Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
mis-measurement of phenomena of fundamental economic importance”
(Hayes 2000, 73).
In summary, description labor can be semantic or syntactic in character.
Semantic description labor is exclusively and directly human, in accord-
ance with the understanding of human mental labor developed in this
chapter and the possibilities of its transfer to technology. In contrast, syn-
tactic description labor can be delegated to technology, which transforms
it from organic labor into machine process.
Search Labor
Search labor was contradistinguished from description labor; both
description and search labor are regarded as components of selection
labor. Search labor is also a form of mental labor, containing material,
semantic, and syntactic aspects. Within the schema developed, selection
labor distributes significantly between description and search labor and
its syntactic aspects are transferred to technology. Search labor might
have emerged predominantly as search expertise in premodern systems,
reflecting the substantial investment of human semantic labor in descrip-
tion processes. A signal and revealing exception to the emergence of labor
primarily as expertise is represented by the arduous work and accumulat-
ing expertise required for searching for the sources necessary to construct
a subject bibliography, attempting exhaustivity and encountering biblio-
graphic scatter (Greg 1959; Bradford 1948/1971).
3
For analytical clarity
and with substantive justification, search labor is the reverse, obverse, or
mirror image of description labor.
Search labor is reflected in its material aspect in the psychomotor skills
required to operate a keyboard, mouse, or other interface devices. The
progressive naturalization of information technologies and improved
interface resulting from system design have diminished the apparent
complexity of this aspect of searching. Both perceived and inherent com-
plexities have diminished, although human desires may evolve alongside
technology. The recent relative stability of interface technologies may
indicate that the late-twentieth-century revolution in the mechanization
of mental labor resulted in a teleological state, at least temporarily.
Syntactic processes can be distinguished from syntactic aspects of
searching. Derived from processes previously conducted directly by
