Journal Entry Final Reflection

At the end of being part of this unit INN533 Information Organization, I feel I have acquired a clearer understanding by learning about the information user and the information professional and their roles in terms of organizing information. I have learnt how to use different information tools to acquire specific resources whether I am using a classification system to locate the resource, a library catalogue such as the National Library of Australia’s catalogue or using a database. Through writing journals I have found the weekly topics interesting and have improved on elaborating the significance of user experience on the design of a database after learning about the elements that enhance user experience. 

I found a few parts of the unit challenging, but there was not many concepts that were entirely new to me so I handled myself well with the new tasks I was required to accomplish. The most challenging part of the semester was being able to balance the workload involved in this unit along with the workload within other units of my final semester. In my final units I found myself in three different groups for the subjects I undertook this semester and that meant that I had to improve on my multitasking skills in order to add my input to all three groups for the assessments. The subject of information organization itself, assisted me in managing the majority of the information I had in all my subject in this semester and helped simplify my time management. 

I have gained a greater understanding with the concept of developing a database, and additionally, with understanding the concept of information organization and applying the skills of it to the assessments that were given. I have enjoyed assisting my team members in creating the ContentDM Database and I’m looking towards the future to apply my acquired knowledge and skills to a workplace environment.

Journal Entry Week 10: The future of information organisation or does information organisation have a future?

Library 2.0 is a closely related term to user-generated content as the two are both related to each other.  According to Partridge et al (2010), Library 2.0 is a term use to describe the changes seen between the interactions of libraries and their users Library 2.0 is a concept that takes its name from Web 2.0 and follows the principles and techniques of Web 2.0 in terms of how it can be utilized within libraries. Technologies such as RSS Feeds, Podcasts, Weblogs and wikis are all examples of Web 2.0 that can be useful within libraries. With these technologies, users can publish text, sound and videos in a very quick manner. User-generated content enables users to index resources such as links, photos and videos. An example of a website that is very popular for enabling users to use these techniques is Wikipedia. With this said users can interact with libraries in a different way. Users-generated content can give the records of collection in libraries a more sophisticated look and however, make them easier to retrieve. With the use of tagging, reviews, and ratings users can greatly engage with libraries to provide multiple descriptions of a resource. Tagging behaviour is being carefully watched by those in the area of information organization (Chang and Iyer, 2012) as it is a means of understanding user motivation which in turn can inform information system design such as library catalogues and databases. Nevertheless, the future of user-generated content may see techniques such as tagging being incorporated in several libraries to assist users with categorizing collections and archiving different content from different resources.

References

Chang, H. & Iyer, H. (2012). Trends in Twitter Hashtag applications: design features for value-added dimensions to future library catalogues. Library Trends, 61(1), 248-258. Retrieved from: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/library_trends/v061/61.1.chang.html

Partridge, Helen L., Lee, Julie M., & Munro, Carrie (2010) Becoming "Librarian 2.0": the skills, knowledge, and attributes required by library and information science professionals in a Web 2.0 world (and beyond). Library Trends, 59(1/2), pp. 315-335.

Journal Entry Week 8: Classification

In this week’s activity we learnt about the classification schemes of the Dewey Classification (DDC) and the Library of Congress Classification (LCC).  These two classification concepts are used by general libraries to group collections that are similar together.  According to Shirky (2005), these terms are "the act of organizing a collection of entities, into related groups. In this particular week’s activity we were required to use these two classification schemes to classify a book by Jamie Oliver.

The use of these two schemes was designed for physical resources. With this said, both these schemes have been around for the past 200 years meaning that they may be harder to incorporate to our digital age.  Shirky (2005), states that while these systems have been adapted somewhat, new less rigid measures like subject tagging are showing up their limitations. The DDC is the most popular scheme used for classifying books within libraries. The usage of LLC and DCC depends upon the workload since Dewey decimal system is more widely used whereas complex system of a library could be handled with LLC (Broughton, 2004).The enumerative scheme that is used in the DDC classification scheme can be used to create notations for physical resources that have complex string numbers as subjects for classification. Thus, with resources that don’t need specific searches to locate them, the DDC is very appropriate. The DDC uses a decimal system in order to categorize collections since it’s method of categorization is numerical. Nevertheless, its weakness directly associates with resources that have subjects with longer strings.

All resources should be classified with the appropriate method to assist users and librarians with understanding them.  

References

Broughton, V. (2004). Essential classification. New York: Schuman

Shirky, C. (2005). Ontology is overrated: Categories, Links and Tags. Accessed 05/10/13.  Retrieved from:http://www.shirky.com/writings/ontology_overrated.html.