Information Organization: Reflection

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Reflection

In the months I have spent thinking about information organization and creating this project I have become more convinced than ever that organization is an essential part of the work of information professionals. Not all that I have discovered, thought about, or discussed with others is reflected here, but the main ideas are. As I read the thoughtful comments my classmates contributed, I realize several things. They bring a vast amount of experience and variety of interests to the discussion and they are the front lines in the world of information. As I listened to peers, read the thoughts of information experts and veterans in the field, and examined my own experiences working in libraries, this is what I concluded: Organization must be logical, practical and functional; it must make sense to patrons; it must be standardized and transferable; it must be cost-effective.

I don't know if the future of organization will mean a total reorganization of bibliographic control or bidding Dewey a fond farewell. I am pretty sure it will continue to take advantage of technological advancement and will become evermore user-centric. I am interested in learning more about the Semantic Web and all its possibilities. I do know that the future of organization, like all areas of the library and information sciences, depends upon our ability to adapt to the changing needs of information seekers. The services we provide, organizing the information of the world (for it is information professionals who truly do this), as well as creating, storing, disseminating, collecting, and preserving it, are not theoretical exercises in information management. They affect the daily lives of the people we serve. We must do our job well.

1 comment:

Acq. Lady said...: I am in Knowledge Organization this semester and am learning about cataloging or more specifically bibliographic records. I have copycat cataloged material for a couple of years. I found Dewey and Library of Congress enable libraries to organize material on the shelf, but it is the Marc record that helps patrons retrieve information with subject access points. I do not see either one becoming obsolete anytime soon.; April 19, 2008 at 8:05 PM

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Intro

This blog was created as part of a class project to discuss the ways in which information professionals organize information.

In the age of the Internet and the information explosion, information professionals are faced with the challenge of organizing massive amounts of information being created in a variety of formats, both in formal and in informal ways. How are we doing this? In order to discuss how information is being organized, we must also think about: Who is organizing
information and for whom? Who is accessing this information and by what means? I hope this blog will also elicit discussion on how we may need to change traditional ways of organizing information to fit new electronic production media and the changing needs of information users, i.e. all of us!

References

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