Birger Hjørland (born January 1, 1947 in

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark ...

) is a professor of

knowledge organization Knowledge organization (KO), organization of knowledge, organization of information, or information organization is an intellectual discipline concerned with activities such as document description, indexing, and classification that serve to ...

at the

Royal School of Library and Information Science The Royal School of Library and Information Science (abbr. RSLIS, da, Det Informationsvidenskabelige Akademi) is a school under the University of Copenhagen that provides higher education in the field of library and information science. It has no ...

(RSLIS) in Copenhagen. His main areas of study pertain to theory of library and information science and of knowledge organization. Hjørland has contributed important developments to

domain analysis In software engineering, domain analysis, or product line analysis, is the process of analyzing related software systems in a domain to find their common and variable parts. It is a model of wider business context for the system. The term was coine ...

and concept theory. He has been cited as an anchor of North American knowledge organization studies, as well as an information science pioneer. Birger Hjørland started working at the RSLIS in 1976, then became a research librarian at The Royal Library in Copenhagen from 1978 to 1990. From 1990 he returned to RSLIS and became professor in 2001. He has done research and taught at RSLIS ever since. Many of his students have become research librarians or

information specialist An information professional or information specialist is someone who collects, records, organises, stores, preserves, retrieves, and disseminates printed or digital information. The service delivered to the client is known as an information service ...

s. He is a member of the editorial board of various journals and the editor-in-chief of the ''ISKO Encyclopedia of Knowledge Organization''.

Scientific work

Hjørland has emphasized in many papers that any work in library and information science cannot be "atheoretical", but should be based explicitly on some theoretical approach. He has classified four main approaches to LIS: empiricist, rationalistic, historical-hermeneutical and pragmatical, the last two of which he considers to be more valuable.

Domain analysis and concept theory

Hjørland's

is an attempt at a comprehensive theory that can be applied to

information science Information science (also known as information studies) is an academic field which is primarily concerned with analysis, collection, Categorization, classification, manipulation, storage, information retrieval, retrieval, movement, dissemin ...

. Its main premise is a set of analytical tools that can be applied in subsets or as a whole to in order to study the effects of different social, epistemological, and cultural fields on the theories of information science. Thus organization is applied in relation to the different domains from which it emanates and is consumed. Rather than studying the user in this case, the domain or environment is the main focus of the theory. Individuals are seen as members of distinct cultures or domains and their subsequent document systems. Similar to domain analysis, concept theory aims to create a theory of concepts which may be applied to knowledge organization systems by analyzing conceptual semantic relationships. Different theories of concepts, i.e., how users interact with information, shape interaction with information in three specific aspects: bibliometrics, information literacy, and knowledge organization. This theory indicates that concepts are definitions of the world created according to one's inclinations and ideas; they cannot exist in isolation from the interests that created them. Hjørland argues that the theory is best understood through historicists and pragmatic interpretations, i.e., cultural (historical) influences on concepts best describe their meaning as well as pragmatic changes to concepts to allow humans to adapt and change certain concepts. Thus, concepts evolve with human practices. Hjørland's work has been classified as

social constructivism Social constructivism is a sociological theory of knowledge according to which human development is socially situated and knowledge is constructed through interaction with others. Like social constructionism, social constructivism states th ...

. Indeed, he cites own work in domain analysis as "socio-cognitive", that is, the study of the effects of a culture on individuals, and their information artifacts.

Wikipedia

In recent years, Hjørland has done research on Wikipedia as a part of establishing an information science-grounded kind of

source criticism Source criticism (or information evaluation) is the process of evaluating an information source, i.e.: a document, a person, a speech, a fingerprint, a photo, an observation, or anything used in order to obtain knowledge. In relation to a given p ...

. He has written research articles about the

reliability of Wikipedia The reliability of Wikipedia concerns the validity, verifiability, and veracity of Wikipedia and its user-generated editing model, particularly its English-language edition. It is written and edited by volunteer editors who generate online ...

. In one of them, he compares a Wikipedia article about a

breast cancer Breast cancer is cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipple, a newly inverted nipple, or a re ...

controversy to an article in

Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various time ...

and two Danish encyclopedias.Birger Hjørland: Evaluation of an Information Source Illustrated by a Case Study : Effect of Screening for Breast Cancer. In: Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2011. http://pure.iva.dk/da/publications/evaluation-of-an-information-source-illustrated-by-a-case-study%283083575c-93e5-4e7e-b71d-2e3beb82f406%29.html As a part of the research, Hjørland has edited Wikipedia himself, making contributions to several articles related to information science.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hjorland, Birger 1947 births Living people Danish scientists