Literature – Kristina Mason's Blog

Data or Info: Take Your Pick

Posted on March 7, 2025August 16, 2025

Today I read an article titled “On the Difference or Equality of Information, Misinformation, and Disinformation: A Critical Research Perspective” by Bernd Carsten Stahl. There are plenty of deep thinkers out there (too many to name) who contemplate what information is, or what knowledge is, or what data is, essentially going in circles around each other. However Stahl paraphrases another author in a way that I found worth calling out in particular because I have a background dealing with data and website user experience and it gave me pause.

Stahl paraphrases R. T. De George and says “De George (2003) distinguishes between data and information precisely because data contains no claim to truth whereas information does.” I’m not refuting this, but it made me think about my own bias in terms of those 2 terms. Taking that claim at face value, if data makes no claims to truth, that is precisely why I’d trust it more than information*. Let’s look at this example. Imagine I was looking for a house. If I saw a webpage that said “here is information about 123 Smith Street” I’d take that less seriously and expect different things compared to a webpage that says “here is data about 123 Smith Street”. To me, information is an interpretation of data.

Knowledge Creation and False Friendship: Thoughts on “The New Librarianship Field Guide”

Posted on March 4, 2025March 4, 2025

I encountered an interesting concept today in reading “The New Librarianship Field Guide” by R. David Lankes. In Chapter 4, “Knowledge Creation”, he discusses the nature of the conversations people have when asking for and receiving information. According to him, there are two types of language classifications when people are seeking to gain knowledge. He calls them “L0” and “L1.” By his definition, L0 is an interaction where one party knows about the subject and the other does not. For instance, I’m in a library and have no idea how to find a book, so I ask the librarian, who is very knowledgeable. He defines L1 as an interaction between two people who are familiar with and have a high level of knowledge about a subject. For instance, I say something to a friend, and he responds with an inside joke, and we then discuss where we might have heard it first.

The Welcome Stench of a Cosy Mystery

Posted on February 22, 2025February 22, 2025

I love a good cosy mystery. It’s defined as a mystery without gore or anything particularly triggering. Agatha Christie’s books are a prime example. There is a new crop of current day authors out there writing books based in the 1920s in the same vein as her. In either case, the majority of books are based in beautiful countryside, quaint cottages or stunning manor houses. If it’s in the city, it’s in the clubs and vast apartments of the rich and famous. The trope is well known.

Writers in the past, such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and Margery Allingham, all mention the London fog in their books, but in passing. When characters are in the countryside, mud is mentioned, but nothing that evokes the senses. Some of my favourite current authors who write stories based in the 1920s have the same way of glossing over the grit and grime.

As Long as We are Curious, We Still Have Hope

Posted on February 7, 2025February 7, 2025

This is a blog post about Thomas Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, but in a very roundabout way.

I have an interesting history with science. My earliest science memory was being in year 7 chemistry class. We were dealing with very diluted acids and I managed to spill some all over my then boyfriend’s crotch and stained his jeans. It’s one of those things that still haunts my thoughts many decades later. In high school we had physics class, and the teacher let everyone cheat because the majority of the class was on the football team and he was the coach. I didn’t learn much there.

It wasn’t until I was well and truly out of school that I found science interesting. There was no one to spill acid on, and no burly jocks to peer over my shoulder and steal my (probably wrong) answers. Using science to look backwards, and look forwards, makes the present seem less binding. There are endless possibilities of things that could have happened, and what will happen, and we don’t know all there is to know about either.