Talk:Boundary object

Object could be more than information

As I read the first sentence of this description, there seems to be a bit too much emphasis on information. Boundary objects are often applied in the context of information and information systems. However, a fence around some property would also be an boundary object, in that people recognize that it's a demarcation of land ... and that's not just informational, it's physical. Daviding (talk) 21:09, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Object examples?

There is not a single example of a "boundary object" on this page. Makes it difficult to fully understand what they might be or how the term is commonly used. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.115.226.11 (talk) 03:02, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I just added a sentence listing a few examples of boundary objects discussed in the original Star and Griesemar article. Hopefully, this makes the concept a little bit clearer. Svtlzr2 (talk) 20:15, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

introduction of concept?

The current wiki version claims that the notion was introduced in the 1989 paper. The authors reference the concept, however, to another source by Star (endnote 15): Susan Leigh Star, 'The Structure of Ill-Structured Solutions: Boundary Objects and Heterogeneous Distributed Problem Solving', in M. Hubs and L. Gasser (eds), Readings in Distributed Artificial Intelligence 3 (Menlo Park, CA: Morgan Kaufmann, 1989). This seems to call for corrections of the opening of the wiki page. Ingmar.lippert (talk) 15:34, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes, please do make the correction. Bondegezou (talk) 21:09, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

done Ingmar.lippert (talk) 19:58, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Note that the concept of boundaries and systems is well established in the roots of Systems Science and Operations Management and is attributed by G. Midgely (1998) to the work of C.West Churchman in the 1960's (see The Theory and Practice of Boundary Critique: Developing Housing Services for Older People

G. Midgley, I. Munlo, M. Brown

, Vol. 49, No. 5 (May, 1998), pp. 467-478 (12 pages)

https://doi.org/10.2307/3009885 2A00:23C5:FEC2:5201:4172:F974:8036:F931 (talk) 08:19, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm confused

The article presently begins, "In sociology, a boundary object is information, such as specimens, field notes, and maps, used in different ways by different communities." As far as I can tell, a map carries information. It isn't itself information. If someone can't read the map, you can give them the map without giving them the information that it carries. Omphaloscope talk 23:40, 17 November 2018 (UTC)