Historical ontology and infrastructure

  • Authors:
  • David Ribes;Jessica Beth Polk

  • Affiliations:
  • Georgetown University, Washington, DC;Georgetown University, Washington, DC

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 2012 iConference
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

We explore the relationship between long-term scientific infrastructure and its changing objects of research. Specifically, we focus on the historical changes in HIV disease during the life of a longitudinal medical study investigating the disease for nearly thirty years. We ask, within the study of information infrastructure and research-based organizations, what are the things that inherently change, and how do such changes reverberate through the practice and organization of infrastructure? In applying the philosophical concept of historical ontology to cyberinfrastructure, we present the groundwork for a broader understanding of infrastructural sustainability within an environment inherently in flux.