Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
9
Conclusion
Introduction
This chapter will review the semantics and syntactics already developed
in relation to:
r
preexisting theories relevant to the information retrieval (outlined in
chapter 1),
r
the labor theory approach, and
r
existing and emerging real-world practices.
Since the labor theoretic approach and the understanding of semantics
and syntactics are both relatively novel, the theories developed in this
topic may not have explicitly informed real-world developments. If the
theories have validity, however, real-world systems inevitably are both
constrained and enabled by considerations connected with human labor
(its costs, the ability of human semantic labor directly to address the level
of meaning, and the possibly of transferring syntactic labor to technol-
ogy) and also by inherited modes of production of meaning from written
language and the nature of the computational process. We will indicate a
potential synthesis of library and information science with Internet cul-
tures that emerge in practice before being articulated in theory. Finally,
this chapter will reaffirm the value of selection power and the merging
possibilities for enhanced selection.
Theories
The order of consideration for theories and practices preserves the order
of presentation throughout the topic, beginning with the still-dominant
tradition of classic information-retrieval research.
