Organization of Information

1. Organization of Information Spring 2008 Lecture 1 Organization of Information

2. Textbook • The organization of information • by Arlene G Taylor • Type: English : Book : Non-fiction • Publisher: Westport, Conn. : Libraries • Unlimited, 2004. • ISBN: 1563089769 1563089696 • Subjects: Information organization. | • Metadata. Organization of Information

3. Course Logistics • 2 sections of this course, separate lectures • Weds. distance students - Lectures on TV • Friday on-campus students - classroom • EVERYONE: readings, exercises, chat, & discussion board online in Organization of Information

4. Learn@UW interface • Anyone having trouble? • Most important features: • Content - area where all the “stuff” is • Main content page, like TOC of course, links to: • Readings by week • Exercises - descriptions & resources • Lecture slides (printable) Organization of Information

5. Learn@UW interface • Most important features, cont’d: • Dropbox - area where you turn in exercises and final projects • Grades - where you can see your grades • Discussion - • posting questions that arise outside of class • A few assigned discussion topics • Responses to discussion exercises Organization of Information

6. Learn@UW interface • Less important features, but nice: • Classlist - area where you can keep track of yourself (and the teacher can track you) • Using discussion board to send email - click someone's name, send them a message off the board • If you are used to having a “sent” copy of all your email to refer back to, cc yourself. Organization of Information

7. Course Logistics - Grades • 3 exercises that you turn in (several others that we talk about in class, or on discussion board) • 10 points each = 30 points • Comparison paper • 30 points • Final project • 30 points • Class & discussion participation • 10 points Organization of Information

8. Lecture 1 - Topics • What is organization of information? • 6 activities • History & structures • Organization of information in different environments • How does traditional library organization of information fit in in the current environment? Organization of Information

9. What is organization? • Organization: The act or process of organizing. The state or manner of being organized Something that has been organized or made into an ordered whole. • Organizing: To put together into an orderly, functional, structured whole. To arrange in a coherent form; systematize To arrange in a desired pattern or structure Organization of Information

10. What is organization? • Synonym for organize: • Arrange: • To put into a specific order or relation; dispose: arrange shoes in a neat row. 2. To plan or prepare for: arrange a picnic. 3. To bring about an agreement Organization of Information

11. What is information? Information: • Data presented in readily comprehensible form, to which meaning may be attributed within a context for its use. Put more dynamically, the message conveyed by the use of a medium of communication or expression. • More concretely, all the facts, conclusions, ideas, and creative works of the human intellect and imagination which have been communicated, formally or informally, in any form. Organization of Information

12. What is organization of information? • “To arrange information into orderly, comprehensible structures, to render it easily findable and usable.” Organization of Information

13. Six major activities (Hagler/Taylor) • Identify new information packages as they become available • e.g. Books in Print; increasingly RSS feeds • Identify works contained within new information packages • Granularity - digitization creates access to smaller bits of information all the time Organization of Information

14. Six major activities (Hagler/Taylor) cont’d. • Systematically accumulating information packages into collections • Collection development • Producing lists according to standard rules • e.g. bibliographies, indexes, library catalogs, finding aids … Organization of Information

15. Six major activities (Hagler/Taylor) cont’d. • Providing name, title, subject and other access points • e.g. authority control, assigning subjects • Providing the means of locating an individual information package • Circulation, URLs Organization of Information

16. History • Innate human need to organize? • First Librarian, Callimachus of Cyrene, (305-240 BC) • First library system, Pinakes Organization of Information

17. History • Library organizing practices originated in a time of relative information scarcity • Need to describe print resources to make them findable & searchable • Build organizing structures Organization of Information

18. History ---> Now • 21st century is NOT a time of information scarcity! • Need to describe print resources to make them findable & searchable? • Increasingly, digital information objects can be searched themselves • Librarians job increasingly: interpret organizing structures made by others Organization of Information

19. History • Structures for organizing information (in rough chronological order): • Catalogs; bibliographies; classification; indexes; registers; finding aids; databases; directory structures and file-naming conventions; search engines & fulltext/keyword searching; information architecture; web site organizational schemes; informal, online community organization of information - ‘blogs, wikis, social networking Organization of Information

20. Definitions: Catalogs • retrieval tools or lists that provide access to individual items within collections Organization of Information

21. Aside: Bibliographic surrogates • [Library] Catalogs consist of records, or bibliographic surrogates, that describe information resources • How / Why did this happen? • As digitization creates access to the resource itself, and smaller & smaller bits of information can be searched, are records still useful? Organization of Information

22. Definitions: Bibliographies • lists of information items, sometimes all one format, sometimes not (e.g. a bibliography of journal articles). Often items in the list are related by subject matter, author, time period, etc. Organization of Information

23. Definitions: Classification • The process of dividing information objects or records representing them, into logically hierarchical classes, subclasses, and sub-subclasses based on the characteristics they have in common and those that distinguish them. Organization of Information

24. Definitions: Indexes • retrieval tools that provide access to the analyzed contents within information packages, such as articles inside a journal, or the contents of one book (back-of-the-book indexes) Organization of Information

25. Definitions: Registers • Lists of items added to a collection, usually in the order of their addition. Normally includes an accession number, brief identification, source, and price paid for each item. May also be called accession log, or calendar Organization of Information

26. Definitions: Finding aids • long inventory-like descriptions of entire archival collections. Can also be called a register. Usually includes: organizational history or biographical sketch of the records creator; scope & content note describing the extent and nature of the records; box & folder list, locating individual items within the collection and also the arrangement of the collection. Organization of Information

27. Definitions: Databases • Computer files of information (bibliographic records, abstracts, full-text documents, directory entries, images, statistics, etc.) related to a specific subject or field, consisting of records with a uniform format, usually with a relationship structure that is the basis of retrieval tools • Library examples are catalogs & periodical indexes. Databases are called bibliographic if they contain records that describe textual items, and full-text if the text of the item is also included. A&I (abstracting & indexing) databases used to contain ONLY abstracts & indexes, but now many are going to full-text Organization of Information

28. Aside - Databases • Document-centric • Data-centric • Records in a database • Encoded data in a document • Acts like a database! storage Organization of Information

29. Document-Centric Organization of Information

30. Data-Centric Organization of Information

31. Definitions: Directory structures & file naming conventions • The ways that computer users name directories or folders, and the files that reside within them, to create order. URLs, or web addresses, commonly consist of a server name, followed by directory names, and ending with a specific file name Organization of Information

32. Definitions: Information Architecture • Information architecture involves the design of organization, labelling, navigation, and searching systems to help people find and manage information more successfully Lou Rosenfeld • A methodology for planning, designing, building, and maintaining an information system [usually a Web site] Arlene Taylor Organization of Information

33. Definitions: Web site organizational schemes • Methods of grouping content on a web site, based on shared characteristics of the content, to facilitatebrowsing. Some examples are major categories of a site that are grouped by subject, or that are aimed at the needs of particular user groups, e.g. the Student section of a college or university site. Organization of Information

34. Definitions:search engines & internet search engines • ODLIS: Originally computer software to search a database by matching specific text strings; increasingly used to locate information available at sites on the World Wide Web by by entering appropriate keywords or phrases (Google) or selecting categories from a hierarchical directory of subjects (example: Yahoo!). Results may be ranked according to relevance or some other criterion. Functionality varies; most search engines provide both basic and advanced search modes. Organization of Information

35. Definitions:search engines and internet search engines • Encyclopedia Britannica: Tool for finding information, especially on the Internet or World Wide Web. Search engines are essentially massive databases that cover wide swaths of the Internet. Most consist of three parts: at least one program, called a spider, crawler, or bot, which “crawls” through the Internet gathering information; a database, which stores the gathered information; and a search tool, with which users search through the database by typing in keywords describing the information desired (usually at a Web site dedicated to the search engine). Organization of Information

36. Definitions: online communities & informal organization of information • ‘Blogging • Tagging & folksonomies • Tag clouds • Tagging photos - Flickr • Social bookmarking • del.icio.us • Wikis • LibraryThing Organization of Information

37. Organization of Information

38. Organization of information in different environments • People organize information, but different people do it different • Cultural heritage institutions: Libraries, Museums, Archives • Scholars & academics, teachers • Web masters, web site creators, web search engine developers • Anyone with a computer or a collection of stuff • Online communities; 'Blogosphere Organization of Information

39. Different environments, textbook • Libraries • Archives • Museums • The Internet • Digital Libraries • Information Architecture • Data Administration • Knowledge management Organization of Information

40. Org. of info. in different environments, comparison • Libraries, Museums, Archives • Libraries have published items • Archives & Museums unique items • Archives describe materials at collective level; Museums & Libraries describe individual items • Archives & Museums arrange by provenance (where it came from) • Libraries arrange by subject (what it’s about) Organization of Information

41. Libraries record: Authors/creators Titles Subjects Classification Some physical description Museums record: Authors/creators Titles Where it came from Who used it Much physical description Org. of info. in different environments, comparison Organization of Information

42. History, revisited • Library organizing practices originated in a time of relative information scarcity • Need to describe print resources to make them findable & searchable • Build organizing structures Organization of Information

43. Today • Time of information overload • No (or not nearly as much) need to describe electronic resources to make them findable & searchable • Records?? • Interpret/Utilize organizing structures built by others* Organization of Information

44. Exercise: Structures & questions • As you work on the exercise, think about: • Where am I searching? What is the scope of this resource? • What am I searching - records, or the item itself? • When I get results back, can I find more resources similar to the ones I like? More in a particular category by browsing? • What types of questions does this resource appear to be designed to answer? Experts? beginners? in between? Organization of Information