Claudio Gnoli
Glad to communicate with you. My full name is Claudio Tommaso Gnoli, and this is my personal web page. I am mostly concerned with knowledge organization. I work as a librarian, make some research in classification theory, teach courses, and am active in some professional associations. I live in North-Western Italy. If you are curious, some personal notes about me and my interests are also available.
You are welcome to write for any reason to gnoli@aib.it
— just consider that I receive much mail, so it can take some days to be answered. I don't subscribe to any social network. I can speak English, French, or Italian, and read some Spanish.
Background
I have a mixed humanist-scientific background, as I went to a classical high school, then took a degree in Natural Sciences in 1994. My main interests in the latter field have been evolutionary theory and animal behaviour, and the degree thesis concerned communication among Eurasian otters (Lutra lutra). In the subsequent years I kept working together with researchers in zoology at the University of Pavia (dr. Giuseppe Bogliani and dr. Alberto Meriggi) and the Natural history museum of Milan (dr. Carlo Biancardi): we studied the local distribution and behavioural ecology of squirrels, wolves, and badgers. Together with some friends I founded "Vertebrati", an Italian e-mail discussion group devoted to wildlife biology, which has been positively active since 1999.
"A student was called on to take the chair at a dinner in connection with the Royal School of Mines. [... Professor Thomas Huxley asked:] "Which of the lines of science you have followed has chiefly engaged your interest?" Following the thread of my reply, he drew from me the confession that an interest in philosophy, and in the general scheme of things, lay deeper than my interest in the practical applications of science to what then purported to my bread-and-butter training." (Emergent evolution / Conwy Lloyd Morgan)
Having shifted to libraries, I have learned a lot from the editorial staff of the early AIB website, especially its coordinators Eugenio Gatto and Riccardo Ridi. Later, ISKO people have been encouraging to get in contact with the international knowledge organization community, and Roberto Poli has introduced me into philosophical ontology. In turn, I think I have contributed to the involvement in LIS activities of skilled people like Caterina Barazia, Emanuela Casson, Enzo Cesanelli, Giovanna Frigimelica, and Hong Mei.
I started working as a librarian in May 1994 at the municipal library of Mariano Comense. Shortly after, I earned a position at the University of Milan, and spent six years at the front desk of the Agriculture faculty library. In December 2000 I moved to the University of Pavia Mathematics library, where I am currently working.
My main interest is classification theory, as it developed especially in libraries during the 20th century, but can also be applied to other knowledge sources, including the huge ones today available through the Internet. Faceted classification, conceived by S.R. Ranganathan and developed by the Classification Research Group, is a basic advancement in this field, yet to be exploited extensively. The CRG also explored the theory of integrative levels as a general organizing principle, and I am currently trying to develop on this and to test it with some little databases. This has both a technical and a philosophical relevance, as it is connected with the idea of emergence increasingly discussed in contemporary science. Not only librarianship can contribute to a general classification theory (a taxology), but also any other discipline where classification is relevant. Especially worth of attention are the works of biological taxonomists, such as Ernst Mayr, as they need to model both the similarity and the common origin of the classified objects. I have published some books and a number of papers concerning knowledge organization. Here is a list of them. I have done tens of short courses for librarians, master students etc., concerning strategies in searching information in the Internet, online public access catalogues, library websites, subject indexing and its application to the digital environment. At present my courses mostly concern:
Position
Research
Publications
Teaching
Pool activity
- 2005-: consulting editor of "AIDA informazioni"
- 2009-: member
Books have always been around me since I was a child, and I soon realized that a basic question was which ones to read... When I was 7 years old, my grand-father Giulio Gnoli wrote that I had "a need for order, organization, almost cataloguing, of documentation", so that I was often "writing, making lists, establishing a precise sequence between persons and between
Though being born in a frantic anonymous city, I feel much more bound to my mother's region, at the boundary between Pavia plain and the valleys of the Northern Apennine. The latter, also known as the Quattro Province, despite depopulation keep a remarkable heritage of traditions, including high-level folk music. Often I find rural communities to be much more civilized and deep than urban ones. Here are collected some images of me and of people and places important to me. Other things I like include (in order of integrative levels) silence, rivers, forests, wolverines, cats, red-haired women, dining with good company, smoking pipe, hiking, reading, open-minded people, friendship, peaceful attitude, pluralism, phonology of languages and dialects, logical languages, France, Austria, low technology, the Internet, the world rally championship, folksingers, Calvin & Hobbes comics, Maigret novels
Personal notes
facts, pretending to own large books where news and details could be searched for"... It is a weird fate that my great-great-grandfather, my great-grandfather, my great-aunt, and my mother have also been librarians. I am pleased that my work contributes to the diffusion and use of knowledge, a cause without owners nor flag.
Finally, I am a volunteer blood donor at AVIS, and encourage you to do the same as there is much need for it!