Organization of Information in Collections

Standards and practices for organization and description of bibliographic, textual, and non-textual collections. Design, selection, maintenance and evaluation of cataloging, classification, indexing and thesaurus systems for specific settings. Codes, formats, and standards for representation and transfer of data.

A continuation and expansion of the introductory core course 202. Organization of Information with emphasis on organization of and access to textual and non-textual materials in paper-based and digital collections. A project-oriented course designed to provide theoretical foundations for current practices and for exploration of new methodologies for effective retrieval of information content. Emphasis on implementation and evaluation of organization and retrieval systems. Designed for Master's students expecting to manage paper-based and digital collections of information resources. Includes application of standard cataloging rules and indexing methods.

Outline of Topics

1. Systems for organization of paper-based and digital bibliographic and textual collections of information.
   • Use and evaluation of classification systems, including those employed in the organization of bibliographic collections; organization of abstracting and indexing services.
   • Use and evaluation of standardized codes and formats for the organization and cataloging of textual and bibliographic collections.
2. Systems for organization of non-textual collections of information (objects, images, sound, numerical and digital formats).
   • Use and evaluation of systems.
   • Use and evaluation of standards.
3. Design and evaluation of collections management systems, including criteria for systems design.

Course requirements will include: readings on theoretical framework and evaluation criteria for development of collections management systems; assignments in the form of projects that require use and evaluation of a variety of organizational schemes and systems; evaluative papers that require analysis of the readings, combined with evaluation of existing systems; a final project that replaces a final examination and requires design, implementation and evaluation of an organizational system for a given setting.