Course Objective:

This course provides a framework for understanding the organization of information and the implications for knowledge management. Decisions regarding the organization of materials, access points, vocabulary control, thesauri, and user perspectives will be covered.

Course Meetings:

IRLS 501 will meet:

June 8^th-9^th (9:00 a.m.-5:30 p.m.)

June 22^nd-23^rd (9:00 a.m.-5:30 p.m.)

June 29^th-30^th (9:00 a.m.-5:30 p.m.)

Classroom TBA

Course Text:

The course text is available at the University bookstore.

Rowley, Jennifer and John Farrow. ORGANIZING KNOWLEDGE: AN INTRODUCTION TO MANAGING ACCESS TO INFORMATION. 3^rd ed. (Burlington, Vt.: Gower, 2000) [Entire text will be read for IRLS 501]

Additional Readings:

Borges, Jorge Luis. "The Library of Babel" in Ficciones (New York: Knopf, 1993) (Everyman’s Library)

Borgman, Christine L. FROM GUTENBERG TO THE GLOBAL INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE: ACCESS TO INFORMATION IN THE NETWORKED WORLD. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000)

"Access to Information", pages 53-80.

Svenonius, Elaine. THE INTELLECTUAL FOUNDATION OF INFORMATION ORGANIZATION. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000)

"Information Organization", pages 1-14.

"Bibliographic Objectives", pages 15-30.

Rosenfeld, Louis and Peter Morville. INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE FOR THE WORLD WIDE WEB. (Sebastopol, Calif.: O’Reilly, 1998)

"Organizing Information", pages 22-46.

The instructor will distribute additional readings in class.

Individual Project:

The individual project will be detailed on a separate sheet. Core components of the project include:

Application Points Draft Due

Options for final project submission:

Option One: June 30, 2002 (In class submission)

Option Two: July 03, 2002 by US PRIORITY MAIL only. No e-mail attachments. SASE with sufficient postage required. (Final day for Summer Session I)

Project detailed on separate handout.

Methodology:

This course will be conducted through lecture, class discussion, in-class exercises and an individual project. The instructor retains the option to examine on course content. Participation is required.

Grading:

Grading Scale:

Attendance is required in order to get an "A" in the class. Classes begin promptly at 9:00 a.m. and end promptly at 5:30 p.m. Office hours before class, during lunch hour, and immediately after class preferred.

Organization of Course Topics:

The course is divided into three sections.

Section I:

• Issues in organization of information
• Historical perspectives
• Envisioning information organization
• Categorizing for retrieval (non-bibliographic)

Readings:

Borges "The Library of Babel"

Rowley pages 3-92

Borgman "Access to information", p. 53-80.

Svenonius "Information organization", p. 1-14; "Bibliographic objectives", p. 15-30.

Rosenfeld "Organizing information", p. 22-46.

Class Handouts (examples, exercises, discussion points)

Section II:

• Principles of description (bibliographic)
• Standards and consistency
• Access points and vocabulary control
• User perspectives

Readings:

Rowley pages 52-271

Borgman "Why are digital libraries hard to use", p. 117-141

Winchester "Roget and his brilliant, unrivaled, malign, and detestable thesaurus", The Atlantic Monthly, May 2001 [Available through WWW, UMI Proquest]

Petroski "Order, order", p. 233-252 in THE BOOK ON THE BOOKSHELF (New York: Knopf, 1999) [will bring to class]

Class Handouts (examples, exercises, discussion points)

Section III:

• Categorization and classification
• Verbal subject analysis
• Classification systems
• Knowledge structures and retrieval

Readings:

Rowley pages 275-391

Class Handouts (examples, exercises, discussion points)

Students are invited to bring additional readings and examples from research projects.