Raising significances to signifiers: from knowledge management to knowledge organization

Abstract

This work argues that the state of conceptual ambiguity related to the terms knowledge or wisdom organization and management is reinforced by two kinds of factors: one related to the recent restructuring of the field of information science, and the other related to the evolution of the professional fields of action in this area, from the expansion of capitalistic social and working relationships, both affecting the ways of expressing ideas by using words. It is based both on experts’ studies and on contents analyses from the annals of the VI Congreso del Capítulo Español de ISKO and IV Coloquio Internacional de Ciencias de la Documentación, considering that a concept can be defined whether in relation to empirical data or to the theoretical bases that constitute it. It verifies a tendency towards the reinforcement of a theoretical and epistemological basis which improves common language so it can succeed in the comprehension of the founding concepts in the field of information science. It considers that representing knowledge, whether recorded or not, as a way to raise or attribute significances to the signifiers, is a product of contradictory commitments under the double pressure of ideological factors and technological imperatives, related to the effective development of the knowledge management system, its propositions and duties.