IRLS 504 FOUNDATIONS OF LIBRARY AND
INFORMATION SERVICES
Winter 2005/2006
Residency
Information
Organization in Libraries
Reading
Report 5
In Chapter 6, Rubin presents the major ways that librarians approach the organization of information. In our class, we will call these "intellectual technologies," because they are intellectual tools and techniques for organizing information.
Students typically have some trouble at first understanding the purposes and the differences of the different tools libraries use to organize information. The questions below are designed to be a first step in organizing your thinking about the way libraries organize information.
1. Describe the distinction between a subject and a discipline. Develop an example illustrating the difference, either your own or Rubin's
2. Define a library classification system and give two examples.
3. Examine the main classes of the Dewey Decimal System (Rubin Figure 6.1) and the main classes of the Library of Congress Classification System (Rubin Figure 6.2). Write a short description of what you see as similarities and differences.
4. Define a controlled vocabulary and give several examples.
5. What is the problem of "synonymy" and how does a controlled vocabulary help?
6. Develop an expanded definition of a library catalog, including what it is and why it is useful.
7. What are bibliographic records and what tools are used to create them?
8. Define an bibliography, an index and an abstract.
9. What is the MARC record and how is it organized?
10. Write a definition of metadata for yourself that helps you understand what it is.
Keep track of the questions that you have as you work your way through this chapter. We will be spending quite a bit of time on the way libraries have approached the organization of information.