demonstrate understanding of basic principles and standards involved in organizing information such as classification and controlled vocabulary systems, cataloging systems, metadata schemas or other systems for making information accessible to a particular clientele.
Within the librarian’s task of making information available for the user is making information easily accessible for the user. Over time, librarians have refined how books and information are organized and stored for easy location and browsing. Classification systems such as Dewey Decimal (DDC) or Library of Congress (LCC) Classification were developed to organize the physical location of a document. To facilitate discovery of related items that may not be shelved in the same vicinity, controlled vocabulary systems such as thesauri and subject headings were created. And finally, records about library information used for search and access was brought to a new level of function with the computer.
One feature of classification systems is coding. Both DDC and LCC are numerical and alphanumeric representations of the class the materials are assigned and have no meaning without a key, or rote memorization. For instance, DDC uses three-digit codes sometimes followed by a decimal point, while the LCC format is one or two alphabetic characters followed by one or more digits. Both end with a truncation of the author’s last name, assisting in the physical shelving process. The codes were developed to include related works nearby, so each character in the code implies increasing specificity in the topic. In DDC, for example, books classified under 600 pertain to applied sciences, 630 to agriculture and related technologies, and 636 to animal husbandry (Online Computer Library Center, 2011, p. 5).
A complementary system to classification is controlled vocabulary. Controlled vocabulary systems can be classified as thesauri or subject headings. These systems exist to group materials that may not otherwise be in the same physical location in a library. An advantage of controlled vocabulary is the ability to assign multiple values to documents as appropriate, so that searchers can find “The Skateboarding Dog” under the terms “dogs” and “skateboarding.” Another advantage of controlled vocabulary is minimizing ambiguity in search. The vocabulary is designed to show the user the preferred term for synonymous words and spelling variants. Controlled vocabulary can also be used to define the specific use of ambiguous terms, e.g., Oracle (Delphi) or Oracle (corporation). One difference between thesauri and subject headings is that subject headings can be hierarchically organized, so materials can be searched in broader or narrower terms. Standardized thesauri and controlled vocabulary do exist, such as the Library of Congress Subject Headings. Specialized libraries or databases may also choose to adapt their own controlled vocabulary designations appropriate for their collection.
Classification and controlled vocabulary are organizing systems that predated the widespread use of computers, but their full potential for search and access were unlocked by computer processing. Prior to computer adoption, the previous prevalent technology for library collection metadata, or data about data, was the well-known card catalog. The card catalog’s records were generated, filed, and searched by hand. In electronic format, a well-organized catalog can return many results in seconds, and perform advanced searches with multiple values that would be cumbersome and time-consuming, if not impossible, to discover through a card catalog.
The format that electronic metadata is stored in is an ongoing discussion within librarianship and archiving. The following notes the names to know in metadata for librarians. All these standards assist system designers in addressing overlapping but distinct components of metadata but all generally seek to have the most usefully descriptive yet flexible and concise system for their information. MARC (an acronym for MAchine-Readable Cataloging) is a data format begun by the Library of Congress to store bibliographic information for their collection. Resource Description and Access (RDA) is the current prevailing standard governing the design of English-language catalogs under MARC. RDA replaced the previous standard, the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, in part to better describe digital documents and function in a digital environment and also in part due to adopting ideas from the “Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records” (FRBR), a prominent metadata report from the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). Another influential group in the metadata conversation is the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI). DCMI developed the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, a simple metadata set which is approved as an ISO/NISO standard that is extensible depending on the materials being described.
Evidence
These assignments show my approach to understanding organizing information from several perspectives. The first from creating controlled vocabulary for a database, the second from querying a database by using metadata fields, and the final assignment from an exploration of an important and sometimes underappreciated tool for finding online documents.
LIBR 202: Information Retrieval—Homework 2A
This assignment was the beginning of a project designing one’s own database, testing other classmates’, and reflecting on the results. I chose to show the first part of that process to show the thoughts that went into the words I used in the controlled vocabulary scheme. I also defined specifications for new thesaurus terms if the student reviewing my database wanted to add them.
LIBR 202: Information Retrieval— Homework 2A
LIBR 244: Online Searching—Exercise 4, Problem 1
This search indicates an awareness of being able to take advantage of metadata fields in online databases, especially noted in the “Search Strategies” section. The metadata of the documents being searched contained defined “company” and “subject” fields that were able to accept values for the information requested. Part of being an effective searcher as a librarian is being aware of what the different fields of the document’s metadata are used to define, and determining whether limitations in that field would be helpful for the search.
LIBR 244: Online Searching—Exercise 4, Problem 1
LIBR 287: Digital Libraries Seminar—Final Paper
For this research paper, I examined the importance of the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) as a component of metadata in a digital library document. The DOI addressed the need for persistent identifiers inherent in online document organization, as URLs are merely a temporary location for a document and can be broken. The significance of the DOI achieving standardized use across publisher groups cannot be understated for the benefit of information users.
LIBR 287: Digital Libraries Seminar—Final Paper
Conclusion
If the largest library in the world consisted of a pile of books that were shelved by wheelbarrows, it wouldn’t be a very worthwhile library to attend (except perhaps for the spectacle). Organization is an important step in making the information the library provides useful. Fortunately, we have tools like the ones discussed above to find the physical locations of materials, materials related by topic, and information about materials without inferring it ourselves. The trope of a librarian as a compulsive organizer can sometimes seem true to life, but this might be because we know in practice that organization is a key part to efficient behavior. I look forward to working with the standards and schemas that benefit the library I am a part of, and in turn, the library’s users.
References
Online Computer Library Center. (2011). Introduction to the Dewey Decimal Classification. Retrieved from http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/oclc/dewey/versions/print/intro.pdf
Life is information, information is life. 