tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64911689493852722942024-03-18T22:36:46.333-05:00Information OrganizationKate Dunigan AtLeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07132460111762838773noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6491168949385272294.post-18860948081436365232008-04-16T09:31:00.005-05:002008-04-20T13:56:29.059-05:00ReflectionIn 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 Kate Dunigan AtLeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07132460111762838773noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6491168949385272294.post-58430933344679526852008-04-15T20:31:00.011-05:002008-04-16T08:47:35.403-05:00The future of organizationHow will we organize information in the future? Will humans continue to design, create, and use highly sophisticated organizational systems and databases, or will we rely more and more on the "good enough" algorithms search engines provide us with? Will our search engines become highly sophisticated organizational and retrieval tools?Taylor recognizes that it has taken centuries, since the Kate Dunigan AtLeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07132460111762838773noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6491168949385272294.post-45256524243444192912008-04-15T12:36:00.002-05:002008-04-15T19:29:47.599-05:00Organizing Online"The Internet has been likened to a library where all the books have been dumped on the floor and there is no catalog" (Taylor, p. 13).I am sure that the idea of organizing the Internet and digital information is daunting to even the most enthusiastic of information professionals. Dedicated and forward-thinking professionals are doing just that, daunting though it may be. From search engines toKate Dunigan AtLeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07132460111762838773noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6491168949385272294.post-60301768279824558642008-04-14T13:53:00.009-05:002008-04-14T14:38:33.674-05:00A Model of OrganizationI have created this model from Hagler's The Bibliographic Record and Information Technology (1997) as well as Taylor's The Organization of Information (2004).Hagler relates organization to the idea of bibliographic control. Bibliographic control, he says, is the "sum of all the practical operations a librarian undertakes to organize documents and their descriptions so that relevant ones can Kate Dunigan AtLeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07132460111762838773noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6491168949385272294.post-2072787920213341632008-04-07T11:25:00.007-05:002008-04-07T11:54:43.031-05:00The Dewey Debate Continues...Have our traditional organizational systems, like the DDC, outlived their usefulness? Is it time to reinvent the wheel? The Dewey debate rages on, and the Perry Branch Library makes an appearance in this video.(In case you weren't convinced that YouTube has a video for every possible topic you might want to find...)Kate Dunigan AtLeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07132460111762838773noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6491168949385272294.post-45587605661348815122008-04-03T16:14:00.009-05:002008-04-07T12:10:14.539-05:00Just Say No to Dewey?Many of you have probably heard the story of the public library in Arizona that has scorned the Dewey Decimal System and any other formal classification system. This library, the Perry Branch of the Maricopa County Library District near Phoenix, has decided to do away with Dewey. In case you haven't heard the story, the gist is that they have decided to organize their materials by subject. Of Kate Dunigan AtLeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07132460111762838773noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6491168949385272294.post-22343328766222475642008-04-01T18:07:00.015-05:002008-12-10T05:26:27.229-06:00Classification: Systems of Organization, or How Libraries Do It (Part I: The United States)Let's look at some of the systems that libraries use to organize their collections.First, let's define classification. Greer, Grover, and Fowler (2007) define classification as "a system for organizing knowledge" (p. 112). Many classification systems exist in the world, some are used very broadly, others are specific to a particular library, especially a library with a small, highly specializedKate Dunigan AtLeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07132460111762838773noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6491168949385272294.post-79016116468932750012008-03-28T18:54:00.001-05:002008-12-10T05:26:28.089-06:00Background: the history of organizationBefore discussing how information is organized today, it is important to understand something about how information has been organized historically.Early organizers of information first made simple lists and bibliographies of documents. Later, complex cataloging systems were employed. Here is a brief history of organization, from antiquity up to the twentieth century.2000 B.C.E. A Sumerian Kate Dunigan AtLeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07132460111762838773noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6491168949385272294.post-73457423495861445212008-03-13T17:19:00.005-05:002008-04-16T08:37:05.809-05:00Background: why organize?It seems obvious that information professionals do not organize information for the simple pleasure of doing so. We organize with a purpose and for a reason. Arlene Taylor, in her book The Organization of Information (2004), discusses the two primary reasons we organize information: retrieval and posterity. Information, in-and-of itself, isn't useful until someone wants to retrieve it and putKate Dunigan AtLeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07132460111762838773noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6491168949385272294.post-12617682083662481032008-02-25T09:14:00.005-06:002008-02-26T12:10:08.833-06:00Background: information professionals, who are we?According to Greer, Grover, and Fowler in their book, Introduction to the Library and Information Professions, the information professions include "those professions which are engaged in the creation, organization, diffusion, and preservation of information and knowledge" (p. 12). Professionals in these fields might be librarians, archivists, records managers, information scientists, informationKate Dunigan AtLeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07132460111762838773noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6491168949385272294.post-50466953528713255262008-02-21T12:43:00.006-06:002008-02-26T12:08:17.788-06:00The purpose of this blogThe purpose of this blog is to discuss the ways in which information professionals organize information, both today and historically.How information is organized depends upon who is organizing it, the type of information, the purpose of preserving the information, who will be accessing the information and the manner in which it will be retrieved. Each of these areas must be taken into account Kate Dunigan AtLeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07132460111762838773noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6491168949385272294.post-36808137385332524612008-01-19T17:14:00.001-06:002008-02-25T09:11:45.796-06:00Maiden VoyageThis is the beginning of my blogging journey "to understand the things that are" or at least to understand the ways in which librarians organize information, whichever comes first.“You are not the child of the people you call mother and father, but their fellow-adventurer on a bright journey to understand the things that are.” Richard Bach in There's No Such Place As Far Away.Kate Dunigan AtLeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07132460111762838773noreply@blogger.com0