this point on. Certain technical and financial barriers also contributed to its long life.
The oldest printing house which intentionally overcame the steady domestic tradition for the first time was the private Chateau Print Workshop in Náměšť, founded and financed by Václav II. Meziříčský z Lomnice.8 For a short period of time he focused a group of scholars and typographers around his printing house who published five Czech language titles between the years 1533-1535. These publications primarily served as textbooks for teaching the sons of Wenceslas and at the same time they tried to follow up with content and physical aspects of the foreign humanistic schools current at that time, especially focusing on the critical translation and editing activities of Erasmus of Rotterdam. Thanks to this modern approach, the Roman type has appeared besides the neo-Gothic scripts in the two prints from Náměšť. It was used for highlighting parts of the title pages, headings, titles, marginalia, and the summarizing text passages of Nový zákon [The New Testament] from 1533 (K17099) and Grammatika česká [The Czech Grammar] (K06637) written by Beneš Optát, Petr Gzel and Václav Filomat in the same year. To the print of these titles were printed in the Roman type upper-case letters without diacritical marks and even the lower-case letter with Czech accents. They were created by Matěj Pytlík z Dvořiště, who had personally produced the printing letters by himself. He tried to design the Roman type in a way in which it would have been accepted by the contemporary confessional Czech readership community, which manifested itself in its distinctive inclination to neo-Gothic writings. However, this deliberate and timeless attempt of a new redirection of the domestic printing press did not find a stronger response among the printers and readers at that time nor any program followers.
Another use of the Roman type for printing texts in the Czech language appears now only as rare attempts led by an effort to highlight important words and text units in the otherwise prevailing neo-Gothic text setting. These occasional procedures were mainly limited to the front pages or final explicits. The tiny part of the title was decorated with the Roman type by home typographers Alexandr Oujezdecký and Jiří Jakubův Dačický. Namely, Oujezdecký in the work of of the German Evangelical Theologian Martin Bucer Kniha o opravdové péči o duše [Concerning the True Care of Souls] (K01386) from the year 1545 and Dačický in the Kancionál aneb Písní vejročních [Hymnal or The Annual Day Songs] (K03713) published in 1609. Both of them had at their disposal only a lower-case letter and vertical upper-case letter Roman type without diacritical marks. The Prague printer Pavel Sessius extended the use of the Roman type to the entire front page in the work Žaltář B. P. Marie od svatého Bonaventury složený [Psalter of the Blessed Virgin Mary composed by Saint Bonaventure] (K01211) from the year 1625. But he did not use for it the typographical composition but rather a copper engraving. The title of Sessius's Psalter is decorated with the engraved Roman type semi-cursive letters – with the accented letters "ř", "ě", "é". In all letters, the diacritical mark is indicated by a dot above the letter.
The printer Šebestián Oks z Kolovsi proceeded in the opposite direction in the years 1561 and 1562. He placed the Roman type text in the colophon at the end of the first part of Friedrich Nausey's Kázání křesťanská s krátkými výklady [Christian Sermons with Short Interpretations] (K06092–K06093).9 In doing so, he used a vertical lower-case letter Roman type without diacritical marks, but he attached the semi-cursive letter "w" and also "a" with the left inverted and to the right-hand side placed a comma that replaces our "á". This only proves that he was not sufficiently equipped to reproduce the longer Czech language textual passages. In this respect, the Unity of Brethren Printing House was better off. It ended up using a semi-cursive diacritical Roman type for publishing the edition of biblical psalms from 1587 (K17528). It had at hand the accented lower-case letters "á", "ů" and the upper-case letter "Ž", where the today's caron was replaced by the dot for printing the final colophon.10
Oujezdecký, Oks, the Unity of Brethren Printing House, Dačický or Sessius viewed the Roman type as a decoration and symbolic element. Their understanding was no different from contemporary typographers who engaged in the sphere of humanistic poetry and produced occasional or commercial prints in large-scale. Even in this area there is a Czech language Roman type text, although it takes the form of acrostic from lower-cased letters and conceals short quotes or names of celebrates, patrons, and biblical characters.11 The aftermath of typographical conventions can be observed even in the Baroque period12, which were revealed again in the chronograms created from the Roman type upper-case letters and set in the names.13 However, domestic printers before and after the Counter-Reformation did not dare to use the Roman type as printing script of a main text, or at least of the larger auxiliary or framework text passages. Only occasionally they used the Roman type to highlight some individual words in the form of their own names14 or semantically important expressions.15 No attempt which would have overcome these random particularities and would bear a comparison with the Chateau Print Workshop in Náměšť has been bibliographically recorded.16 On the other hand, lets keep aside the words taken from Latin and supplemented with Czech word endings. On the contrary, their printing was not possible without a combination of the Roman type and neo-Gothic types (e.g., the word "Astronomowé" where the "Astrono" is printed in the Roman type and the rest "mowé" again in neo-Gothic type).
Several Baroque prayer-books brought new impulses to domestic printing. During the 18th century their printers were probably the first who tried to remove the understanding of Czech language Roman type text as something unusual and innovative. They chose a rather radical solution. They allowed their prints to be made in Roman type completely from the title page over the headers, headings, and to the main text. The group of these publications consists of a total of four titles reproduced in twenty editions. Eight domestic printers contributed to their publication. Seven of these typographers can be safely identified, though unambiguous identification is not yet possible for one of them. Ten of the published prints are not specifically dated, for others we know the exact year of publication. The oldest is probably the prayer-book A Heavenly Reveille (K18656) published in Hradec Králové in 1719.17 Its originator is Václav Jan Tibelli, as well as of other two editions, one of which belongs to 1738 (K18657).18 Almost simultaneously, but perhaps also before or even after Tibelli, the Prague printer Karel František Rosenmüller19 printed another prayer-book in the Roman type with the title of Rajská růže (hereinafter referred to as The Rose of Paradise). Unfortunately, due to an unlisted dating and more accurate identification data, we are unable to determine whether it was the elder Rosenmüller or his younger son of the same name. Anyway, the book was published between 1705 (when the elder Rosenmüller began to work as an independent printer) and 1745 (which is the date of death of the younger Rosenmüller).20
Another prayer-book had to be printed in the Roman type shortly after the mid-18th century. Its title was Duchovní poklad aneb Katolické modlitby [The Spiritual Treasure or Catholic Prayers](hereinafter referred to as The Spiritual Treasure) and it was published by Karl Josef Jauernich. Its publishing date is not exactly mentioned, but the independent activity of this Prague typographer is bounded by the years 1755–1767.21 Thus, it was very likely that Jauernich stood at the beginning of the series, which included another two Roman type re-editions of The Spiritual Treasure. Fortunately, one of them (K14117) is provided with a precise date of its release. It was printed by František Václav Jeřábek in 1772.22 The second, undated, was made in the workshop of Vojtěch Ignác Hilgartner in Jindřichův Hradec.23 It can be assumed that Jeřábek closely followed the same method as Jauernich. In fact, both typographers worked closely together, and even had the same residential address V Železných dveřích [At the Iron Door]. Jeřábek re-edited one of the products of his former neighbor after Jauernich's professional career break or death. This is also supported by the match of typographic material (see below). The dating of Hilgartner's Spiritual Treasure is more complicated. This typographer from Jindřichův Hradec was active in the years 1759–1787.24 Thus, his print could have been created as a response to both Jauernich's and Jeřábek's editions. It is more or less identical in content with both of them. Hilgartner's or Jauernich's Spiritual Treasure could also have become a source model for the manuscript with the same but a shortened title Duchovní poklad aneb Katolické modlitby všem nábožným křesťanům k duchovnímu prospěchu a spasení [Spiritual Treasure, or Catholic Prayers for All Devoted Christians for Spiritual Welfare and Salvation], which was written and decorated with illustrations in 1760 by F. Wüber. A match between the prints and the handwriting can be confirmed on the content and textual level. The graphic design of the manuscript is significantly different and probably the author's artistic originality has been reflected in it.25
To the chronologically youngest group belongs Josef Antonín Škarnicl (1729–1813), who published A Heavenly Reveille (K18660) in 1780.26 This is another edition of the same title that Tibelli had previously printed. Škarnicl probably used the Roman type according to his pattern. However, in his print he made minor textual modifications and reduced the accompanying illustrations, although he did not mention his name directly in the printing impression. According to the place of publishing, which was Slovak Skalica, there is no doubt that it was exactly this typographer, originally from Olomouc, because no one else printed in this city at that time. The son František Xaver Škarnicl the Elder (1769–1841) followed his father at least once.27 His father bought another Roman type edition of Heavenly Reveille in 1826.28 Unlike his father, he equipped his print with other, more carefully accented Roman type types (see below), with more illustrations, and he also made more textual changes.
František Václav Jeřábek has become more noticeably prominent in the field of the Roman type prayer-books at the end of the 18th century. We can even call him the main protagonist of this late stage. He surpassed his predecessors and contemporaries mainly by the number of re-editions. This time it was not the Spiritual Treasure, but the title Duchovní křesťanské katolické jádro všech modliteb [The Spiritual Christian Catholic Core of All Prayers] (hereinafter only The Core), which was probably printed repeatedly by Jeřábek in shorter time periods. It has been counted at least eleven items, which greatly increases the total number of Roman type prayer-books, where the undated editions prevail. In the group of dated ones there are years like 1784, 1796 a 1797. The two youngest prints from 1800 and 1809 were published by the widow Jana Jeřábková. According to these indications, we could place Jeřábek's production predominantly in the period when the Roman type was gaining more and more stable position in the Czech language text.29
The Roman type found in Jeřábek's copies of The Core were printed in two typographic versions.30 The first is represented by two full Roman type editions, of which the older one was printed by Jeřábek (K03409) and the younger one by his widowed wife Jana (K03419).31 The second, more numerous version is represented by prints in which the Roman appears only on the title pages, in titles, headings, notes and indexes. Neo-Gothic script is used in the remaining parts of texts. However, it is not a classic Schwabacher type or blackletter. The individual prayers are literally written in Current script and are in the form of handwritten text.32 Jeřábek probably reproduced the Roman type and the printed Current through typesetting. In doing so, he has created truly unconventional products that stand between the printed and handwritten books.
All the above-mentioned prayer-books are very close to each other in content and genre. Basically, these prayer-books are smaller in format and not very comprehensive in scope, including a selection of prayers for different religious acts and everyday occasions (e.g., home prayers, morning and evening prayers, prayers used in church for services, communion or confession, prayers for the dead, prayers to Jesus Christ, to the Virgin Mary and to the Saints.33 They were intended for practising private devotion and deepening personal piety. During the 18th and 19th century the prayer-books belonged to the most frequently published Czech prints at all. They had gained popularity mainly among women readers from lower social class. Thus, the prayer-books have become articles of daily use and an essential part of the furnishings of small town or country households. Even so, magical power was ascribed to them, and therefore they were used to perform various superstitious rituals. In addition to the regular reading and saying of individual prayers, they served as personal gifts and items for protection during childbirth, illness, death or storms. It is no wonder then that prayer-books were reproduced in dozens of titles during the Baroque period. Except for the exceptions mentioned above, they were all printed in the neo-Gothic script.
Yet, it remains hidden from us precisely who or what brought Tibelli and other above-mentioned printers to the idea of replacing the traditional Schwabacher type and the blackletter for the Roman type unusual for readers. Nevertheless, in some Roman type editions, the participation of another initiator in the background was directly available. How can we then explain Tibelli's efforts to capture as accurately as possible the specific Czech vowels and consonants (see below) while he was a foreigner who had come from Tyrol or Italy and did not probably speak Czech well? Unfortunately, for the genre of prayer-books the anonymity of the authors is characteristic, and therefore it is not to be expected that the possible names of authors or specific reasons for their release would be written in the prints. Apart from the typographers themselves, there were no other contemporary persons on the front pages of all the described prints who would have participated in their preparation. The study of other textual parts will not help us in this direction either. Rosenmüller's, Jauernich's and Hilgartner's prints and all of Jeřábek's editions lack any front frame sections (e.g., foreword, dedication). Only both copies of Tibelli's Heavenly Reveille have the customary permission of approval at the beginning signed by Jesuit Jan Steiner and Archbishop Daniel Josef Ignác Mayer z Mayernu. The Heavenly Reveille of Josef Antonín Škarnicl from 1780 was sponsored by the same names, even though Steiner and Mayer had long been dead.
Both church dignitaries acted as censors also in other Czech language prints published at the beginning of the 18th century. The more interesting of these two is Steiner. He could reveal to us the circumstances of the origin of the Tibelli's Roman type publication. Steiner died at the end of September 1717, but the first Heavenly Reveille was not published until 1719. How should this time incongruity be explained? Suppose that Steiner censored the manuscript, which then became the template for the printed version. Did Tibelli take the printing of the book itself almost two years since he received the appropriate approval from the Church authorities? Or perhaps there was even an older and now no longer preserved edition of Heavenly Reveille and the edition of 1719 was its overprint, into which the permission was taken over?34 This possibility cannot be completely ruled out because the Heavenly Reveille from 1738 and Škarnicl's edition from 1780 were founded on such practice. It seems more plausible that Tibelli encountered technical problems related to the use of non-standard print fonts for the Czech text during the preparation for printing, and took him longer to solve them than he had probably originally expected.35
Determining the time of publication of all Roman type prayer-books in a clearer manner could help us to answer questions about the historical background of their origin. According to the different printing attributions of the individual prints, let us suppose that the competition between the typographers involved played some role there. The copies of Tibelli's Heavenly Reveille were published during the period, when also both Rosenmüllers were printing in parallel. In 1719 the elder one was active and his son was already active in 1738. The same situation occurred in the fifties to the eighties of the 18th century, when Jauernich, Jeřábek, Hilgartner and Josef Antonín Škarnicl worked at the same time. This time concurrence could testify concerning the copying of editorial projects. One printer published a print with an unusual typographic apperance and his professional friendly rivals responded to it with a similar action, motivated by an effort to keep up with the competition. Thus, it appears at least in relation Tibell vs. Rosenmüller and then Jauernich or Jeřábek vs. Hilgartner. This competition did not have to be direct and personal. It could take place at longer intervals and with greater time delays between particular editions. According to various places of publication (Hradec Králové, Prague, Jindřichův Hradec, Skalica), it is also possible to consider that printers primarily focused on readers from locations that were in the geographic proximity of their printers and only secondary to competing with their rivals from other cities.
From the group of prayer-books printed with the Roman type, have to be partially set aside some of Jeřábek's Cores, just because the Roman type had only the secondary marking functions and the neo-Gothic font prevailed in the main text. In the domestic environment, these Cores had nobody to continue and did not face any competition until the end of the 18th century.36 Jeřábek's idea of combining the current script and the Roman type can be appreciated as his personal commercial innovation. His goal was probably to imitate numerous manuscripts of prayer-books which were very popular and widespread at the time, mainly among the rural population.37 With their printed copies, Jeřábek was able to anticipate strong demand and thus sufficient financial gain in advance. However, due to more complex production processes, it can be assumed that their price was generally higher. This narrowed the set of potential buyers to the richer and more socially higher Czech-speaking bourgeoisie or lower nobility. Ordinary rural readers could not afford them. In this case was Jeřábek probably motivated by Rococo fashion wave, rather than by trying to make the Czech language Roman type books accessible to all readers.
This brings us to another hypothesis. The existence of the Roman type prayer-books did not have to be caused only by commercially competitive relationships, as we have tried to portray above. Other factors such as efforts to bring about an overall change in domestic typography or to increase the general education of folk readers could also have been behind their emergence. From today's point of view, it is very surprising that the Roman type appeared just in prayer-books and namely in the first half of the 18th century and thanks to several private Prague or regional printers. Attempts to apply, or even mass-introduce, the Roman type to the Czech language printed text would be expected from an institutional printer run by a state or church institution, which later really happened (see Tomsa in the Normal School Printing Workshop). For us it would be more understandable to find the Roman type rather in the literature of an educational or administrative character, which were intended for social elites as the carriers of progress at that time. The Roman type prayer-books, however, were turning these considerations upside down. They suggest that the efforts of printers to qualitatively enhance the domestic book production and the cultivation of the reader community could have also been be realized in prints belonging to the "lower" typography. These prayer-books could have become an ideal base for such experiments, thanks to their spread, practicality, personal ownership, and text variability. Moreover, such social attention on other genres of religious literature (e.g., the Bible, hymnals) were not focused on their typographical appearance where printers had to be more careful. In the prayer-books from the seventies to the nineties of the 18th century, we also rely on the intention to improve the practical knowledge of the humanistic script during the ongoing Enlightenment school reforms by these publications. From a linguistic point of view, typographers had a greater chance of success among Czech-speaking rural populations than among Germanized burghers and public servants or in circles of Latinizing scholars and church dignitaries. But among popular readers, they encountered strong conservatism, which slowed the further development of the Roman type in prayer literature.
However, competing editions and repeated releases may at first glance show that Roman type prayer-books met with a positive response from readers. Why would have printers copied or republished them if they didn't sell and the readers had no greater interest in them? Most of the titles have been preserved in unique pieces. The number of copies for each edition was probably not too high. On the other hand, for commercially successful books, a larger number of copies can be assumed and thus more preserved specimens. In addition to Tibelli, the Škarnicl's family and Jeřábek, the other printers (Rosenmüller, Jauernich, Hilgartner) confined themselves to a single edition of respective Roman type title. Furthermore, there was a relatively long time gap between the particular Tibelli's editions of Heavenly Reveille, if we don’t take in account the uncertain specimen from Dačice (see footnotes 18 and 34). After all, the second Heavenly Reveille was printed in 1738, almost twenty years after the first edition from 1719. An even greater time lag of nearly fifty years can be counted between both editions of Škarnicl's family. If the Roman type prayer-books belonged to the bestsellers at that time, they would certainly be repeatedly published in shorter and more frequent periods. Their frequency of publishing certainly does not reach the intensity with which, for example, the neo-Gothic Heavenly Keys by Martin z Kochemu were printed.38
The failure of the prayer-books printed by the Roman type is also reflected in the comparison of the incidence of the Roman type and neo-Gothic editions of given titles in the 18th century. The copies of A Heavenly Reveille, The Rose of Paradise, The Spiritual Treasure and The Cores were concurrently printed also by the Schwabacher type and the blackletter. Perhaps except for The Cores, these typographically standard editions clearly prevailed over the parallel Roman type versions.39 Even after 1800, this situation has not changed significantly. We probably would not encounter any other Roman type version (except Škarnicl, see above) until the first half of the 19th century. The neo-Gothic script retained its monopoly in these titles and moved the Roman type back to the position of typesetting of individual words or sentences. Changes occurred around the turn of the fifties and sixties of the 19th century, when even these prayer-books began to get a more modern Roman type form. More than a hundred and forty years had to pass from Tibelli's first work. But at the same time with these new Roman type editions, traditional neo-Gothic prayer-books were still being published.40
Overall, it can be assumed that the above-mentioned printers were more concerned with repeatedly testing the domestic reading community. For this experiment they chose proven prayer-books to which they had given a different typographic appearance compared to the previous practice. Afterwards, they waited for a reader response. However, it was not strong enough to lead to a more frequent recycling of the Roman type titles or to the more massive competitive involvement of other contemporary printers. This conclusion does not apply to a certain extent to Jeřábek's Cores. In this case the readers' response, triggered by fashion trends, was probably greater and forced the printers to repeated editions that were addressed only to the wealthier readers. Thus, the prayer-books did not significantly contribute to the general introduction and spread of the Roman type. Up until then, the use of Roman type in this realm represented a rather unknown, scarce rarity, and a dead end on the way to a modern Czech language book.
So far we have looked at the bibliographical identification and overall meaning of prayer-books described above. Now we will focus more on the brief analysis of their printing type. Above all, we will notice the method of the introduction of the Czech diacritics and adherence to some orthographic specifics. These examples should be the best demonstration of the temporal innovative or just the usual craftsmanship of individual typographers. On the other hand, we will put aside the more detailed analysis of font typefaces and sizes due to the poor knowledge of the then state of domestic design type, lack of the professional evidence of sources, from which printers used to get printing types, and finally, the difficulty of comparative visual studies.
The Roman type of copies of Tibelli's Heavenly Reveille has so far been considered as being of foreign origin and should be heavily time-worn.41 Our study did not confirm these conclusions, at least as far as it concerns the second point. The printing type does not give the impression of being damaged and the composition is, on the contrary, relatively clean and distinct in both editions. While in the edition from 1719, Tibelli had available only the diacriticized vertical Roman type, in edition from 1738 he also added the diacriticized and vertical semi cursive letter of the Roman type to it. Other differences, in the alignment of composition, the usage of digraphs, typesetting errors and the placement of illustrations only confirm, that the edition from 1738 was revised and that it was not mere mechanical reprint of the 1719 edition. They largely lacked the modern Czech diacritics of the Tibelli's Roman font set, especially in the case of carons. These were substituted by the dot located above the letter or on it's top right, center and bottom side. Thus, in this way were modified vertical and semi cursive "Ž", "Č", "Ř" in the case of upper-case letters, and besides them additionally "ď", "ť", "ň", "ě" in the case of lower-case letters. On the contrary, the long lower-case vowels "á", "é", "ó" were depicted in the contemporary way. They had a form of a letter with the acute accent turned to the right in the edition of 1719, and even with the acute accent incorrectly pointing to the left (as well for vertical and semi cursive letter) in the edition from 1738. The acute accent is always (except "ó") slightly shifted to the left margin of the letter (and vice versa in the case of the acute accents pointing to the left). However, Tibelli only partially made the diacritization of his letter sets, because the lower-case letters lacks "š", "í", "ý", "ů", "ú" and in the case of the upper-case letters, the marking of the length is completely omitted. Moreover, in the edition from 1719 he used in some places even the digraphs for accented letters as well. This parallel combination method was more or less abandoned in the 1738 edition. In both editions of A Heavenly Reveille, he did not hesitate to place "w" and its graphic variant in the form "vv" concurrently in the text, probably according to what the alignment of the composition required. The common feature of both editions of A Heavenly Reveille are also the upper-case letters in the position of the first letter of a large number of nouns. This phenomenon is even emphasized for words with a religious connotation (the so-called nomina sacra) by even widening the upper-case letter to the second letter in a row or to all letters in the word. (e.g., "GEzu", "GEZIJSSE").
The Rosenmüller's Rose of Paradise differs significantly from Tibelli's Heavenly Reveilles. What is different are mainly the diacritics. Because it completely lacks the representation of the length of vowels. The carons are also dropped out or replaced by digraphs. They are expressed by dots, commas or marks which shape-resembling carons just in the case of a few letters (vertical and semi cursive letter "ž", "Ž", "ě", "ň", "ď", vertical "ť"). These diacritics is located above the appropriate letter or on its right top or center side. Even Rosenmüller did not avoid parallel use of accented letters and their digraphical counterparts. Specific and within all above described prayer-books also a unique sign of his Rose of Paradise is a frequent alternation and combination of the lower-case vertical or the semi cursive letter "w" in the meaning of today's consonant "v". This consonant is also in the third place expressed by the semi cursive letter "v". Both semi cursive letters "w" and "v" were placed by Rosenmüller in the text setting, which were otherwise composed from a vertical Roman type, which in the end creates an uneven impression. This impression is enhanced by the occasional occurrence of the whole-upper-case letter words or expressions, in which the upper-case letters are placed in the two initial letters or at least at the position of the first letter (e.g., "BOZIE", "BOhu", "Wywolenych Bozjch").
In Jauernich's, Jeřábek's and Hilgartner's Spiritual Treasure is, in compare to the predecessors, the marking function of the Roman type upper-case letters limited only to the title page, to the initials capital letter and to often repeated highlighting of textual and religiously important words using all or the initial two or at least the first upper-case letter. In the text headings, most of the upper-case letters were replaced by vertical or semi-cursive lower-case letters. The diacritic of the printing script of all three editions of The Spiritual Treasure includes only a dot over the vertical letters "ž", "Ž", and the upper side acute accent for "ď", "ť", "ň" ("ň" is represented by a sign similar to caron in the edition of Hilgartner and Jauernich). Unlike Rosenmüller, there is no representation for lower-case letter "ě", as well as in the case of Rosenmüller there is no marking the length of the vocals in the copies of The Spiritual Treasures. Semi-cursive typesetting sets were faced with an almost complete absence of diacritics. Moreover, all three printers did not avoid the occasional application of digraphs at the letters which they had in the accented variant, or simply omitted the diacritical marks. The combination of "w" and "v" as in the case of Rosenmuller can not be found in any of them. On the basis of mutual comparison of described prints we can also state that Jeřábek owned part of the typographic material at the time of the printing of his Spiritual Treasure, which originally belonged to Jauernich (see e.g., same illustration on p. 16 in both prints) and probably his patrices or matrices for the production of vertical and semi-cursive lower-case Roman type, because the print types of both printers have the same physical proportions.
Significant differences can be seen in the copies of A Heavenly Reveille of Škarnicl’s family. This fact was due to the greater time lag between both prints and the time of their creation. The edition from 1780 was printed at the very beginning of the process of the National Revival, but the 1826 edition was printed at the time of its full development. This influenced the accents of both prints and theirs overall appearance. The typography of the older edition from 1780 was probably inspired by the templates of Tibelli. The archaic elements in it are represented by the frequently occurring whole-upper-case letters setting located in different text passages (e.g., pre-title, censorship permission, text headings, main text) or frequently recurring words whose initial two or at least the first letter is printed by the upper-case letters. There is even greater variety in the diacritics of Czech vocals and consonants. The length of the vowels is here indicated by the left shifted acute accent above the lower-case letters "á", "é", "o". From upper-case letters, Škarnicl owned an accented vertical or semi-cursive "Á" and vertical "É". But he only printed them once in the headings. He alternately replace today's caron above the lower-case letter "ě" by two dots or by an acute accent located on the upper right side of the letter. Occasionally, however in an entirely new way, he used lower-case letter "ů". The accents of consonants in Škarnicl's Heavenly Reveille are mostly acute accents placed in upper-case letters "Č", "Ř", "Ž" and in lower-case letter "č", "ř", "ž", "ď", "ť", "ň" arbitrarily above the letter or to its left, however most often the upper right, but even the lower part of the letter. Most of the typeface sets from the vertical Roman type of a the main text to a diminutive semi-cursive letters in the subheadings underwent a process of a diacritization. Škarnicl tried to apply the accented letters to the maximum extent possible, therefore, their digraph variations could have been seen in A Heavenly Reveille only occasionally (found was e.g., "Ř" and "Rž"). The same could have been said about the concurrent combination of "w" and two "vv". Here on the contrary, the parallel occurrence of graphemes "w" and "v" was quite common phenomenon, while both had the same meaning of consonant "v", which was similar to the case of Rosenmüller. But in the case of Škarnicl it was their position in the word that mattered there.
The typographic appearance of the 1826 edition shows clear qualitative progress over its earlier predecessor. Only a small space was reserved for the upper-case letter typesetting on the front page and in the initials. Whole upper-case letter words and two initial upper-case letters were completely removed. They were replaced by the first capital letter. Its application to expressions of a religious nature is much more moderate. Furthermore, in this edition of A Heavenly Reveille were the diacritics of Czech vowels and consonants solved completely in the modern way. Long vocals, especially their lower-case letter variations, have the right turned acute accent sometimes slightly sideways deflected "á", "é", "ó", "ú", "ě", same as the caron at "ě" and also the ring same in the case of "ů". Newly was added a letter "ý" in the upper-case letter and also in the lower-case letter version. In the case of soft consonants, the center caron is commonly marked for letters "č", "ř", "ž", "ň", "ť", "Č", "Ř", "Ž", and as an acute accent at letter "ď". The accent was also allusively made in the case of letter "š", for which Škarnicl in parallel used both the digraph "ss" and the letter "s" with two upper dots. Above all, the vertical sets of Roman typeface designed for the setting of the main text or title page were equipped with modern accents. The highlighting semi-cursive letter, which were appearing in continuous subheadings, had instead of carons or rings only right chamfered accute accents, circumflexes or two dots. Even in these more conservative passages, Škarnicl avoided the use of digraphs as much as possible, as in the main text (except for the above-mentioned "ss"). The only major anomaly is the letter "w". It was alternately printed by two different lower-case letters, one of which were in the form of two mutually overlapping "v" and the other as two separate "v" side by side.
It is necessary to divide the Roman type in Jeřábek's Cores into two groups. The first was represented by the whole-Roman type editions (see footnote 31), in which the Roman type setting was more advanced form than the one in The Cores which combined the Roman type with the current letter, and thus was forming the second group (see footnote 32). Jeřábek and his wife reduced the upper-case letter Roman type to the necessary minimum in two all-Roman-type-publications. They placed the upper-case letters only on the front page, in the initials and the letters following them, and then in the position of the first letters of the names of Christian authorities or words of religious significance. But they did not use them to print full words or the initial two letters in a row. They also used the Roman type semi-cursive letter sparingly and printed it only on the front page or in one-word headings. For breaking the text rate on subtitles, main text and accompanying commentaries comments they managed only with vertical lower-case letter Roman type and the use of some sizes of letters. Overall, however, they achieved an austere but unified typographical appearance. But in the case of diacritics they did not arrive at a major update, but rather followed the older practice applied in Jeřábek's Spiritual Treasure of 1772 (see above). Both Jeřábek in the undated edition of The Cores and the widow Jeřábková in The Cores Edition of 1800 did not record the length of the vocals and only had traditional letters from accented consonants "ď", "ť", "ň", "ž", "Ž". Jeřábek represented them by using dots and accute accents located above letter or along its upper right side. Jeřábková more or less took over his system, but in principle she innovated the minuscule "ž", where she replaced the dot with today's caron. In the text, she also used both the older and the newer versions in parallel. The married couple provided with diacritics only the vertical font sets, while they left the semi-cursive letter without accents. As in The Spiritual Treasure, they did not totally avoid the occasional combinations of diacritical letters and their digraph parallels or variations with a completely omitted diacritical mark. On the other hand, they consistently made sure that they did not associate the two "v" with which they would replace "w" and they used the traditional letter "w" for consonant "v". Despite these common elements, it cannot be said that the edition of widow Jeřábková is a reprint of Jeřábek's older undated edition. This conclusion is prevented by variations in the alignment of a setting, minor textual deviations and those differences mentioned in diacritics. The only connecting point is the same vertical height of letters of lower-case letters of Roman type used in the main text of both Cores. Interestingly, its height dimensions also agrees with Jeřábková and Jauernich's Spiritual Treasure (see above).
On the other hand, the Roman type in the copies of The Cores, which belongs to the second neo-Gothic-Roman type group, predominantly has a semi-cursive form, and in most prints42 it is only used for the marking functions. Its common feature is the absence of any Czech diacritics. Seen from today's perspective, this disadvantage is partly compensated for by Jeřábek's attempt to imitate the handwritten humanistic script. By using typeset letters he not only imitated its graphic form but in some places even the concurrence of the connecting lines of a stroke. Thus he created an optical impression of a handwritten Czech language text. He placed this cursive printing type mainly in headings, which he set in the current script text or at the beginning of the text chapters, where he linked it with the Roman type semi-cursive letter. A more significant flaw of this otherwise rather successful attempt is the occasional typesetting errors (e.g., "Swataky" instead of "Swatky" or "Modliiba" instead of "Modlitba") and above all recurring unmarked Czech accents. Jeřábek did not include the cursive Roman type in all neo-Gothic-Roman type editions of The Cores. There is at least one edition (K03412) in which only the nondiacritized semi-cursive Roman type and the current script are combined.
If we summarize the characterization of the printing font of all the Roman type prayer-books, we find out that the mentioned printers mostly had at their disposal typeface sets of nondiacritized upper-case letters and semi-diacritized Roman type lower-case letters (except Tibelli and Škarnicl’s family) during their production, which they have combined within one book. The Roman type upper-case letters mainly had a marking function and were mainly used in headlines, initials and front pages. On the other hand, the Roman type lower-case letter took over the function of a 'bread and butter' script, which means that it served mainly to domestic typographers for printing of regular text passages and accompanying commentaries. In addition to these unwritten typographic standards, the combination of the upper-case and lower-case letters was also given by the time of the press. It is true that the older prints (e.g., the copies of Tibelli's Heavenly Reveille or Rosenmüller’s Rose of Paradise) are more varied in this respect than prints from the end of 18th century (e.g., The Cores of Jeřábek and his wife), when the text setting is more unified and tends to modern convention. In similar words, the relationship between vertical and semi-cursive letter can be described. Here again, the transition from variability to austere but more modern expression is visible. The use of the semi-cursive Roman type also depended on whether the printer owned the font. It has not always been commonplace (e.g., Tibelli's first edition of A Heavenly Reveille).
The degree of diacritization of the typeface was also dependent on the equipment of typesetting cases of individual printers. More wealthier typographers (e.g., Tibelli, Škarnicl’s family) were trying to comprehensively capture the system of accents above Czech vowels and consonants by their means of letters. Others (e. g., Rosenmüller, Jauernich, Hilgartner, Jeřábek) simply solved this problem by acquiring a few basic diacritical letters (e. g., 'ž', 'Ž', 'ď', 'ť', 'ň') and they used a digraph variant or omitted the accents for the remaining letters. There is a parallel with the situation described by Petr Voit43 in which the domestic printers and typographers of the first half of the 16th century were. They were also inconsistently introducing the Czech diacritical apparatus into the neo-Gothic sets of fonts, based on their technical capabilities or typesetter arbitrariness and regardless of the overall spelling unity and consistency. Despite the greater time lag the same rule applies to both groups, that the lower-case letters were accentuated more carefully than their upper-case letter counterparts, and that more attention was paid to 'bread and butter' script than to the marking script. Also, in the case of shape of the diacritical marks of the Roman type letters, different individual approaches and gradual modernization can be observed. While the length of the vocals was normally expressed by the acute accent already since Tibelli, the accents of soft consonants have undergone a transformation from the oldest dots already applied in the manuscripts and prints of the 15th and 16th centuries; they were then taken over into the Roman type prayer-books first by Tibelli and by other typographers, and less common acute accents which were especially liked by Josef Antonín Škarnicl up to the current carons used by his son the elder František Xaver or by Jana Jeřábková were used significantly less.
Using capital letters, printers of the Roman type prayer-books did not avoid contemporary habits and so applied religious approaches to the Roman type text led to the unnecessary overuse of capital letters at the beginning of words and also to the spread of an unwanted phenomenon called nomina sacra. These archaic orthographic specifics were not abandoned by typographers until the end of 18th century (e.g., Jeřábek, Jeřábková). The exemplary Roman type publication is represented today by the Heavenly Reveille of the elder František Xaver Škarnicl. This is certainly evidenced because different requirements were placed on the printing and appearance of Czech language texts in 1826 than at the beginning of the 18th century.
The editors did not interfere with the citation in the article.
Translated by Michal Patočka and Angelo Shaun Franklin.
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This article was written as part of the NAKI II project No. DG16P02H015: Knihověda.cz. Portál k dějinám knižní kultury do roku 1800 [Knihověda.cz. A Portal on the History of Book Culture to 1800]. I would like to sincerely thank to Mr. Doc. Peter Voit for professional assistance and ongoing consultations during its preparation. Abbreviated transcribed titles of old prints are often shortened in the text of this article. In order to identify them unambiguously, a round bracket has been appended to the overwritten title with reference being made to Knihopis českých a slovenských tisků (hereinafter only Knihopis), where a more detailed bibliographic description can be found. It is primarily referred to the electronic version of Knihopis KPS – Databáze Knihopis [an online database], 2015–, http://www.knihopis.cz. However, for some references it is also possible to look them up in the printed version TOBOLKA, Zdeněk Václav and František HORÁK (eds.). Knihopis českých a slovenských tisků od doby nejstarší až do konce XVIII. Století, 1939–1967, 9 Vols.; WIŽĎÁLKOVÁ, Bedřiška, Jan ANDRLE and Vladimír JARÝ (eds.). Knihopis českých a slovenských tisků od doby nejstarší až do konce XVIII. století. Dodatky, 1994–2010, 8 Vols. Only in the case of prints that are not yet registered in Knihopis or those in the form of a manuscript record within the so-called alphabetical Supplements to Knihopis, a transcribed copy of the full title and printer’s information are cited in the footnotes. The titles of the books are used at first in the Czech language and then translated into the English Language.
In the book printing the neo-Gothic or even the older Gothic types include Gothic black-letter script, Bastarda and above all Schwabacher type with blackletter. On the border between neo-Gothic and humanistic printing types lies the Rotunda and Gothic round type which draws some elements from both groups. This basic division was suggested by KAISER, Vladimír. Klasifikace tiskového písma z hlediska pomocných věd historických. Sborník archivních prací, 1982, pp. 446–477 and later adopted by VOIT, Petr. Encyklopedie knihy, 2006, pp. 685–687. More briefly on the individual types of print fonts and on the overall characteristics of the Early modern period fonts see KAŠPAR, Jaroslav. Úvod do novověké latinské paleografie se zvláštním zřetelem k českým zemím, 1987, pp. 144–149. From these three sources were also drawn all of the theoretical definitions found in the main text and footnotes.
Specifically in the case of print fonts, they were distinguished vertical scripts, semi-cursive letters, and cursive letters. The characteristic feature of the vertical script is the perpendicular structure of the font axis. The semi-cursive letters and the cursive letters in the printed as well as in the handwritten scripts are characterized by a right inclination of the individual letters to the right at an acute angle with a line. In the case of semi cursive letters, the individual letters are discontinuous and stand alone, while in the cursive letters they are interconnected by line strokes into one unit.
Upper-case letters include capital letters of the alphabet designed into the imaginary dual-line system. Lower-case letters include lower letters of the alphabet written in the four-line system.
The Roman capital letter was a script of a monumental character used primarily in inscriptions and epigraphic texts. The Carolingian minuscule was created at the imperial court of Charlemagne in the end of the 8th century and it is characterized by good readability, simple and round shapes and consistent letter separation. Shaded script is a script with unequal thickness of individual strokes. We distinguish between bold and thin strokes. The opposite of the shaded script is the linear script, with all strokes having the same thickness. As a serif within the ancient inscription, is called the final cross-cut of a chisel. This element has also been taken into written and printed script. Here it has a flat, wedge or triangular shape ending. In addition to the undisputed aesthetic function, the serifs also help to the horizontal perceiving of the text.
The beginnings of the use of written humanistic script in the Czech environment are briefly summarized by PÁTKOVÁ, Hana. Česká středověká paleografie, 2008, pp. 138–140.
The beginnings of the Roman type in Bohemia and the state of the printing letter equipment of the individual print workshops of the first half of the 16th century are mapped in detail in VOIT, Petr. Tiskové písmo Čech a Moravy první poloviny 16. století. Bibliotheca Strahoviensis, 2011, pp. 105–202; VOIT, Petr. Český knihtisk mezi pozdní gotikou a renesancí. II, Tiskaři pro víru i tiskaři pro obrození národa 1498–1547, 2017; VOIT, Petr, footnote 2, pp. 58–60. The usage of the Romany type in domestic printing press and in the Czech language printed books describes also HORÁK, František. Česká kniha v minulosti a její výzdoba, 1948, pp. 102, 106, 148–150, 200–204; TOBOLKA, Zdeněk Václav. Kniha: její vznik, vývoj a rozbor, 1949, pp. 97–98; MUZIKA, František. Krásné písmo ve vývoji latinky, 1963, pp. 282–290. However, these are mostly general and simplistic summaries.
The name of the print workshop is taken from VOIT, Petr, Český knihtisk … II, Tiskaři pro víru i tiskaři pro obrození národa … footnote 7, pp. 290–303, 342–345, there is also the latest mapping of its operation and equipment.
Nause's Christian Sermons were published twice shortly after each other. The older edition is from 1561 (K06092). A year later (1562) was published the re-edition (K06093). The differences between these two prints concern only the front frameworks. The main text passages are the same in both cases.
Psalms are described in detail by Mirjam Bohatcová, however, she does not mention the Roman type at all. See BOHATCOVÁ, Mirjam. Bratrské tisky ivančické a kralické (1564–1619), 1951, No. 26, p. 84.
Several examples of Czech language Roman type acrostics which were mostly produced from upper-case letter vertical letters without diacritical marks contains a collection of Václav Dobřenský's broadsheets stored in the library of the Strahov Monastery under the signature DR I 21. See, e.g., K02976 (here the acrostic is composed into the center heart position with the cross and further into the side edge moldings), K03563 (acrostic from the vertical, hiding the title of Ferdinand II Archduke of Austria), K12366 (concurrent acrostics from the Roman type or Schwabacher type letters, thus, distinguishing the name of the bride and groom), K02787 (here there are a few acrostics together, one of which is arranged in a cross shape). The master of this artistic use of the Roman type was the printer Jiří Černý z Černého Mostu. These procedures were often used by authors such as the Prague citizen and craft rhymester Blažej Jičínský.
The proof of the statement above is, for example, the print from 1661 (K06838) with horizontally and vertically repeating acrostic "Panno Maria pros za nás." An acrostic hiding personal names are found, for example, in the books from 1681 (K19221) or 1716 (K02735).
The title chronograms have been placed either into several individual words where they have looked quite inconspicuous and really easy to overlook (see e.g., K00890, K02927), or even into larger text units (K00886, K16427) and sometimes even has covered the entire cover page (K01369, K02937, K03648).
By the Roman type is intentionally emphasized the negatively understood person of the Hussite general Jan Žižka in K00942a. Then counterpart is represented by the names of the Habsburg rulers in K00661, K00663, K00665 printed in upper-case letters with vertical Roman type. Occasionally, the names of the authors were also marked out by the upper-case letter vertical Roman type (see e.g., K17175, K04147, K04150 – K04151).
For example. in the K16039 has the word "smrt" been set in the vertical Roman type, for which negative connotations can be assumed.
In order to identify other Czech language prints containing the Roman type, was performed the manual excerption of individual volumes of printed Knihopis. The lines mentioned above lines, which summarizing the pre-revival period of application of the Roman type, draw the results from this survey. During the excerption were also found prints of the foreign provenance, which included rare Roman type Czech words and more extensive textual passages. While several mostly religious copies that used the Roman type were realized in domestic printing, abroad the Roman type occasionally reproduced Czech language texts in botanical (K16175-K16180), zoological (K02702, K18117-K18118), or topographic (K15739-K15741, K02722, K16597) publications. However, these were mostly short parts (e.g., indexes), marginal footnotes, bibliographic citations, or footnotes stating personal or local names and literal citations of historical sources. The Czech language Roman type settings have entered the main text in multilingual dictionaries (K03218 – K03219, K05456 – K05457, K07006) or in the overall summaries of The Lord's Prayer (K06642–K06645, K14857, K15633, K16993, K17653, K17952, K18088–K18089 K18150). Perhaps the most interesting example are two Amsterdam Czech prints in which Jan Amos Komenský participated as the originator from the years 1658–1659. That's probably the reason why the Manuálník aneb Jádro celé biblí svaté [A Guide or The Core of The Whole Saint Bible] (K04238) and Kancionál to jest Kniha žalmů [The Hymnal or The Book of Psalms] (K03710) are provided with the diacritical semi-cursive Roman type in titles, headings, summaries, indexes, and errata. It can be assumed that there are much more similar foreign prints with the Czech language Roman type than is stated here. It has not yet been possible to compile a complete list of them, because in Knihopis the record keeping of foreign-language Bohemian prints is only random. This issue is described very briefly in VOIT, Petr, footnote 2, p. 58 and after that in MAŠEK, Petr. Antikvou tištěný český Otčenáš z roku 1555. Knihy a dějiny, 2015, p. 94.
The existence of this print had not yet been known. The previous scientific literature had only known and described the edition from the year 1738 (see footnote 18). The edition from 1719 is not included even in a special bibliography JOHANIDES, Josef. Staré královéhradecké tisky, 1973, p. 110. For the first time it was briefly characterized by PUMPRLA, Václav. Soupis starých tisků ve sbírce Okresního vlastivědného muzea ve Frýdku-Místku, 1985, no. 333, p. 99. This print has been preserved in a unique copy in the Museum Beskyd in Frýdek-Místek under the signature FM 26 398 S. We are thankful to Dr. Kateřina Janásová for making it accessible.
There are two other books with the same title as the one from 1719 which were probably published in Tibelli's print workshop. One of them dates back to 1738 (K18657). Its bibliographic description is given by JOHANIDES, Josef, footnote 17, p. 110, no. 126 and BRTOVÁ, Bohuslava. Dodatky ke Knihopisu českých a slovenských tisků od doby nejstarší až do konce 18. století z fondu Základní knihovny – Ústředí vědeckých informací ČSAV, 1990, no. 15, pp. 14–15. The edition from 1738 is also more briefly described and annotated in HORÁK, František, footnote 7, p. 147, Fig. no. 89; TOBOLKA, Zdeněk Václav, footnote 7, p. 97; MUZIKA, František, footnote 7, p. 285, Fig. no. 183; VOIT, Petr, footnote 2, pp. 58–59, Fig. no. 14, 885 p. The edition from 1738 is preserved in an incomplete unique copy in the Library of the Czech Academy of Sciences under the signature TH 1297. The second of the prints remains a mystery. It is also documented by a unique defective specimen in the Franciscan Monastery Library in Dačice (now deposited in the Moravian Library in Brno). Due to its physical unavailability (the print is probably lost, and it cannot be borrowed in Brno), it was not explored closer for purposes of our contribution. In its description we proceed from the K18665 library record and above all from the description in VOBR, Jaroslav. České tisky Moravské zemské knihovny v Brně a jihomoravských klášterních knihoven z let 1501–1800, 2005, pp. 132–133, No. 562. The main difference from the copies of A Heavenly Reveille from 1719 and 1738 is the total number of pages. Even more interesting are the manuscript notes in Dačice specimens dating from 1722. But that would mean that this edition had to come out before or at the very latest in that year, and it would definitely be older than the 1738 edition and maybe even the edition 1719.
A more detailed bibliographic description of the print is Rajská růže, vnově nejpotřebnějšíma modlitbami spanile vykvětlá [The Rose of Paradise Elegantly Blooming with the Most Necessary Prayers]. Vytištěna v Praze u Karla Rosenmüllera. [between 1705–1745]. 250 p. : ills.; 12°. A digital copy is available at http://www.mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn=urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10266996-7. The print is preserved in a unique copy of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich under the signature Asc. 4176 u. It was discovered by colleague Daniel Kindl. Rosenmüller's Rose of Paradise has not been clearly identified in the Knihopis yet. It most resembles the record K15097. It records a manuscript copy of the Rose of Paradise from 1713, preserved in the Library of the National Museum under the signature III H 2. However, the print and handwriting titles are not exactly the same. Despite the initial match, the main text passages also differ. Moreover, the manuscript is mostly written in neo-Gothic semi-cursive and cursive script. The humanistic script only appears on the title page and rarely in the main text. If the scribe would have copied Rosenmüller's print directly, he would probably used a humanistic script. In handwritten copies of printed originals, it was customary to imitate, in addition to the text, the typographic appearance of the original print as accurately as possible. Hence, the handwritten Rose of Paradise captured in K15097 is not identical to our Roman type print.
But only the name of Karel Rosenmüller and not Karel František Rosenmüller appears in the impression of the described print. Shortening the name to the first name Karel and the surname was a renewed tradition in the Rosenmüller family. Jan Karel Rosenmüller was the first who presented himself like that, namely in the press from 1678 (K01246). Jan Karel, who died in 1708, was the father of the elder Karel František. He was an occasional writer and translator, but he was not a printer, see VOLF, Josef. Domnělí knihtiskaři pražští Matouš a Karel Rosenmüllerové. In: ODLOŽILÍK, Otakar ed. Českou minulostí, 1929, pp. 286–292 or CHYBA, Karel. Slovník knihtiskařů v Československu od nejstarších dob do roku 1860, 1966, p. 223. An imprint with the name of Karel Rosenmüller can be also found in other undated prints K13660, K13503, K13851 etc. and especially in dated prints K04743, K13959 (both from 1706), K12878 (171?), K13590 (1711), K11312 (1712), K13710, K18262 (both 1715), K17765, K00129 (both 1718), K17365, K17310, K14580 (all three from 1719), K02532 (1729), K02484 (1742). Thus, the shortened name was used both by the elder Karel František, and his descendant of the same name, the younger Karel František, where the older of Rosenmüllers were using it significantly more often. Based on this fact, we could assign the print of The Rose of Paradise to him and place the year of its publication between 1705 and 1727. In addition, the elder Karel František has published this title, besides the already analyzed edition of 1713 (see footnote 19), once again probably around 1711 (see Rajská růže vonnými modlitbami vyplněná, a ku potěšení … osobě [žen]ské přednešená. Vytištěna … léta 171[1?], described in detail in the handwritten alphabetical Supplements to Knihopis) in the classical neo-Gothic form, while the younger Karel František did not contribute with any re-edition.
The print is registered in the manuscript part of the alphabetical Supplements to Knihopis, see [Duchovní] poklad aneb Katolické modlitby, v niž se vynachází rozličné modlitby ranní, večerní, při mši svaté, před i po zpovědi a př[i]jímání, letanie a 15 modliteb s. Brigidy, sedm zámků a s pobožnými modlitbami okrášlené. Všem nábožným křesťanům [k] duchovnímu prospěchu a spasení vnově na světlo vydaný. V Praze u Karla Jaurnicha [1755–1767]. [2], 242, [3?] p. : ills. ; 12°. Only a unique specimen preserved in the Museum of Polabí in Poděbrady under the signature S 82 is known. We are thankful to colleague Alena Šeberlová for the opportunity to study it. According to the date of Jauernich's printing activity and the appearance of the book decor (e.g., distinctive decorative lines), we conclude that Jauernich's print is the oldest of the three copies of The Spiritual Treasures (see above). The undated Hilgartner's press, whose primacy in this group could also be considered, has a typographic decoration resembling the decor of prints from the seventies and eighties of the 18th century.
It has survived a total of six copies of Jeřábek's Spiritual Treasure which are registered under the Knihopis record K14117, which represents the highest number of all characterized prayer-books that has been entirely printed in the Roman type. We worked with a copy from the National Library, Signature 54 K 11.072.
Hilgartner's print is unknown to Knihopis. Its bibliographic description is as follows Duchovní poklad aneb katolické modlitby, v němž se vynacházejí rozličné modlitby ranní, večerní, při mši svaté, před i po zpovědi a přijímáním, jakož i také letaniemi a patnácti modlitbami svaté Brigity okrášlený. Všem nábožným křesťanům k duchovnímu prospěchu a spasení. Nyní vnově na světlo vydaný. In Jindřicho-Hradcy, printed by Ignác Hilgartner. 166 p., 1 fig. A digital copy is available at http://www.manuscriptorium.com/apps/index. php?direct=record&pid=AIPDIG-MJ____JK_0843_____1BL9I46-cs. A unique copy of this print is under the signature JK 843 and it is owned by the Museum Jindřichohradecka in Jidřichův Hradec. The image reproduction of the title page without further commentary was published by BĚHALOVÁ, Štěpánka. Nebeklíče od Landfrasů: knižní bestsellery 19. století, 2017, p 9.
It is interesting that, Vojtěch Ignác Hilgartner was active until 1787, but he died only eight years later in 1795, see VOIT, Petr, footnote 2, p. 354. A large number of undated prints also come from his printing production. Some of them are also dated in Knihopis even after 1787. The possible date of printing of his Spiritual Treasure can be theoretically shifted and limited to 1795.
Wüber's manuscript comes from Jan Poš's private collection and is described in ŠIMKOVÁ, Anežka (ed.). Růžová zahrádka: rukopisné modlitební knížky 18. a 19. století: sbírka Jana Poše, 2009, pp. 66–69. There are a few examples of images. The Publishers consider this manuscript to be one of the rarest of Poš's entire Collection. They mainly emphasize its originality in both graphic and text aspects. We can now correct their evaluation by stating that Wüber followed the method of the prayer-books printed in the Roman type (mainly Jauernich or Hilgartner, Jeřábek logically disappears due to the date of his press until 1772), so he used in manuscript the humanistic upper-case or drawn lower-case letters and chose texts of some prayers that also occur in printed edition of The Spiritual Treasures. Comparing the manuscript image examples in the above cited publication with the original prints, it was found that the photographs on pp. 68-69 correspond to the text of Hilgartner's press on pp. 12–14, 136–137, 159–160, and Jauernich's press on pp. 13–18, 69, 186–187, 211, 218-219.
In addition to Knihopis, the bibliographic records of this print can be found in KLIMEKOVÁ, Agáta, Eva AUGUSTÍNOVÁ and Janka ONDROUŠKOVÁ. Bibliografia územne slovacikálnych tlačí 18. storočia, 2008, p. 23, No. 6373; Magyarország bibliographiája 1712–1860, 1989, p. 348. On the contrary, the press does not register a specialized inventory of Skalice's prints ŠPETKO, Jozef. Dejiny Škarniclovskej kníhtlačiarne v Skalici, 1958, p. 62. The name of the printer, Josef Antonín Škarnicl, is additionally complemented by the Slovak bibliography. We are also using as a source VOIT, Petr, footnote 2, p. 859. Theoretically, the elder František Xaver Škarnicl, who is said in the literature that he started printing in his father's workshop in 1780, (e.g., CHYBA, Karel, footnote 20, p. 269 or ŠPETKO, Josef. Dejiny … p. 22), could also be a printer. However, as a more evident beginning of his printing career is commonly stated the year 1799. The unique Škarnicl's copy of A Heavenly Reveille is stored in the Slovak National Library in Martin under the signature SE 5826. We are thankful for its lending to dr. Helena Saktorová.
The text is intentionally formulated vaguely because we are not able to clearly state that the only one Roman type edition of Heavenly Reveille was printed at Škarnicls after 1800. ŠPETKO, Jozef, footnote 26, pp. 61–119 (hereinafter referred to as Špetko); KLIMEKOVÁ, Agáta and Janka ONDROUŠKOVÁ. Bibliografia územne slovacikálnych tlačí 19. storočia, 2017, pp. 32–34 (hereinafter referred to as Slov. Bibl. of 19c, i.e. Slovak Bibliography of 19th Century); Bibliografie 19. století [online], 2015/16–, https://retris.nkp.cz (hereinafter referred to only as NK-Katif of 19th century) even mention another, and from years: 1807 (Špetko, No. 79; Slov. Bibl. of 19c., No. 9315), 1808 (Špetko, No. 82; Slov. Bibl. of 19c., No. 9316) or 1822 (Špetko No. 121; Slov. Bibl. of 19c., No. 9313). Unfortunately, there is no physical specimen available for all three editions, so it is not possible to find out what the print font was. Only in the editions of 1818 (Slov. Bibl. of 19c., No. 9320) and 1824 (NK-Katif of 19th century, scan No. 938) do we find out that they are printed in neo-Gothic script as well as the newer edition from the year 1832 (Slov. Bibl. of 19c., No. 9318), 1833 (Slov. Bibl. of 19c., No. 9319) or 1878 (Špetko, No. 667; Slov. Bibl. of 19c., No. 9322), 1886 (Špetko, No. 774; Slov. Bibl. of 19c., No. 9312), 1889 (Špetko, No. 799; Slov. Bibl. of 19c., No. 9317; NK-Katif 19. stol, scan No. 949).
The print is only recorded by Bibliografie 19. století [online], footnote 27, scan No. 938, see Nebeský budíček duše křesťanské skrze vroucné modlitby k spasitedlnému pokání a náboženství vzbuzující. S povolením cís. kr. censury. V Skalici vytištěný u Františka Xav. Škarnicla, 1826. 162 zachov. s. : il.; 12°. A defective copy of this book is stored in the Library of the National Museum under the signature 84 h 6.
The frequency of occurrence of Czech language Roman type text has been increasing since the seventies of the 18th century. The Roman type has begun to assert itself in spelling books, in professional Bohemian literature and eventually in the prints of fiction literature. Briefly, see HORÁK, František, footnote 7, pp. 204; TOBOLKA, Zdeněk Václav, footnote 7, p. 97; MUZIKA, František, footnote 7, pp. 285–286, 288–290; VOIT, Petr, footnote 2, pp. 59–60. A more detailed characteristic of this time period, concurrent with the National Revival, will be the subject of another article.
Jeřábek has added a third variant to the two previous Roman type versions. All Czech language text is printed in a standard neo-Gothic Schwabacher type or blackletter, see K03414, K03415, K03418. In the article, we will only focus on the Roman type editions. The Schwabacher type or blackletter editions will not be analyzed further in more detail.
The older Roman type edition of František Václav Jeřábek is undated and preserved in three copies, see K03409. We studied the copy of the Regional Museum in Kolín. We are thankful to Lenka Mazačová for making it accessible. The newer edition of the widow Jana Jeřábková dates back to 1800 and exists only in a unique piece stored in the Library of National Museum under the signature Obrození 6 D 131, see K03419.
This group specifically includes K03410, K03412, K03413, K03417, K18299–K18302 and one print from 1809, see Bibliografie 19. století [online], footnote 27, scan no. 65 or CNB – Česká národní bibliografie [online database], 1996–, http://aleph.nkp.cz, Record no. cnb001495978.
From numerous literature on printed or handwritten prayer-books from the 18th to the 19th century are named at least BĚHALOVÁ, Štěpánka, footnote 23, pp. 6–13; KVAPIL, Jan. Ze zahrádky do zahrady, aneb, Od Hortulu animae k Štěpné zahradě Martina z Kochemu, 2001, pp. 4–85; KUCHAŘOVÁ, Hedvika. Několik poznámek k modlitebním knihám 18. a 19. století. Listy filologické, 2009, pp. 263–287; ŠIMKOVÁ, Anežka (ed.), footnote 25, pp. 9–63.
There is a possibility to mark as a representative of this older edition of Heavenly Reveille the lost and defective specimen of the Franciscans from Dačice (K18665, see footnote 18). Unfortunately, this is not possible without direct confrontation with the print. Neither are we able to rely completely on Vobr’s and the Khihopis book record. In addition, there are some inconsistencies. In both editions of Tibelli (K18656, K18657) and also Škarnicl (K18660), the approbation and imprimatur are found on the fourth unmarked page, i.e., on the back of the title leaf (as page one and two is counted the half-title and a woodcut illustration on its reverse side.). But in the Dačice specimen, the title page is missing. The Bibliographical record in Knihopis K18665 does not list any censorship permissions. As the first surviving page, it describes the numbered page three, on which the Gospel passage begins. That is not found in K18656, K18657, K18660. As page one and two, Knihopis counts a non-preserved title leaf. According to him, the half-title was not included in K18665. The question remains as to what was on the back of the today missing title leaf, whether the woodcut or the censorship permission?
The hypothesis presented above is based mainly on the author's subjective assumptions. But with some problems, Tibelli had to meet. The two-year production period is for him quite unusual. From a survey of Knihopis records it was found that Tibelli had printed books in the same year he received censorship approval (e.g., K15344, K16668, K04733) or eventually in the year immediately following (e.g., K16416, K01752, K15345). His delay was therefore no longer than half a year. Only in the case of foil and the more than eight hundred pages long Slavíček rajský [The Nightingale of Paradise] (K01247) of Jan Josef Božan did the time of production last about three years. The approval was given in 1716 and the title was published in 1719. Only that work on this press would hamper the preparation of Tibelli's next book production.
In the 18th century copies of The Core were also published by other Prague and regional printers. Among them were Oldřich Gröbel (K18293), Jan Josef Gröbel (K18295), Emanuel Antonín Svoboda (K18294), the heirs of Emanuel Antonín Svoboda (K18296), Ignác Vojtěch Hilgartner (K03416), Václav Vojtěch Tureček (K03411) a Ignác Václav Dekrt (K18297). However, all their editions were printed in the neo-Gothic script.
The chalkographic prayer-books from German speaking countries could serve as a model for Jeřábek. Especially Maria Joseph Clement Kaukol has reached a mastery in this respect and his Christlicher Seelen-Schatz Außerlesener Gebetter from 1729 (see VD18-Datenbank [online database], 2009–, record No. VD18 13649450) or Viennese engraver and publisher Johann Jakob Lidl with the title Goldener Gnaden Fluß from 1753 (VD18-Datenbank [online database], 2009–, record No. VD18 11029838). The publishing of both prints preceded Jeřábek's Cores, however, their engraved font mimics rather a calligraphically drawn fracture than a superficial cursive current script, so it cannot be assured with certainty that it was used as a direct inspiration.
Heavenly Keys were published in more than one hundred and twenty editions during the entire 18th century (the oldest being in 1701, see K05281). However, they had different title and content variants e.g., Nebeklíč, Duchovní nebeklíč, Malý nebeklíč, Malý zlatý nebeklíč, Nový nebeklíč, Polovičnízlatý nebeklíč, Zlatý nebeklíč, Zlatý nebeský klíč [A Heavenly Key, A Spiritual Heavenly Key, A Small Heavenly Key, A Small Golden Heavenly Key, A New Heavenly Key, A Half Golden Heavenly Key, A Golden Heavenly Key, A Key of Heaven].
In addition to copies of Tibelli's Heavenly Reveille, about another eleven editions of this title had been published by the end of the 18th century, according to Knihopis. None of them had the Roman type. The Rose of Paradise had a total of more than twenty editions. Again, there was no Roman type. The Spiritual Treasure was printed in neo-Gothic script more than ten times. Concerning the copies of The Core, see footnotes 30 and 36.
The conclusions mentioned above are based on a bibliographic survey conducted within the Bibliografie 19. století [online], footnote. 27. In the case of copies of A Heavenly Reveille, The Rose of Paradise, The Spiritual Treasure and The Cores, bibliographic records usually note the type of formulation like "individual words in the Roman type", "the Roman type in some places" or "individual letters in the Roman type", which suggests the superiority of the neo-Gothic printing type. This is confirmed by transcripts of titles or content parts where the Roman type is almost absent. An example of the full-Roman type print is e.g., Duchovní budíček [A Spiritual Reveille] published in 1860 by Landfrases, see CNB – Česká národní bibliografie [online database], footnote 32, record No. cnb001534551.
About its strong damage and foreign provenance see MUZIKA, František, footnote 7, p. 285, while JOHANIDES, Josef, footnote 17, p. 44 and VOIT, Petr, footnote 2, pp. 59 and 885 talks only about non-Czech imported origin. HORÁK, František, footnote 7, p. 150 and TOBOLKA, Zdeněk Václav, footnote 7, p. 97 do not speak about the history of the type. Horák even divides Václav Jan Tibelli into two printers Václav Tibelli and Jan Tibelli.
The word 'most' is intentionally used in the text above because not all editions of The Cores have been inspected in this survey. Only the editions K03410, K03412, K03417, K18299, K18302 were available for study.
VOIT, Petr, Tiskové písmo Čech a Moravy … footnote 7, pp. 182–183.
MACH, David. Českojazyčné modlitební knihy 18. století tištěné antikvou a počátky tohoto tiskového písma v českém knihtisku. Knihovna: knihovnická revue. 2018, 29(2), 51–73. ISSN 1801-3252.
]]>Keywords: origin of Czechoslovakia, Library Act, Ladislav Jan Živný, history of libraries
Doc. PhDr. Jaromír Kubíček, CSc. / Slezská univerzita v Opavě, Filozoficko-přírodovědná fakulta, Ústav bohemistiky a knihovnictví (Silesian University, Faculty of Philosophy and Science in Opava, The Institute of the Czech Language and Library Science), Masarykova třída 343/37, 746 01 Opava
]]>PhDr. Helena Kučerová, Ph.D. / Ústav informačních studií a knihovnictví FF UK v Praze (Institute of Information Studies and Librarianship, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague), Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy, U Kříže 8, 158 00 Praha 5 - Jinonice
All models are wrong; some models are useful.1
George Edward Pelham Box (1919–2013)
The creation and application of models is seen to accompany practically all types of human activities. They are involved both in subjective cognitive processes and in objective methods of scientific examination or engineering design. Models are generated within the process of artistic creation, in the course of communication activities as well as in that of practical handling. Such broad scope is clearly visible also in the field lying in the focus of interest of the information science. The Czech terminology database of library and information science (TDKIV) contains both terms designating concrete models (dummy copy, map, draft, document template etc.), and terms related to all sorts of abstract models (database model, conceptual database model, logical database model, meta-information system, relational data model, open access model etc.). As will be shown in part 3.2, also an important category of the information science can be understood as consisting of models – secondary sources and metadata, including knowledge organization systems. Thus, e. g., a catalogue can be held for a model of the library collection, the abstract or subject index for models of the book content, the bibliographic list or the profile of the library collection for models of resource sets, bibliographic data for a model of the document features, a search pattern of the document/question for a model of the contents, the search profile for a model of the user´s needs, etc.
Although it can be stated that the creation and utilization of models have been always implicitly comprised in the practice of libraries and further memory and fund oriented institutions, their explicit examination by the information science is still in its beginnings. Actually, the interest for the theoretic problems of modelling in the information science is not noted before the end of the 90ies of the 20th century, namely when the IFLA FRBR model (Functional requirements for bibliographic records) was published. Down to the present day, however, the activities have been rather directed to the application of knowledge from other domains, in particular computer science. Thus, upon superficial first sight based on the topically used terminology (conceptual model, entity-relationship model, data model), it could seem that modelling and models were not introduced to the information science before computer science. Yet a slightly more comprehensive analysis of broader theoretical and practical contexts of the creation of models can show that artefacts bearing the name of models at the present day have been created in the libraries and further memory and fund oriented institutions since times immemorial, however, without being labelled and perceived as such. This “implicit“ approach to the creation and application of models, anyway, should be replaced with explicit investigation, enabling us to form a special theory corresponding with the specific object of examination and the methods of information science. That is why this article reflects our effort to outline the directions that can be beneficial, in our opinion, for further progress of models in the information science. In accordance with the prevailing types of models in this domain we focus upon conceptual models.2
The discipline of computer science, having set out on its way to its own theory of conceptual models as early as in the 60ies of the 20th century, can serve as inspiration for the information science in this respect. In the result there is a broad knowledge base comprised in numerous contributions from conferences, articles in professional journals and scientific monographs, textbooks and handbooks, having supported the constitution of an influential stream of theoretical thought bringing inspiration and application opportunities also to other scientific disciplines. Much the same as the experts in the fields of computer science focused their attention to the development of theoretic foundations of conceptual models used for designing database and knowledge systems and for creating computer programmes, the information science needs to concentrate upon conceptual models applied to the key objects of its interest. We understand the information science in accordance with the approach of David Bawden and Lyn Robinson as “the discipline of study dealing with registered information with focus onto component parts of the information chain examined via the perspective of the domain analysis“ (Bawden and Robinson, 2017, p. 30). The conceptual models of information science, accordingly, should handle in particular information resources and processes of their collection, processing and utilization.
The text of this article is structured in three parts. The first part formulates the working scope of model and creation of the same, as used in the present text. The characterization of models is proposed by way of a facet structure, based upon the analysis of features, relations and functions of the structural components of the model. The facets freely follow the 5W1H methodology: determining what is being modelled, who is the creator and who the user of the model, what is used for modelling and what the model is utilized for. The second part is devoted to the characteristics of conceptual models. Along with the application of the semiotics perspective, an overall outline of modelling languages is offered, followed by the specification of five functions of models that are of importance for the information science. Then a procedural viewpoint helps to describe three key phases of the creation of a conceptual model. The third part comprises a draft of the typology of the contents and the form of conceptual models that are relevant for the information science. Considering the substantial impact of conceptual modelling in computer science upon the practice of “modern” conceptual modelling in the information science, this part offers also its brief review. The conceptual models in the information science have been split into two groups, the first one representing conceptual reference models and the second group consisting of metadata models covering metadata element sets, metadata schemes and value vocabularies. The characteristic features of various types of conceptual models are complemented by examples of their important representatives. Special attention has been devoted to a specific category of conceptual models in the information science, namely to the knowledge organization systems and their conceptual models.
The question mark in the title of this part suggests certain doubts whether it can be possible at all to define a model unambiguously. The width and diversification of fields of model utilization and their ubiquity, as has been stated in the introduction already, brought, e. g., Jochen Ludewig (2003, p. 5) even to the allegation that there is no way of arriving at a generally applicable and consistent understanding of the concept of model. Some accordance can be found on a most general level only, namely when a model is declared to be a representation of an object, a phenomenon or a process sharing their substantial properties. The issue which properties are substantial is decided by the purpose of the given model. The aphorism of George Box quoted in the motto of the article is a very apt reflection of this principle: the aim of a model does not consist in being the same as the original, but in serving some concretely specified purpose.
We will understand a model as an artificial creation, i.e. an artefact that is intentionally created by an agent to serve the function of subject for a certain aim. Such creation can be any thought or material construct. A model differs from other artificial creations by its specific purpose, which is the representation of an original in the function of object. The pragmatic aim of such representation can be learning the original, creating or drafting the same, but also developing a pattern of the appearance, structure or behaviour of the original or its optimizing. The specific and differentiating features of the model are, on the one hand side, its relation of correspondence with another object thanks to which this object can be represented and, on the other hand side, its dependence upon the given object. A condition of the existence of a model, namely, is the existence of the represented object – a model is always related to “something” that is called original, irrespective of whether it exists physically (“in reality“), or in our mind only, when we give something a thought, when we conceive3 or plan the same. Such highly abstract definition gets the understanding of model close to the classical semiotic conception of sign, which is according to Charles Sanders Peirce “something that stands for somebody, in a certain viewpoint or in some role, in the place of something else“.4
The diagram in Fig. 1 shows three key entities of model creation – model, original and agent – and their relations. The latter are of two types: relation of direct (concrete) influence and relation of (abstract) correspondence.
Fig. 1 Model, original and agent
There are two key aspects characterizing the relation of direct influence between agent and model. The first is relation (1) – creating the model and utilizing the same by the agent. The relation designated in the diagram by (2) is implemented as an indirect one – the model substitutes the original for the purposes of the agent. A typical substitute relationship is learning the original via its model, e.g. recognizing a region according to its map.
The relationships of direct correlation between the agent and the original can have all sorts of forms; for our purpose the attention will be directed upon the relation within the bounds of which a model is in use. A typical example of such type is the creation or the adaptation of the original according to the model by the agent, see under No (3), e. g. the creation of a document according to a prepared template, or conversion of a bibliographic record into some required format.
The relationship between model and original is described as abstract correspondence relation. A possible impact of the original upon the model, then, is never direct, but it gets implemented by way of the mediation of an agent. Such relation of correspondence is asymmetric, and namely due to two causes. First of all, this relation of correspondence does never originate as a sort of 1:1 equivalence, but as a similarity based relation. This means that the model and the original are never congruent in all their features. A typical example is a model abstracting from all details, which enables its application for a number of objects exactly thanks to this generalization. However, also current are cases integrating various elements into the model that are not comprised in the original (e.g. coordinates in a map), in order that the objectives of the model can be met. Sometimes also a particular type of similarity can be specified, most often via differentiation between isomorphism and analogy. The term isomorphism is used for characterizing the correspondence of form, i.e. the outer outlook, whereas analogy usually denotes a structural (internal, substance oriented) similarity. The second cause of asymmetry resides in that the actual relationship of similarity is exclusively a one-way issue. As indicated by arrows (4) and (5), a model is either similar to the original, or the original is similar to the model, but both can never apply simultaneously. This bipolarity is connected with the problem of descriptive and prescriptive models that will be dealt with in the following part.
Much the same as it is difficult to find a generally accepted model definition, it is not easy to choose one generally acceptable sorting criterion for their typology. The fact that a variety of different viewpoints can be applied in the approach to their typology makes models suitable objects of facet analysis. The facets suggested for the typology of models in this part have been derived from the analysis of properties, relations and functions of the structural components of the model indicated in Fig. 1. The facets specify what is being modelled, who is the creator of the model and who its user, what is being used for modelling and what the model serves for. When drafting them we have loosely draw on the 5W1H method (the acronym has been made from the first characters of questioning pronouns who, what, where, when, why, how). The 5W1H method can be considered as a “naïve“ form of facet analysis. However, its more or less intuitive approach to integral examination has found ample utilization in a number of branches thanks to its clear and easy applicability. Among other authors also Bernhard Thalheim (2011) made use of the same when characterizing conceptual models in computer science by way of facets wherefore, whereof, wherewith, whereto, how, when, for which reason, by whom, to whom, for what, where etc.
Facet derived from the feature of the entity Original/object – WHAT is being modelled
The ubiquity of the models is the cause of the circumstance that the scope of this facet is practically unlimited. The object that is being modelled can be anything, any object of interest of the agent, or even the agent as such or another model (even a model can be subject to modelling – in such case we usually refer to meta-model). “Being original“, accordingly, is not a permanent property of the object, but a role related to a concrete model (in analogy this is valid also for the model).
One of the most general classification criteria in this facet is the viewpoint of time. Conforming to whether certain changes of the original in the course of time are modelled or not, the differentiation is made between static and dynamic models. Static models focus upon reflecting relatively stable structures; an example is the model of bibliographic reference according to the ISO 690 standard or the model of arranging data in the MARC21 format. Dynamic models register processes (an example is the model of business processes represented by way of a flowchart or statechart diagram), but also rules and methods, such as RDA cataloguing rules or methods of bibliometric analysis.
Facets derived from the properties of the entity Agent/subject – WHO is the creator of the model and WHO is its user
It is again true within this facet that both the creator and the real or envisaged user of the model can be anybody – a layman, a professional, an individual, a group or an institution etc. In addition to that the role of creator as well as that of user can be assumed both by a human and a machine.
Facets derived from the properties of the entity Model – WITH WHAT the modelling is done and WHAT the model is used FOR
Also in the case of the facet WITH WHAT the general rule is applicable that the model can be created out of anything, it can be abstract or concrete, it can – but need not – be an object of the same type as the original. Conforming to the degree of abstraction the models can be arranged on a continuous scale from the general (abstract) ones down to concrete models. The differentiation between these two types is guided along the line standing for the share of physical components and their role in the given model. Whereas the physical parts in the concrete models stand for the contents of the model (a gypsum model of a building or a statue, a prototype of a car or of a user interface of an information system can serve as examples), possible physical parts of abstract models serve only for recording the contents of the model, namely as its material carrier.
Another general criterion for sorting the models within the facet WITH WHAT is the degree of standardization and formalization of the applied modelling means. The advantage of standardized tools consists in facilitating communication as well as in sharing the models that have been created. On the other hand, individually developed models enable a higher degree of creativity and often also better precision in capturing the features of the original, though usually for the price of impaired communication.5
As regards their general purpose, the models within the facet WHAT FOR can be classified in groups that will get working names ontological and epistemological. The actual purpose of an ontological model is being a substitute for the original, whereas the primary purpose of an epistemological model is learning the original. An ontological model enables physical handling. An epistemological model contains information of the original, enables understanding, explanation, grasping the original. Jochen Ludewig (2003, p. 8) offers an alternative perspective within which he classifies the models according to their relation to the original as descriptive and prescriptive. A descriptive model describes the original. The object of description can be anything that topically exists, that existed or may come to exist later (in this sense, e.g., also a weather forecast is a descriptive model), but also imaginations or abstract ideas can be part of the game. The objective of a prescriptive model is affecting the original. While a typical case of such influencing is creating an original according to a model, a prescriptive model need not always serve for creating an original – such as a model of social behaviour should ”only” affect the way people behave. In analogy the concept of description and prescription is used in linguistics. František Čermák characterizes the same as “unbiased and true (scientific) description … and authoritarian exclusive prescribing of certain selected forms as appropriate or correct“ (Čermák, 2007, p. 98). Also the practice of terminology differentiates between descriptive work focusing upon the collection of terms from a given field, on the one hand side, and work with a prescriptive purpose aiming at the enforcement of the usage of recommended terms, on the other hand side (Cabré, 1999, p. 32).
Yet another perspective develops a differentiation of models on the background of communication intentions, and namely between internal implicit models, and objective shared explicit ones. These types of models will be dealt with in a more detailed way in part 2, in connection with conceptual models.
Table 1 shows examples of models from the librarian practice, describing them with the help of the suggested facet structure. The models are divided in three numbered groups: group 1 are static models of objects and structures, group 2 are dynamic models of events and processes, and group 3 contains two examples of abstract models of concepts. For being more illustrative, the facets WHAT, WHO and WHAT WITH indicate (in italics) also concrete examples of instances.
Tab. 1 Application examples of the facet analysis for describing models
Model |
WHAT |
WHO |
WHAT WITH |
WHAT FOR |
||
Creator | User | |||||
1 | Competition project of a new building of the National library of the Czech Republic6 | static | man | man |
concrete individual |
epistemological prescriptive |
building | architect (competitor) | jury |
a) analogue (gypsum, paper) b) digital (data) |
|||
Bibliographical description of a book | static | man | man |
abstract standardized |
ontological descriptive | |
book | cataloguer | reader | text | |||
Format MARC21 | static | man | man/machine |
abstract standardized |
ontological prescriptive | |
Data content | Library of Congress | librarian software | text | |||
Database scheme of system KOHA | static | man | man |
abstract standardized |
epistemological descriptive | |
structure of data | data analyst | database administrator | ER diagram | |||
2 | Loan recording in the library system |
dynamic |
machine | man /machine | concrete standardized | ontological descriptive |
loan | library software | reader / librarian / software | data | |||
Recording methods of bibliographic data in RDA | dynamic | man | man |
abstract individual |
epistemological prescriptive | |
cataloguing | RDA steering committee (RSC) | cataloguer |
RDA Toolkit7 |
|||
3 |
Universal decimal classifier |
static | man | man |
abstract standardized |
ontological descriptive |
contents of work |
cataloguer | reader | numeric code | |||
Information request | static | man | man/machine |
abstract individual |
epistemological descriptive |
|
information need | user | librarian / software | text |
The efforts to achieve unambiguous categorization of models are complicated due to instability and relativity of their components. Not even models changing their purpose in the course of their existence appear to be rare. A usual change resides in that a descriptive model changes to become a prescriptive one. An information request, e.g., is a descriptive model of certain information needs, whereupon it becomes a prescriptive model of a resource request; a requirements specification relating to an information system is created as a descriptive model of user needs, and upon approval it can serve as a prescriptive model for a system that is being developed. The entities of the FRBR model have gone through an analogous transformation, after having turned from the original description of user requirements concerning bibliographic records to become component parts of a prescriptive model – the RDA cataloguing rules.
The relation of similarity between the model and the original, however, can give rise to problems of differentiation between them. Jochen Ludewig (2003, p. 11) draws our attention in this regard to the fact that good models can be that good as to be mistaken for the original. Such situation can occur both in descriptive models and in prescriptive ones. Typical are cases of data models of reality (i.e. models consisting of data) in the computer that are taken for real existence, which need not be only virtual reality. Quite frequent are situations where a mere plan is taken for granted, or where the user mistakenly considers an introduced prototype for a finished artefact.
The relativity of the components is manifested in that the same object can once play the role of model and another time that of original, and namely in different time periods, for different agents or for different purposes. This applies to full extent for the key objects of interest of the information science, such as information, data, metadata and knowledge. Data, namely, can be viewed both as a model representing reality in the information system, and as an original represented, e.g., by a conceptual model of database. That is why it is necessary to clearly differentiate which features, functions and roles of the entities in question we have in mind in the particular case. The decision is fully up to the agent, and it is by far not trivial. The aim of the facet categorisation, as suggested in this part, consist in supporting such decision making by way of a method enabling to determine the differences between the existing types without losing from sight their common aspects.
The most important types of models that are relevant for the information science, and at the same time the most complex ones, are doubtlessly the conceptual models. The first difficulty is encountered with their name already, admitting double interpretation and inspiring the question whether a conceptual model is a model of concepts or a model consisting of concepts8. Available literature focusing upon the theory of conceptual models is seen to confirm the second variant. Generic differences of conceptual models distinguishing them from other types of models create the contents of facet WHAT WITH is being modelled – the tool for modelling is a concept, whereas the contents of the WHAT (is modelled) facet is not being restricted by anything. Thus a conceptual model can be easily defined as a model created from concepts.
The unambiguous determination of concept as the basic structural unit of a conceptual model, however, immediately opens up problems related to its defining, as signalled by another setting of a question mark in the title of this section. The absence of a generally accepted definition of concept has philosophical foundations due to the existence of diversified theories of cognition, not rarely contradicting one another. Accordingly, let us mention right in the introduction that we certainly do not aspire to proposing a clear definition of concept in the present article; on the contrary we try to reflect the complexity of the problems and to characterize the most outstanding perspectives of investigating the concept as relevant from the viewpoint of conceptual modelling in the information science. We will restrict ourselves to a recap of the basic principles and to references covering some selected important sources dealing with the analysis of concept from a perspective applicable in the information science. Contact points shared by most cognition theories can be summarized in the following general statements:
A concept is the basic unit of thought. It is considered to be a cognitive model of existing knowledge, enabling its utilization for learning new objects or events.
The properties of concept are created by the dialectic unity of intension (contents, most often determined by a plurality of characteristics or definitions) and extension (scope, the plurality of things comprised within the concept).
The process of creating a concept or conceptualisation is a unit of the (passive) reflexion of reality and (active) construct of the meaning.
The process of conceptualisation is based upon abstraction – in generalizing and reducing the potentially infinite set of characteristics of the reality, it can comprise more objects, thus approaching the process of categorisation. An extension of category is a set of things considered as equivalent from a certain viewpoint or for the given purpose.
A detailed review of research in this field down to the present day from the sight of cognitive linguistics was offered by George Lakoff (2006) who formulated the theory of idealized cognitive models. Lakoff puts the “traditional“ Aristotelian theory of creating concepts, based upon the common features of comprised objects, into counter-position of the results of empiric investigations of human thought in the course of the 20th century. He highlights in particular the prototype theory of Eleanor Rosch and the principle of the so-called family resemblances, as formulated by Ludwig Wittgenstein. A suitable complement to the text of Lakoff, focusing upon human cognition, is the interdisciplinary study of Joseph Goguen (2005), directed to the methods of machine based creation of concepts upon mathematical foundations (one of the mentioned examples being formal concept analysis), as well as their applications in computer science, artificial intelligence and knowledge representation. The machine methods of concept creation abstract from the ”human” side of the process as the cause of ambiguity and instability of meaning and of unclear relations between the concept and its articulation. “The concept of concept“ seen in a detailed historical retrospective and with regard to the context of the information science has been analysed by Alberto Marradi (2012). The investigation of concepts within the theory of cognition involves also the problems of representing their contents. This theme was handled by Elaine Svenonius (2004) in her study devoted to epistemological foundations of knowledge representation. Contrary to current understanding of knowledge representation as a discipline of artificial intelligence, she applies a broader vista that is not limited to the issue of mediating knowledge to the machines. She offers a review of three theories of meaning that were dominant in the philosophy of the 20th century: operationalism, referential or picture theory and the contextual/instrumental theory of meaning. Operationalism, sorting out of the theory of logical positivism, defines the concepts procedurally, by way of generalizing empirical data. As to the referential theory, we will handle it with more detail in part 2.2. The instrumental theory of meaning determines the sense of concepts within their utilization in a particular context. Svenonius observes these theories from the viewpoint of their application in the course of processing and searching for information. She uses criteria relevant for the information science for comparing them: validity of knowledge representing, support of collocation functions, discrimination and navigation, suitability for automation and possibilities of semantic interoperability.
The fact that the basic building unit of conceptual models is a concept requiring to be expressed by some sort of sign, is an invitation to apply the knowledge apparatus of semiotics. For the purpose of this text we will use the currently accepted referential triadic concept of sign, as represented traditionally by the semiotic triangle. Our working interpretation of the semiotic triangle in Fig. 2 makes use of the terms thing, concept and designation for the three basic aspects of sign. The relation between concept and thing as its extension is designated as conceptualisation, i.e. conceptual processing of a thought idea about the meaning of the reality. The relation between concept and its designation is called expression. The relation of reference directed from the designation towards the thing is understood as an indirect one that is mediated by conceptual representation, and that is why it is shown by a dotted line. In fact, however, the path of reference from the sign to reality leads in the direction designation - concept - thing.
Fig. 2 Concept and its designation in the semiotic triangle
The perspective of model creation enables a statement to be made that the concept in the semiotic triangle represents/models the thing, whereas the designation/name represents/models the concept. The apex of the semiotic triangle indicated as thing, accordingly, comprises the contents of the facet WHAT is being modelled. It expresses that anything can become the object/original of a conceptual model, i.e. the conceptual model can (but need not) model also concepts and their designations. Thus, to offer an example, terminological vocabularies or thesauri can be understood as conceptual models of language expressions – the international standard ISO 704 devoted to principles and methods of terminological work directly mentions the analysing and “modelling concept systems on the basis of identified concepts and concept
relations“ (ISO 704:2009, p. v).
As has been stated, a conceptual model is a thing created by concepts. A concept, however, is not communicable (it is implicit, tacit); for any communication or handling it shall be expressed by some language. Accordingly, the format of a conceptual model is a modelling language.
A systemic approach enables to define the language as a unity of structure (i.e. elements of the language and their correlations) and function. For our purposes, however, we will restrict our scope to the referential function and the following structural elements of the language: vocabulary, rules, paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations. The languages applied for expressing conceptual models represent, as concerns the complexity of their structures and functions, a broad spectrum whose beginnings can be seen as far as at the level of character formats (such as Unicode) and continuation in the form of languages characterized by syntax of variegated granularity and all sorts of techniques or formats (such as HTML, XML, RDF, JPEG, PNG, PostScript, SVG). We will focus upon semantic languages enabling the expression of concept contents and their correlations in conceptual models. They exist as a considerably extensive group at the present day, offering diversified classification criteria, such as according to granularity, i.e. the “size“ of the covered contents, according to the modelled entities, according to the degree of formalization or the form in which the contents of the model is expressed.
Assuming the viewpoint of granularity, let us mention at least the classification of languages in groups intended for modelling the contents on the level of the whole document, or even on the level of a collection of documents, called macro-indexing (e.g. Universal Decimal Classification), and languages enabling the so-called micro-indexing on the level of units of contents, based for instance upon the creation of statements creating the contents of knowledge bases, or even single items of subject indices of books.
According to the entities being modelled (contents of the WHAT facet) it is possible to differentiate between languages specialized to the handling of software applications (such as ER, UML, SQL Schema, BPMN), languages expressing the structures of electronic documents (such as DTD, XML Schema), languages for the semantic web, web sources and services (such as RDFS, OWL, SKOS), and possibly for modelling objects in the applications of artificial intelligence (such as KIF, Topic maps).
The viewpoint of formalization degree enables the statement that the languages expressing the semantics of conceptual models form a continuous scale from the not formalized to fully formalized ones. However, this continuous scale allows to discover certain thought boundaries separating the following types of languages: fully informal natural language, partially formalized natural language (such as language with a controlled vocabulary or the so-called special languages comprising professional terminology), formalized artificial language (e.g. ER, BPMN, SQL Schema, XML Schema, RDFS, OWL, UML), and finally the rigorously formal language of logic (the most often frequented are the languages of propositional, predicate and descriptive logic).
The form of expressing the contents of a conceptual model enables the differentiation between textual languages (verbal, numerical) and pictorial ones applying static pictures or video as media of expression. A free text written down in some of the natural languages is a fully informal method of textual expression. The tools serving to the formal textual expression of the hierarchical structure of electronic documents are the languages DTD (Document type definition) and XML Schema. The textual modelling of vocabularies in the environment of the semantic web is achieved with the help of languages RDFS, SKOS and OWL. Most pictorial languages are founded upon semantic networks, i.e. their semantic relations can be represented (visualized) in form of a graph. The existential graphs of Charles Sanders Peirce are held to be the first utilization of semantic networks for the representation of concepts. A specific applications of a semantic network are, e.g., the models expressed by way of diagrams in the languages ER or UML that appear to be the most important formal way for the representation of conceptual models in the graphic form. ER is the language of entity-relationship model/diagrams, which gave them the name. Sometimes also the acronym E-R or ERA (standing for entity-relationship-attribute) can be found. Beginning from the 70ies of the 20th century it is used in particular for designing the models of relational databases; a classical variant is the original proposal of Peter Chen (1976). UML (Unified Modeling Language) has been the standard for the representation of object oriented models from the 90ies of the 20th century (OMG, 1997). Having been originally proposed for the modelling of software applications, it is found to have gradually spread also into other fields. An interesting example in this respect is the standard ISO 24156-1 specifying the UML application profile for the utilization of its graphical notation in the terminology work (ISO 24156-1:2014).
Much the same as language has a retrograde impact upon thought, also the selection of language for the expression of a conceptual model can affect its sense. Thus the choice of the language UML or RDF, as a rule, leads to the application of an object oriented paradigm in the given model, whereas the ER language of the models tends to the orientation of being implemented in relational databases.
The functions of a conceptual model can be specified by means of the above components of the semiotic triangle, the thing and the designation. However, instead of a single concept we will consider a set thereof, i.e. a set of concepts connected by their correlations, creating together the conceptual model. Fig. 3 shows five functions, being a selection of types considered by ourselves as relevant from the perspective of information science. The functions labelled by characters a – e are indicated by arrows standing for the processing course that are directed from the source entity towards the target one which is its transformation. Each function is described in a structural way – after characterizing the given course of processing particular examples of the source entities and the target ones is given.
Fig. 3 The functions of a conceptual model
(a) Creation of a conceptual model of reality
Characteristics of the process: conceptualisation, i.e. creation of a conceptual model of reality.
Source entity of the process: a thing in the function of original; the scope of this entity is not limited; anything observable or thinkable can be modelled.
Result (output) of the process: a descriptive conceptual model expressing the contents, the sense, the meaning of reality. Examples: domain ontology, knowledge organization system, database model.
(b) Creating a conceptual model expressing the contents of a sign
Characteristics of the process: interpretation of the meaning of the designation as a specific case of conceptualisation. The foundation of conceptualisation in this case is the content analysis of the information sources. Its specificity resides in that no analysis of the thing is carried out, but the meaning of the given text/sign gets interpreted. Texts of the information science utilize a special term for this process, and namely indexing; standard ISO 5963 defines indexing as “the act of describing or identifying a document in terms of its subject content“ (ČSN ISO 5963, 1995, p. 5).
Source entity of the process: designation in function of the original; possible types of languages for creating the designation have been characterized in part 2.3.
Result (output) of the process: descriptive conceptual model as the result of the analysis of content of the designation (text, document, information source), generally known as aboutness (Kučerová, 2014). Examples: metadata, search pattern of the document, reduced text (e.g. abstract).
(c) Creation of artefact according to a conceptual model
Characteristics of the process: creating or modifying an original according to a model, such as cataloguing (creation of a catalogue entry) under the RDA rules or creation of a database according to a conceptual scheme.
Source entity of the process: prescriptive conceptual model, such as RDA cataloguing rules, conceptual database schema.
Result (output) of the process: thing in function of original – artefact created according to a model. Examples: catalogue entry, database table.
(d) Creation of signs as implementation of a conceptual model
Characteristics of the process: expressing the contents of a model mediated by some language, eventually its formalization under agreed rules.
Source entity of the process: conceptual model in function of original.
Result (output) of the process: designation – conceptual model expressed in the language system agreed upon. The existence of a plurality of modelling languages (see part 2.3) gives rise to the option of implementing one model in various ways in a number of languages. Examples: database schema expressed by ER diagram or by the class diagram in UML, domain ontology expressed by languages HTML, RDF or OWL, knowledge organization system (e.g. thesaurus) expressed graphically in form of semantic network or verbally in the SKOS language.
(e) Creation of model according to model
This rather anecdotic name designates a process in whose course a new model gets created with the utilization of an existing one.
Characteristics of the process: adaptation (reusing, modification, transformation) of the original model and the creation of a new one.
Source entity of the process: conceptual model, such as a Dublin Core metadata element set.
Result (output) of the process: conceptual model derived from an already existing one. Examples: application profile created under the Guidelines for Dublin Core Application Profiles (Coyle and Baker, 2009), UML application profile, conceptual model or domain ontology created with the utilization of the foundational ontology or design patterns.
The understanding of the specificity of conceptual models can be suitably facilitated by focusing upon the procedural viewpoint itself. The overall procedure of conceptual modelling is shown in Fig. 4. It consists of three phases following upon one another: creation of a subjective model and the creation of an objective one that is further classified in sub-processes of the expression of a subjective model and the physical implementation of the model. Models having arisen in the first phase are denoted as number 1, the model created in the second phase is found in 2.1 and the model created in the third phase under 2.2.
An illustrative differentiation of the phases can be achieved, if we apply the thesis of objective knowledge and the metaphor of three worlds, as formulated by Karl Raimund Popper in his theory of knowledge. Their suitability for application in the information science can be seen in that they handle not only the problems of cognition in the human mind, but also the detailed problems of knowledge registered in external memories. Popper coins a thesis about two types of knowledge – subjective and objective ones. Subjective knowledge, in his idea, is the one that is owned by some subject; it is represented by the state of mind or conscience or by being disposed to act or to react. On the other hand, he denotes objective knowledge as “knowledge in the objective sense, consisting of the logical contents of our theories, hypotheses, guessing“ (Popper, 1979, p. 73). “Knowledge in this objective meaning is totally independent on what anybody allegedly knows, it also does not depend upon anybody´s conviction. Knowledge in the objective sense is knowledge without the knower (it is knowledge without a knowing subject)“ (Popper, 1979, p. 109). Popper´s theory of three relatively autonomous worlds is based upon the philosophy of Bernard Bolzano and Gottlob Frege. It divides the objective reality in world 1 – the physical world of mass and energy, world 2 – the world of human conscience (states of awareness, subjective knowledge) and world 3, which is the world of speech – the abstract world of the contents of conscience and of the artefacts of human spirit (objective knowledge). There are boundaries between worlds 1, 2 and 3, and these borders are at the same time also places of interaction. Direct interaction, however, between world 1 and world 3 is not possible according to Popper; it can be materialized only by the mediation of world 2. World 3 is a creation of Man, i.e. an artefact that is a product of world 2.
Fig. 4 shows that the models created in the first phase fall into Popper´s world 2, whereas the models created in the following two phases pertain to Popper´s world 3. The materialized model created in phase 2.2, naturally, already contains some elements of the physical world 1.
Fig. 4 Phases of model creation
Phase 1 – creation of subjective model
A subjective model originates in the course of thinking. It is denoted, among others, as implicit, tacit, mental or cognitive model or representation, or conceptual structure. According to George Lakoff “cognitive models help to structure thinking and are used for the formation of categories and thought“ (Lakoff, 2006, p. 26). Subjective models are investigated by psychology, the cognitive science and the artificial intelligence with the aim of learning and explaining the substance of human thought. The research of the principles of human thinking has resulted in profiling a plurality of alternative ideas, of which quite a number consider modelling to be a basic process, or even method of human thinking. A detailed review of these problems from the viewpoint of cognitive psychology has been offered by Miluše Sedláková (2004).
As regards the standpoint of purpose, it seems to be appropriate to differentiate between two types of subjective models. The first type is the implicit model created by an individual for his/her own need, as a rule designated as mental model. Let us give the second type currently lacking any specific designation, the working name being subjective conceptual model. Actually, it is also an implicit model created by an individual, but this time with the intention to express the model and to use it for communication. Mental models are created subconsciously, intuitively, and are held for a component part of long-term memory. They are created by individuals for themselves and utilized for understanding the world or for problem solving. No possible externalization of mental models is seen to be within the intentions of their authors, but of researchers who apply various methods for their determination.
As to computer science, the mental models study in particular the user on the one hand and the information system or application on the other hand, and namely in the context of their interactions. The most frequented object of interest is the mental model of functioning of the system that is created by its end user. The usual hypothesis reads that as long as the information system corresponds with the mental model of the user, it will be readily accepted and the interaction user – information system will be successful.
The information science, too, is interested in mental models when investigating the interactions between the user and the information system, especially as integrated in the research of user behaviour. A review of numerous research projects relating to this topics is given, e.g., by David Bawden and Lyn Robinson (2017, p. 251–277). An interesting example is the research work that was part of the historically first user testing of the FRBR model, whose results were published by Pisanski and Žumer in 2010 (2010a, 2010b). Its objective consisted in elicitation (i.e. determination and explicit expression) of internal subjective mental models of the bibliographic universe, followed by ascertaining whether the mental models of the users of bibliographic information are compatible with the FRBR model. The course of research involved various techniques of card sorting, conceptual mapping (i.e. knowledge representation by way of diagram) and comparison with the results of steered interviews.
The second type of model, for which we use the working designation subjective conceptual model, gets deliberately created in the mind of the individual with the intent of transforming the same in an objective and explicit model that should be shared with somebody. A subjective conceptual model is being created in the human mind as an indispensable pre-stage for being expressed in the form of an objective model. Its substance is conceptualisation and categorisation, i.e. the creation of concepts and conceptual systems. The actual purpose of this model type, accordingly, is the creation of an objective model; it is developed for the purpose of externalisation and sharing (i.e. communication).
Phase 2 – creation of an objective model
As shown in Fig. 4, the creation of an objective model consists of two partial phases: explicit expression of a subjective model and the physical implementation of the same.
Phase 2.1 – expression of a subjective model
This is an abstract model. It is expressed by some sort of language, i.e. it is represented. It enables the communication of the semantics of the subjective model in the sense of sharing and, possibly, transferring in space, but not preserving the model in time or physical handling the same, either9. Such activities are possible only after the following phase that consists in the physical implementation of the model.
One of the methods of externalizing mental models is the description of behavioural patterns where the internal mental models manifest themselves. The standard method applied for externalizing subjective conceptual models uses semantic networks (languages serving for their expression have been characterized in part 2.3).
Phase 2.2 – materialization of the model
The result of this phase is a concrete model, typically created by capturing the semantics of the model expressed in some language on a material carrier. The choice is open; the materialization of a conceptual model can be achieved both by an analogue carrier and a digital one (such as paper, microfilm, flash disk)10. In addition to communication in time a concrete model enables direct handling, such as experimenting with the model or its physical organization by location.
We will use our own typology based upon the contents of the facet WHAT is modelled to prepare a review of conceptual models that are relevant for the information science. The following overview in Table 2 is introduced by universal semantic models in form of foundational ontologies. The next are semantic models limited to the specific field of interest – domain ontologies and conceptual reference models. Another group are metadata models. These are divided into the group of static models and dynamic ones, the static ones are further subdivided to metadata element sets and metadata schemes and to value vocabularies. The review is terminated by models of entities in an information system or in a software application, i.e. conceptual schemes and data models. The already mentioned impact of conceptual modelling in computer science upon the theory, and especially upon the practice of modelling in the fields investigated by the information science, has been demonstrated by incorporating ”the own” conceptual models of the information science, as indicated in the highlighted central part of the chart, in the context of the models of computer science. This context operates on the most general level of foundational ontology, but also on the concrete level where conceptual schemes and data models are created.
Tab. 2 Typology of conceptual models relevant for the information science
ontologies |
foundational ontologies |
|
domain ontologies / conceptual reference models |
||
metadata models |
static |
metadata element sets and metadata schemes |
value vocabularies |
||
dynamic |
rules, methods |
|
conceptual schemes |
||
data models |
Taking into consideration that the theory of conceptual modelling, as developed in the field of computer science, represents the key source for the information science, we feel that it is appropriate to offer its overall characteristics. However, due to the rich existing bibliography focusing upon this topic, we will restrict ourselves to a brief summary covering in particular the current terminology. Let us refer anybody interested in a historical review of conceptual modelling, e.g., to comprehensive studies worked out by Janis A. Bubenko (2007) or Nick Roussopoulos and Dimitris Karagiannis (2009). Let us name, among the outstanding authors and theorists of conceptual models in computer science, the author of the concept of entity-relational modelling of data Peter Chen, the representative of the Scandinavian school of conceptual modelling Arne Sølvberg, the author of the important database model Telos John Mylopoulos and the German theorist in this field Bernhard Thalheim.
Of course quite diversified approach can be found in the great amount of published works. Anyway, the understanding of conceptual models as artefacts representing knowledge of entities relevant for the information system intended for people is seen to prevail. Thus the conceptual modelling differs from the knowledge representation intended for machines. The problems solved by the theory of conceptual models in computer science can be summarized in two basic areas. The first one searches for an answer to the question what is being modelled – where these are objects in reality or objects in an information system/application. The second circle of problems covers the solution of the automatic transformation of a conceptual model to a software artefact or an application (the so-called forward engineering) and the contrary (the so-called reverse engineering).11 Tuned-in with the engineering character of their discipline, the computer science experts concentrate in particular upon the prescriptive models. The effort to create theoretical foundations for the conceptual models in computer science has led some authors down to the philosophical roots of modelling. E.g. Yair Wand and Ron Weber (1990, p. 63) selected the ontology of philosopher Mario Bunge as the basis of their theory of information systems.
The present day stage of development of information technologies has enriched the problems of conceptual modelling by the topics of ontologies that are seen to quickly penetrate from the original application field in the systems of artificial intelligence into all sorts of domains, including librarianship and information science. Ontologies represent a highly actual and important topics whose detailed analysis, however, would require a separate study. We will restrict ourselves in the present text to briefly characterising ontology as a specific type of conceptual model aiming at communication, repeated usage and organization of knowledge, description of reality for computer processing and automatic deriving of knowledge. Its contents are classes whose meaning is defined by axioms. The choice of classes, their features and the way of structuring the ontology is based upon implicitly or explicitly determined ontological commitments.
From the numerous classification options of ontologies, the one based on delimitation of the set of represented entities and thus following the contents of the facet WHAT is being modelled, offers relevant typology for our purposes. On the basis of this criterion the ontologies can be divided into the generic ones (also universal) and the domain ones. The generic ontologies have a general focus, are domain independent and unlimited as to scope. A specific type of generic ontologies are the foundational ontologies, whose purpose consists in serving as a starting point for the creation of new domain ontologies. They comprise entities for reuse, usually basic categories on the highest level of universality, and sometimes also design patterns. The domain ontologies are restricted to a concrete region that is delimited thematically, but it can be defined also according to the problems – thus it is possible to differentiate between ontologies focusing upon descriptive knowledge on the one hand and procedural ones on the other hand. As will be shown in part 3.2, domain ontologies can be encountered also in the field of memory and fund institutions at the present day.
The terminological base of conceptual modelling in informatics, having been registered and standardised on the level of Technical Report ISO/TR 9007 as early as 1987, is further developed by the international consortium OMG (Object Management Group) that was founded in 1989. OMG associates roughly 300 technological, researching and consultation organisations and devotes attention to the standardisation of object oriented tools and methodologies.
The standard ISO/TR 9007 (ISO/TR 9007:1987) defines two levels of modelling reality in information systems: the level of contents (i.e. intension) is depicted by the conceptual scheme, whereas the scope (i.e. extension) is depicted by the database. The conceptual scheme describes the semantics of data, whereas the database is understood as the data model of reality. In addition to these models the standard defines further two types – the so-called external scheme (system as observed by the user, i.e. a model of the outer interface between the user and the information system) and the internal scheme describing the technology of the physical saving of data in the system and their handling (i.e. a model of the interface between the information system and the used data saving means).
The MDA – Model driven architecture (OMG, 2014) specification has been the current implementation of the conceptual modelling principle since 2001. Its aim consists in standardising model types that are common for most systems and the automatized transformation of various levels of models in both senses (i.e. both forward and reverse engineering). The concept of architecture of the information systems and software applications according to MDA covers three types of gradually concretized models representing the levels of their description.
The most general level defines conceptual models that do not depend upon computer processing (CIM – Computation Independent Model) catching the description of the application field of the system, such as a model of business processes. Since the nucleus of this system, as a rule, is a vocabulary delimiting the meaning of concepts in the application domain and the rules determined for the course of business processes, also further OMG standard can be used for the creation of this model – Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules – SBVR (OMG, 2017). SBVR can be held for a highly generalized metalanguage enabling the expression of a business model in a standardized way. One of the application domains is the transformation into an information system model. The contribution of SBVR resides in its focus both upon the description of a static structure by way of a vocabulary, and on the description of a dynamic structure of business processes mediated by a formalized model of their rules. Thus it represents a certain parallel to the current efforts to formalize the RDA cataloguing rules and a possible inspiration for their further development.
Further two models differ as concerns their dependence upon the platform, the latter in MDA being considered as the set of resources upon which the given computer system has been created and that is used for the implementation or the support of the system. A conceptual model that does not depend upon the platform (PIM – Platform Independent Model) stands for a conceptual model of reality represented by the information system on the semantic level, without any data about their implementation in a specific computing environment. A model for a concrete platform (PSM – Platform Specific Model), on the other hand, serves for modelling objects in a particular information system or application.
Three types of models defined in the MDA specification roughly comply with the following types of conceptual models whose working description can be found in Tab. 2: the CIM model has the character of domain ontology, the PIM model corresponds with the conceptual scheme according to ISO/TR 9007 and the PSM model, corresponding with the internal scheme of the information system according to ISO/TR 9007, represents a data model.
As concerns the conceptual models in computer science, it is appropriate to point to some specifics of the used terminology. It can be stated, with a certain simplification, that the current English term for the semantic model of reality is conceptual model/scheme, whereas models of data in an information system are designated as data model/database scheme. The Czech equivalents for data model (i.e. datový model) and database scheme (i.e. databázové schéma) have become current without any problems. However, a certain double-track can be found as regards the equivalents for conceptual model and conceptual scheme. The Czech translation of the ISO/TR 9007 standard, published in 1995, uses the term “pojmové schéma” (ČSN ISO TR 9007, 1995). In the follow-up years, anyway, the Czech community of computer science has adopted the term “konceptuální model/schéma”, obviously under the influence of English sources. These anglicisms begin penetrating from the original field, namely the modelling of database and information systems, also into the fields of conceptual modelling in the information science. Anyway, as will be shown in the next part, the conceptual models in the information science have their own specific features, differing quite substantially from the conceptual models and schemes of informatics. That is why we consider as appropriate to limit the usage of the Czech terms “konceptuální model/schéma” to the exactly delimited domain of their origin, and to use the designation “pojmové modely” for conceptual models within the scope of interest of the Czech community of information science.
The memory and fund institutions, naturally, have at their disposal operational and administrative systems whose conceptual models should be based upon theoretical foundations formulated by computer science. However, much the same as the computer science theory of conceptual models is adapted to the specificity of modelling in computer science, it is necessary to direct the theory of conceptual models in the information science upon the specific objects of its investigation, namely the information sources and the processes of the communication chain, wherein the process of content analysis and the indexing of the information sources play important roles. The first step in this direction was the FRBR model. Originally it was described as a model intended for the designers of library information systems. At the present day IFLA LRM, its consolidated version, has been declared to be the conceptual model of the bibliographic universe, representing an outstanding impulse for the development of theoretical thought in the information science for the 21st century.
Our focus in the following three parts will be the characteristics of three types of conceptual models in the information science: conceptual reference models, metadata models and knowledge organization systems and their conceptual models.
3.2.1 Conceptual reference models
The attribution “reference“ is used for models on the highest level of abstraction that focus upon explicit depicting of the semantics of the respective domain. It can be stated that the models of this type fall into the category of domain ontologies, or there create a special group thereof. Without being intended for direct implementation in the information systems, they represent a conceptual foundation for all further specific models and normative documents within their domains. This feature gets them close also to the category of foundational ontologies. A typical example of a reference model is the model of the open archival information system, as available in the Czech translation of 2014 (ČSN ISO 14721, 2014).
The most important conceptual reference models catching the entities within the field of interest of the information science are the conceptual model of bibliographic information IFLA LRM (Library reference model)12 and the conceptual model of information about the cultural heritage CIDOC CRM (CIDOC Conceptual reference model). Thanks to their high extent of formalization and involving the general concepts for expressing the characteristics of time and space, as well as abstract concepts, both models can be declared to possess also some features of foundational ontology.
The conceptual reference model IFLA LRM (IFLA, 2017), whose domain is delimited as the bibliographic universe, is an important contribution to the creation of the domain ontology for the field of libraries. The specification of the model was adopted as the IFLA standard in 2017, and namely as one that fully replaces the conceptual FRBR models (Functional requirements for bibliographic records), FRAD (Functional requirements for authority data) and FRSAD (Functional requirements for subject authority data).
The purpose of the IFLA LRM model is to provide a framework for the analysis of the logical structure of information relating to library sources from the viewpoint of their users. The same as the models of the FRBR family, the IFLA LRM models information, traditionally designated as bibliographic and authority data, it does not focus upon administrative and operational data. The language for expressing the IFLA LRM conceptual model is the language of entity-relational models as has been used in the FRBR model already. However, this time the language has been applied in the expanded EER version (enhanced entity-relationship model/diagram) enabling also to model hierarchical relations of generalization and specialization, as well with inheritance of attributes and relations. This aspect draws the chosen methodology closer to the methods founded upon object oriented approach.
The framework of this model comprises 11 entities connected by way of hierarchical and associative relations. The entity res (from Latin thing), integrating all entities of the bibliographic universe, is located on the highest level of the hierarchy. The subclasses of the entity res are work, expression, manifestation, item, agent with its subclasses person and collective agent, nomen (from the Latin name), place and time-span.
The conceptual reference model CIDOC CRM was created by the International Committee for Documentation of the International Council of Museums ICOM as the domain ontology for the exchange of documentation about the cultural heritage (ICOM/CIDOC Special Interest Group, 2003). Contrary to the IFLA LRM model CIDOC CRM is from its first version of 1996 based upon the object oriented approach. The present day version 6.2.3 comprises 82 classes and 262 predicates. The top of the hierarchy locates the class called CRM entity, consisting of five upper classes: temporal entity, persistent item, time-span, place and dimension.
The efforts to achieve a semantic interoperability of IFLA LRM and CIDOC CRM reference models are manifested not only on the level of expert consultations and cooperation of professionals from both communities, but also in the form of a draft of a harmonized model integrating entities from both models. The model designated as FRBRoo (IFLA, 2015) has been available from 2009 in gradually developing versions for the whole family of the FRBR models. Following the adoption of the IFLA LRM model the LRMoo Working Group was established in 2017 that launched the revision of FRBRoo and begins preparing a project of an object oriented model LRMoo (Riva and Žumer, 2018).
3.2.2 Metadata models
Contrary to the conceptual reference models, the direct utilization of the contents of the conceptual models of metadata is expected in the procedures of information source processing. Actually, their name suggests that the subject of modelling is limited to a specific set of objects, namely metadata.
The usage of the term metadata began with the onset of digital sources, whereas the name secondary document used to be current in the period of analogue documents for such document type. Also the term metadata, in spite of its name suggesting the interpretation in the sense “data about data“, or possibly “information of information“, denotes a specific type of information source. The specificity of metadata does not reside in their form, but in the contents that is always related to some information source. A typical purpose of metadata is a replacement (surrogate) of a source. Metadata often serve as a reference for a source, i.e. certain access point, however, they can include information complementing the contents of a source. In all cases of their application metadata can be understood as representatives, i.e. models of information sources.
Metadata can be the physical component part of a source (such as imprint, ex libris, metadata in a HTML document), or they can refer to the same (such as a bibliographic reference, catalogue entry, URL, descriptor, UDC classmark). Metadata can be contents related, identifying, administrative and other, being differentiated according to the attribute or function of the source they are related to. The most important ones from the user perspective are metadata enabling the access to sources. Conforming to the chosen principle of source organization, the access metadata contain either an address (location) or a designation of the source. The same as in the world of physical objects, accordingly, the model of physical access to the organized sources is a map of their location created by metadata in form of an index, catalogue or register. In analogy, a certain “map” of their designation, or a model of the network of their correlations, are the knowledge organization systems.
The application practice of libraries and memory institutions comprises both the static and the dynamic metadata models. There are also cases of so-called “hybrid“ models; e.g. the RDA cataloguing rules contain both the list of structural descriptive elements and the prescribed procedures for their determination. Also the text of the ISO 25964 standard, which will be mentioned in a detailed way in part 3.2.3, catches both static and dynamic aspects of the standardization of thesauri and further systems of knowledge organization.
The above option to view metadata as a model reminds us of the fact that metadata can be related with the already noted problem of differentiating between the original and the model. Again the question arises whether (or rather when) metadata are model or original, and again it will be confirmed that a multi-criterial facet analysis will be indispensable for answering the same. Fig. 5 shows both possible variants by way of poly-hierarchic relations in the UML diagram: metadata as a conceptual model of the information resource, on the one hand, and metadata as an original whose structure is modelled by the conceptual model of metadata, on the other hand.
Fig. 5 Metadata as model and as original
Static metadata models
Concerning their semantic structure, metadata can be held for instances of properties whose basic structural elements are created by a pair of attribute-value. Two basic types of structural metadata models are then derived from the existence of the given pair – models of attributes and models of their values. Their names have already become generally adopted as metadata element set or metadata schema and value vocabulary. They are used, among others, by Marcia Lei Zeng and Jian Quin in their monograph Metadata (Zeng and Quin, 2016). Also the authors of the technical report of the American National information standard organization NISO TR-06-2017, focusing upon problems of vocabulary management, sort metadata models that are relevant for the field of bibliographic information in these two basic types (NISO TR-06-2017, 2017, p. 2). The same terminology is applied also by the RDA13 cataloguing rules.
Metadata element sets and metadata schemes
Metadata element sets and metadata schemes represent conceptual models of metadata attributes, including possible depicting of their relations. An important repository for metadata element sets in the format of linked open data is the Open metadata registry that is operated by a non-profit society Metadata Management Associates.14 Among others it contains a list of data elements of Dublin Core, ISBD, MARC21, RDA and UNIMARC.
Value vocabularies
The name suggests that these types of conceptual models consist of arranged word lists, most often terms, designating concepts in the given field of interest. Registers or lists of terms and vocabulary encoding schemes under the RDA rules can serve as example, such as a list of values for the field type of contents15, whose present form contains 23 names of possible values of field 336 in MARC21 format (e.g. cartographic image, computer program etc.).
One of the most important types of vocabularies of metadata values are sets of professional terminology registering the conceptual foundation of the respective discipline in terminological vocabularies and databases. The terminological base of the information science and the field of information technologies are covered by the standards ISO 5127 Information and documentation – Foundation and vocabulary16 and ISO/IEC 2382 Information technology – Vocabulary17. The Czech terminology in the scope of over 3 000 terms can be found in the Czech terminology database of library and information science (TDKIV).18 An outstanding terminological source is the multilingual vocabulary of terms and concepts of the cataloguing domain MulDiCat that serves as source for authoritative translations of IFLA standards and documents. The topical version of 2012 contains 41 terms in 26 languages including Czech.19
Dynamic metadata models – rules and methods
The texts of standards and rules represent procedural metadata models regulating the working processes of their creation and administration. As concerns the creation of descriptive metadata, the governing role is played by the International cataloguing principles, ICP (IFLA, 2016). The general cataloguing principles serve as foundation for the rules; the most amply used cataloguing rules for describing and ensuring access to sources in the memory institutions at the present day are seen to be RDA (Resource description and access). As concerns the methodology of the indexing process, the first international standard was adopted in 1985, ISO 5963 Methods for examining documents, determining their subjects, and selecting indexing terms (ČSN ISO 5963, 1995).
3.2.3 Knowledge organization systems and their conceptual models
Knowledge organization systems
The knowledge organization systems are specific representatives of conceptual metadata models. An idea of the number of systems of knowledge organization in use and of their types can be obviously provided by the most representative register of the present day, namely BARTOC (Basel Register of Thesauri, Ontologies & Classifications), integrating information of 2 857 systems as per 20. 9. 2018.20 An example of a knowledge organization system trying to achieve full conceptual coverage of the information science domain is the faceted thesaurus ASIST (ASIS&T thesaurus of information science, technology, and librarianship) whose third edition of 2005 comprises 1 970 terms sorted in 18 facets with 10 sub-facets. The primary purpose of the thesaurus is indexing and searching for sources in professional databases and digital libraries (Redmond-Neal and Hlava, 2005).
Whereas a problem arises in the case of metadata, namely whether they should be understood as model or as original, there is an ambiguity in the case of the knowledge organization systems in the sense whether they should be understood as a metadata scheme or as a value vocabulary. A separate study has been devoted to this intriguing problem (Bratková and Kučerová, 2014) that was directed upon defining the knowledge organization systems and their typology. Let us introduce at least a brief recap of their conclusions in this place.
We understand a knowledge organization system as a device functioning for the support of the processes of organizing knowledge and access to the same. It consists of a conceptual model of metadata structure (i.e. elements and their interrelations) that are used for the description of organized resources and for their retrieval.
As viewed from the perspective of metadata scheme, a knowledge organization system can be understood as a structural model of an organized set of information sources. The basic structural elements of the knowledge organization system in this approach are concepts and their relations.
However, from the perspective of a metadata value vocabulary a knowledge organization system can be observed as a dictionary representing a formal expression of concepts. Such dictionary is used both for the expression of the semantics and the syntax of the organized whole, and possibly also of the rules that are decisive for the usage of the structure. The term, accordingly, is the basic structural element of the knowledge organization system in this approach.
Conceptual models of knowledge organization systems
This group is an illustrative example of meta-models standing for “model of model” or “structure of structure” of metadata, and possibly “metadata scheme of metadata scheme”. The conceptual models of the knowledge organization systems whose examples are the thesaurus model in standard ISO 25964 and the SKOS model mentioned below, enable theoretical research by generalising their structure, and in particular the implementation of the knowledge organization systems in the present day information structure of the web environment.
The key standard for the development, application and administration of instruments for information retrieval is the international standard dealing with thesauri and other controlled vocabularies ISO 25964 whose history goes back down to the beginning of the 70ies of the 20th century. The latest edition of 2011 and 2013 (ISO 25964-1:2011, ISO 25964-2:2013) was worked out under the governance of the technical commission ISO/TC 46 Information and documentation. The standard reflects changes brought about by the introduction of information technologies in this field: software applications for the creation and utilisation of thesauri, technology of full-text searching etc. After the original strict focusing upon designing thesauri, the scope broadened with the orientation to more general understanding, as applicable for a wider spectrum of types of controlled vocabularies and other knowledge organization systems. The second part of the standard dealing with interoperability contains separate chapters handling the characteristics of classification schemes, taxonomies, subject heading schemes, ontologies, terminologies, name authority lists and synonym rings. The standard contains both models of processes in form of rules for developing a draft, implementation and administration of thesauri including instructions for solving linguistic and semantic problems, and a structural model of a thesaurus worked out as a conceptual reference model for the implementation of software applications utilising thesauri in a computer environment. The conceptual model is expressed not only verbally in a table, but also graphically in the UML language21. The main classes model the following concepts and their interrelations: thesaurus, the thesaurus concept, the thesaurus term, the relation of hierarchy, the relation of association and the relation of equivalence.
SKOS (Simple knowledge organization system) has been defined by its authors as a data vocabulary for a description of knowledge organization systems allowing their sharing and interconnecting on the web (Miles and Bechhofer, 2009). Its ambition resides in defining the minimum set of characteristics that is shared by all types of knowledge organization systems within the whole span of their scope. In 2009 SKOS was adopted as standard by the W3C consortium and it represents the most important and the most widely used general meta-model of the knowledge organization system in the practice of the present day.
SKOS has the character of an ontology formalised in the OWL language, and as such it is created by classes and their properties (predicates).The basic class is a concept (skos:Concept) that is identified by its URI. Concepts can be aggregated to form conceptual schemes, i.e. knowledge organization systems (the class skos:ConceptScheme serving for their description), such as into thesauri or classification schemes. Another option is joining concepts within the respective system to form collections (class skos:Collection), e.g. into facets or micro-thesauri.
The properties (predicates) of the SKOS language enable the formal expression of the contents of concepts and their correlations. Various types of notes facilitate precise understanding and defining the semantics for human users (skos:definition, skos:note etc.). A group of properties for the designation of concepts enables verbal depicting of each concept (skos:prefLabel – preferred name, skos:altLabel – alternative name, such as synonyms, skos:hiddenLabel – name not imaged) or notation (skos:notation).
The most essential properties are those enabling the description of semantic relations between the concepts (skos:semanticRelation). It is divided in two interconnected groups: relations of concepts within one knowledge organization system and relations of concepts from different systems, called mapping (skos:mappingRelation). Relations of concepts within the context of one system are associations (skos:related), general hierarchy (skos:broader – a broader concept, skos:narrower – a narrower concept) and hierarchy enabling transitivity (skos:broaderTransitive, skos:narrowerTransitive). The course of mapping concepts offers the option of expressing various stages of equivalence: skos:exactMatch, skos:closeMatch. In addition to that also associative relations (skos:relatedMatch) and hierarchical ones (skos:broadMatch, skos:narrowMatch) can be defined between concepts from different systems, and the meaning of such relations is equivalent with analogical relations within one knowledge organization system.
This article is the fruit of our effort to provide a partial contribution to the forming of the theory of conceptual models in the information science. A facet structure of model that is applicable also for the description of conceptual models has been proposed. The application of the perspective of semiotic triangle has served to specify certain selected functions of conceptual models relevant for the information science: creation a model of reality, creation a model of sign, creation of an artefact according to a model, formalization of a conceptual model, creation of a new model with the utilisation of an existing one. A framework typology draft has been developed for the contents and the form of conceptual models in the information science, embedded in the context of conceptual models and modelling languages in computer science.
The introductory part contains the expression of our conviction that the information science is in need of formulating its own theory of conceptual models that will aptly depict the specific objects and events under the scrutiny of this scientific discipline. For the field of descriptive models, the information science needs in particular theoretical foundations enabling the construction of structural models of information sources; especially the digital resources are seen as topical. Another important group of structural models are metadata models and those focusing upon the contents of information sources (aboutness). Descriptive models of processes are required in particular for modelling the communication process, the information needs and the information behaviour. Also the prescriptive models should lean against theoretical foundations. This is preferable especially for a wide circle of models governing the rules for metadata creation as well as for technological and legal models for information retrieval and access to the same.
The formalization of models for the purposes of being applied in machine processing appears to be important in all mentioned fields. We feel that the information science faces its key problem to be solved in finding the optimum ratio of the semantic expressive force of the models on the one hand side and the ease of their utilisation on the other hand side. As shown by numerous examples of tools and languages for knowledge organization, easier solutions often put themselves through in the practice – to the detriment of elaborate and complex systems. It is sufficient to mention the highly formalised system of the Universal Decimal Classification whose complexity hampers its massive usage and (paradoxically enough) may even be a hurdle against its massive application for automatic indexing and in the semantic web environment. Elaine Svenonius (2004, p. 585) concludes her comparison of knowledge theories using words that can be well related also to the problems of conceptual models:”Perhaps we don’t always need a valid representation, when a useful one will do.”
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1 BOX, George Edward Pelham, 2013. An accidental statistician: the life and memories of George E. P. Box. Hoboken: Wiley, p. 162. ISBN 978-1-118-40088-3.
2 In the Czech context this is confirmed by the recently published publication of the authors' team of Institute of Information Studies and Librarianship FF UK (Drobíková, 2018).
3 Therefore, the map of the fictional Yoknapatawpha county, which was created by William Faulkner, can also be considered as model. Preview of the image is available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Yoknapatawpha.County.jpg [cit. 2018-09-20].
4 Cited according to PALEK, Bohumil, ed., 1997. Sémiotika: Ch. S. Peirce, C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, Ch. W. Morris, H. B. Curry. 2. přeprac. vyd. Praha: Karolinum, p. 37. ISBN 80-7184-356-3.
5 Note: An extreme example of individually created models are some sketches in Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks, who even deliberately wrote comments in mirror-writing to them (see e.g. preview on http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=arundel_ms_263_f001r [cit. 2018-09-20]).
6 See e.g. Catalogue of the competition designs on http://wwwold.nkp.cz/soutezni_navrhy/start.htm [cit. 2018-09-20].
7 Commercialy available e.g. from: https://beta-rdatoolkit-org.ezproxy.is.cuni.cz/RDA.Web/Guidance?externalId=en-US_Recording_methods [cit. 2018-09-20].
8 Note: The same applies for data model – this phrase can also designate both model of data and model consisting of data.
9 Note: At this level of generalization it can be stated that the abstract conceptual model has the same qualities as the expression entity from the FRBR, resp. IFLA LRM model.
10 Note: At this level of generalization it can be stated that the concrete conceptual model has the same qualities as the manifestation entity from the FRBR, resp. IFLA LRM model.
11 Forward and reverse engineering differ in the course of development. Forward engineering goes from model to artefact, while during reverse engineering we derive the model backwards from the functioning implementation.
12 Note: Czech equivalent for Library reference model has not yet been coined. More translation options are available: referenční model knihovny, knihovní či knihovnický referenční model, eventually referenční model pro knihovny.
13 See files RDA element sets, online available from http://www.rdaregistry.info/Elements/, and RDA value vocabularies , available from http://www.rdaregistry.info/termList/ .
14 Metadata Management Associates, 2010. Element sets [online]. In: Open metadata registry, 2010– [cit. 2018-09-20]. Available from: http://metadataregistry.org/schema/list.html .
15 Available from http://www.rdaregistry.info/termList/RDAContentType .
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18 KTD: Česká terminologická databáze knihovnictví a informační vědy (TDKIV) [online databáze]. Praha: Národní knihovna České republiky, 2003– [cit. 2018-09-20]. Available from: http://aleph.nkp.cz/cze/ktd .
19 IFLA, 2010. Multilingual dictionary of cataloguing terms and concepts (MulDiCat) [online]. MulDiCat Working Group, Cataloguing Section; Barbara B. Tillett, ed. Hague: International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, 2010– [cit. 2018-09-20]. Available from: https://www.ifla.org/publications/multilingual-dictionary-of-cataloguing-terms-and-concepts-muldicat , and from: http://metadataregistry.org/vocabulary/show/id/299.html .
20 Universitätsbibliothek Basel, 2013. BARTOC.org: BAsel Register of Thesauri, Ontologies & Classifications [online]. Projektleiter Andreas Ledl. Basel: Universitätsbibliothek Basel, 2013– [cit. 2018-09-20]. Available from: http://www.bartoc.org/ .
21 Preview available from http://www.niso.org/schemas/iso25964/Model_2011-06-02.jpg [cit. 2018-09-20].
]]>PhDr. Michal Lorenz, Ph.D.; Mgr. Eva Víchová / Kabinet informačních studií a knihovnictví, Masarykova univerzita, Brno (Division od Information and Library Studies, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University Brno), Arna Nováka 1/1, 602 00 Brno)
]]>Mgr. Natalie Ostráková / Národní knihovna České republiky (The National Library of Czech Republic), Klementinum 190, 110 00 Praha 1, Česká
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