COMPETENCY G

“Demonstrate understanding of basic principles and standards involved in organizing information such as classification and controlled vocabulary systems, cataloging systems, metadata schemas or other systems for making information accessible to a particular clientele.”

Statement of Competency G

A library contains large amounts of information resources, so organizing the resources in a coherent and consistent manner is of great importance in ensuring that users can search and retrieve information easily. The process of organizing information in a library is known as bibliographic control (Lazarinis, 2015). Bibliographic control refers to all the activities carried out by a librarian to organize and describe documents so that users can locate them directly and efficiently. As such, bibliographic control is made up of all the activities involved in creating, managing, organizing, exchanging, and updating the information about the library’s collection (Lazarinis, 2015). The following are the main functions of bibliographic control (Taylor, 2008, p. 99):

Identifying the existence of all types of information resources as they are made available.
Identifying the works contained within those information resources or as parts of them
Systematically pulling together these information resources into collections in libraries, archives, museums, Internet communication files, and other such depositories.
Producing lists of these information resources prepared according to standard rules for citation.
Providing name, title, subject, and other useful access to these information resources.
Providing the means of locating each information resource or a copy of it.

In a library, the process of organizing information starts with collections. The process of creating these collections is known as collection development. The addition of new materials to a library’s collection has to be arranged in a particular way. For example, these materials may be shelved according to the dates of their arrival, or in an alphabetical order. Classification is the most common method used by libraries to arrange materials. It is important to note that classification is part of the cataloging process (the first activity carried out after the arrival of materials).

Cataloging

Bibliographic records, or information about a library’s collection, is organized in catalogs. Cataloging refers to all of the activities required to create, manage, and maintain a catalog. The information concerning the entire library collection is maintained in a catalog to allow easy searching and retrieval of specific materials. A catalog should be broad and systematically organized in order to enable the discovery of materials by title, author, editions, and other characteristics. Arlene G. Taylor (2008) states that cataloging involves (p. 102):

Creating a description of the item;
Choosing certain names and titles to serve as assess points for finding the description in the catalog;
Doing authority work on those names and titles;
Analyzing the subject matter of the work;
Choosing subject headings and classification notations to represent the subject content;
And, for physical items, creating call numbers (location devices), usually by adding a Cutter number to the classification notation to make a unique set of letters and numbers to identify the particular physical item.

Cataloging is divided into two types: descriptive cataloging and subject cataloging. Descriptive cataloging involves the description of materials or collection and the determination of access points. Access points can include title, author name, editors, and series title, among others. The bibliographic description of a material (books, electronic resource, journal, etc.) is the in-depth description of a particular copy of a specific edition of a work (Lazarinis, 2015). The purpose of descriptive cataloging is to identify a specific material and differentiate it from other materials created by the same author, or with a similar subject or title. After descriptive cataloging, the descriptive elements of a material i.e. author, title, publisher, edition etc., are then represented in the catalog by the means of standardized encoding. The standardized encoding types include: Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, Second Edition (AACR2), Machine-Reading Cataloging (MARC), or Resource Description and Access (RDA).

AACR2 can be defined as a set of rules for describing a material or item, and determining its authorized forms and access points. This system allows the information about a library’s collection to be stored and identified in a consistent way. During the process of descriptive cataloging, those involved have to describe the physical attributes of materials and determine their access points. RDA is comprised of standards for the description of a material and the relationship between materials. As a standard for descriptive cataloging, RDA is relatively new as it was developed as a result of the increasing amount of digital information. RDA provides a way to describe data, both analog and digital, and it also supports database structures and other online catalogs.

The newest update to MARC is MARC 21, which is designed to be more compatible with the digital information environment. Nearly all records developed in a library are encoded through MARC 21 format; this allows for the displaying of records in an Integrated Library System (ILS) which is utilized by most libraries for their catalogs. It is important to note that MARC is not a standard, rather it is simply a digital format for structuring the described bibliographic records. The MARC 21 format also enables the sharing of bibliographic records between electronic catalogs. Specifically, the MARC 21 format is comprised of a number of identifying marks that label every part of a bibliographic record in a way that allows a computer to read, store, and manipulate the record (Lazarinis, 2015). Every bibliographic element (e.g. edition, title, publisher, or subject), is stored in a field identified by a three digit code known as a tag. Within a tag, parts of the element are separated into subfields identified by a single character code, and a unique symbol known as a delimiter (Intner & Weihs, 2015). Besides the tags, delimiters, and subfield codes, every field can have up to two indicators. These indicators are introductory codes that instruct the computer on how to treat data in a specific field. In addition to the indicators for the fields and subfields, every bibliographic record has administrative marks which carry administrative information. In summary, a computerized or a digital format of a bibliographic record is created when the tags, subfield codes, delimiters, administrative mark, and indicators are added to the contents of a catalog record.

Classification

Subject cataloging, as mentioned earlier, is the other main type of cataloging. It mainly involves the identification of an item’s intellectual properties. Subject cataloging is divided into the assignment of subject headings and classification. Classification refers to the process of arranging objects or items into categories based on their characteristics. The key function of classification is to consolidate similar objects or items in order to accomplish some objective. In libraries, classification involves arranging materials or collections in a consistent order, from broad content materials to the specific content material, based on the main subject of a work. The main function of this process is to enable the easy retrieval of the needed information. Library classification guides users in retrieving what they want, i.e., the specific resource. Materials with similar topics are placed on the same shelf; for example, books on geology are shelved collectively. Materials on related subjects are also placed close to each other, for instance, you may find books on rocks shelved close to the geology materials. Library classification leads to the assignment of numeric or alphabetic codes to items; these codes represent the subject of the classified materials in a particular scheme. There are a number of bibliographic classification systems. But most libraries in America predominantly use two of these systems, Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), and Library of Congress Classification (LCC) (Taylor, 2008).

As mentioned earlier, classification systems provide standards for organizing materials, and assign numbers to materials for easy identification of their categories. A number of organizing characteristics can be utilized to subdivide and arrange the collection of a library - these include their alphabetic order, dates of acquisition, subject content, alphabetical order of title or author, genre, and sizes (Intner & Weihs, 2015, p. 88). In most cases, a number of these characteristics are used in developing the standards of a classification system (Intner & Weihs, 2015).

The Dewey Decimal Classification system was created in 1876 by Melvil Dewey (Intner & Weihs, 2015). This system classifies nonfiction books into ten divisions; these divisions are further subdivided into ten subsections and decimals are also used to allow the addition of more categories. Categories in the DDC system are numbered from 000 to 900 - below are its main category classes (Lazarinis, 2015, p. 172):

Dewey Decimal Classification Main Classes

Each of the above classes or sections is further divided into ten sections. The further the division, the more specific a topic becomes (Intner & Weihs, 2015). More numbers assigned also implies increased specificity of a subject. By utilizing this technique, the DDC system is able to move from general subjects to specific subjects.

For example, to find a book on butterflies, one would begin with the natural sciences class (500). The next step would be proceeding to search inside of the ten divisions of the 500 class related to the topic. The ten divisions of the 500 class are:

In the above classes, butterflies would fall under zoological sciences (590). The 590 division is then broken down into 10 more subdivisions:

In the 590 subdivision, 595 would be the class in which butterflies are covered. The call number assigned to books on butterflies would therefore be 595. Class 595 can be divided even further by the use if a decimal; for example, 595.7 would represent insects.

The Library of Congress Classification (LLC) system, created by James Hanson in the late nineteenth century, was developed for the Library of Congress after its previous system was unable to handle the increasing volume of its collection (Intner & Weihs, 2015). The structure of the LCC system is similar to that of the DDC system, but one of its main differences is that subjects are divided into 21 main classes. Each of these 21 classes is represented by a letter of the alphabet. These alphabetic classes are further divided into subclasses, often identified by two or three letters (Intner & Weihs, 2015). Below are the main LCC classes (Lazarinis, 2015, p. 174):

Library of Congress Classification Main Classes

Metadata

Metadata, simply defined, is data about other data (Intner & Weihs, 2015). It is the information that helps with the process of identifying documents. Although the concept of metadata comes from computer science, it is not new to the field of library science. Subject headings and classification numbers are good examples which highlight the fact that data about data has existed in the field for many years; the two elements are actually additional data about a collection or material. Items such as images, articles, and visual materials can be described through metadata schemas. Metadata schema are cataloging standards that are mainly used on the internet. Dublin Core is one of the main metadata schemas; it is utilized in describing digital materials and other physical resources e.g. books, artwork, maps, etc. Elements used in Dublin Core are comprehensive and usable for describing various resources (Intner & Weihs, 2015). The main elements of Dublin Core are listed below (Intner & Weihs, 2015, p. 123):

Simple Dublin Core Elements

Various informal information structures have been developed due to the increased searching of information sources from the Internet. Two examples of these structures include folksonomies and tagging. Some existing and emerging technologies, such as blogs and social websites, allow the creation of folksonomies by users (Taylor, 2008). A folksonomy refers to a system of collaborative classification by users; it includes annotations, tag clouds, and other forms of social indexing (Taylor, 2008). An issue that can arise from the use of folksonomies is that they can get out of hand, as there are no standards or rules applied. Nonetheless, this classification system avails information in an accessible form. Some Internet applications, such as Flickr, have greatly popularized folksonomies as users have been provided with informal ways for organizing information.

Evidence

Evidence 1: LIBR-202- Project #1: Building Awareness of Classification

This project, designed for LIBR-202: Information Retrieval, is a twofold articulation of a collection of objects and a description of the users who could benefit from a database built from this collection. The first part of the project is a theoretical discussion about the concepts of classification, systems of classification, and standards, and is presented with relevant citations from course readings. This discussion not only outlines the theoretical foundation of classification, but also highlights my understanding of this topic in relationship to its real-world applications. Using this knowledge, I then described a collection of objects—nail polish. The first part of the project combines all of the aforementioned work into a chart which describes the individual objects of the collection in terms of the characteristics of each attribute. This part of my assignment highlights my ability to create a description of the objects in the collection, which as outlined by Taylor (2008), the first important part of cataloging. Specifically, Taylor (2008) notes that the purposes of creating such a description are (p. 102):

to present the characteristics of an information resource;
to give enough information about an information resource to identify it uniquely and to distinguish it from every other information resource;
to aid in evaluating or selecting…;and,
to provide a filter that serves as a surrogate for a full information resource so that users do not have to examine a multitude of complete (e.g. full text) resources in order to find what is needed.

The second part of the project is a description of the group of people who would benefit from a database comprised of this collection of objects and a discussion of the specific information needs of this group. A list of potential questions individuals from this group would pose were formulated, in addition to a discussion of what attributes of the collection were needed to serve the user or to serve the design of the database. This assignment helped me to link the theoretical concepts of classifications, systems of classification, and standards to a practical application in the describing of a collection of objects. It also helped me understand the importance of the use of standards based on an objects’ attributes in order to help users find the information they need.

Evidence 2: LIBR-202- Project #2 Describe and Build a Database

This assignment was created for LIBR-202: Information Retrieval Systems. This project is comprised of three parts: 1) presenting a unit of description and record structure, 2) establishing the necessary standards, and 3) building the database. For this assignment we were allowed to choose any collection of items to create a database around. The collection I chose is consisted of individual bottles of nail polish—each unit is represented by one bottle. Though the nail polishes I chose to base my collection on are from my own personal collection, all of the fields and descriptors I used for this collection can be applied to all nail polishes.

In the first part of this assignment, I created a description of the items in the collection. Then I used this description to devise a unique record structure for this collection, and in-turn proposed 15 different fields for inclusion in the database. These fields were specifically selected by using the attributes that I previously identified in Project #1 for the same course (Evidence 1). Such attributes that were identified and turned into fields for the database include: brand, color name, style number, color family, finish, and weight. Additionally, I provide a paragraph of justification for each of these proposed fields to describe why it should be included in the database. While the library profession has many descriptive schemas, such as Dublin Core, that are used to provide descriptions that will be standardized, for the purposes of this assignment I was in charge of creating my own schema to fit my unique collection. In order to do this, I had to anticipate user needs of this this database, and decide the best attributes to translate into fields that would be of most use to them.

The second part of the assignment was to establish standards for the records of the collection, in addition to the rules and procedures required to implement and apply these standards. The purpose of such standardization is to allow for stability of the information retrieval system, for it to be expanded in a sensible and predictable way, and to provide unambiguous communication of the information in the database to users. Essentially, this part of the assignment required the creation of controlled vocabulary, or taxonomy, which are classification systems used to organize and represent objects for access and discovery, and which “consist of subject-specific categorized lists of terms” (Taylor, 2008, p. 105). Specifically, I provide all of the details required by this controlled vocabulary in the rules I created for the fields. For example, color, opacity, and finish require the use of specific terms, which are defined in separate validation lists.

Lastly, I prove the success of the fields and standards that I created for this collection by using these to build the database using the program InMagic DC/Textworks. The third part of this project includes the data structure for the records of the database, which are based on the fields that I created in part 1 of this assignment. This last part of the assignment also includes all of the necessary validation lists, which are crucial in creating standard terms and descriptors for certain fields of the database structure. Lastly, 25 individual records for nail polish objects, following the standards and rules created for the database, are presented. This assignment helped me to better understand the importance of controlled vocabularies and the establishment of rules and standards in an information retrieval system. Additionally, the thorough study and description a collection of objects, and the use of these attributes to establish a unique taxonomy to create a database helped provide a foundational understanding of the philosophy underpinning classification and cataloging. Understanding the nature of how and why things are organized will allow me to be a more knowledgeable library professional, better prepared to navigate our classification systems to help users locate the information they require.

Evidence 3: Goodreads Folksonomy

According to Reitz (2014), a folksonomy is a used to “describe a grass-roots system of classification in which users collaboratively create, assign, and manage tags to annotate and categorize information content…this practice is also known as collaborate tagging, social classification, social indexing and social tagging” (“Folksonomy”). Judith Weedman (2008) notes that the goal of such social tagging is for the tags to converge and become a “sort of controlled vocabulary, yet it depends on participants who are free to assign whatever tag they wish to their documents…the utility of a folksonomy depends completely on how each user decides to do his or her own tagging” (p. 117). An example of a popularly used folksonomy by Web users is the website Goodreads. Goodreads (2015) describes its mission as helping “people find and share the books they love” (“Who We Are”). The site, established in 2007, allows users to track the books they are reading, have read, and want to read, in addition to receive personalized book recommendations. Goodreads allows users to take advantage of social tagging by allowing for the creation of “bookshelves” to organize the books they’ve read or want to read. Additionally, users can rate books using Goodreads’ starred rating system, and write public reviews about books that other members of the community can view. I have been a member of Goodreads since May 2007, and I have primarily used it as a way to keep track of my personal books. I began to take advantage of the social tagging function of Goodreads in the spring of 2014, when I volunteered as a story reader for the Oakland Public Library.

In the fall of 2013 I participated in a volunteer story reader training for the Oakland Public Library early literacy program, Book for Wider Horizons. This program trains volunteers to become story readers to present weekly storytimes to preschoolers at partnering Head Start and Oakland United School District centers throughout the city of Oakland, CA. The purpose of the program is to introduce “young children to the pleasure of stories and inspiring excitement about books and reading” (Oakland Public Library, n.d., para. 1). I began presenting weekly story times the following spring at De Colores Head Start, which is located in the Fruitvale district of Oakland. Each story time required extensive research and preparation, as I had to read, evaluate, and select a minimum of 3 books to present to my preschoolers. In order to better keep track of the hundreds of books that I borrowed from the library as potential candidates for my story times, I began using social tagging on Goodreads. Additionally, as I plan on being a youth librarian in the future, I wanted to keep track of the titles, genres, content, interest level, and themes of all of the books I ended up selecting for my story times for future reference. To do this, I created several custom bookshelves and used these to tag each of the books I read and/or used for story time. This tagging feature is helpful because in the future if I want to find books that perhaps have a particular theme (e.g. Halloween) or discuss a particular topic (e.g. bullying), I can easily locate them using the tagging system.

Lastly, the Goodreads tagging system is social in nature because it uses your personal tags and the tags of other members to create custom recommendations for books. This function was especially helpful for me in locating picture books that I could potentially use during my story time programs. This use of a folksonomy highlights not just my understanding of the role of an informal classification system in organizing information, but also demonstrates how I have taken advantage of such a system to create better story time programs for preschoolers. While folksonomies such as Goodreads rely on informal standards and natural language to classify and organize data, the fact of the matter is that users will continue to use such systems to organize and make sense of the world. As a future library professional it is my responsibility to be aware of the impact that this can have on the way we classify, organize, and present information.

References

Goodreads. (2015). About Goodreads. Retrieved from https://www.goodreads.com/about/us

Intner, S. S., & Weihs, J. (2015). Standard cataloging for schools and public libraries. Santa

Barbara, CA: Libraries Ulimited.

Lazarinis, F. (2015). Cataloguing and classification: An introduction to AACR2, RDA, DDC,

LCC, LCSH and MARC 21 standards. Oxford, UK: Chandos Publishing.

Oakland Public Library. (n.d.) Books for Wider Horizons. Retrieved from

http://www.oaklandlibrary.org/kids/welcome-teachers/books-wider-horizons

Reitz, J. M. (2014). Folksonomy. Online dictionary for library and information science.

Retrieved from http://www.abc-clio.com/ODLIS/odlis_f.aspx

Taylor, A. (2008). Chapter 10: Organization and representation of information/knowledge. In

K.Haycock, & B. E. Sheldon (Eds.), The portable MLIS: Insights from the experts (pp. 98-111). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Weedman, J. (2008). Chapter 11: Information retrieval: Designing, querying, and evaluating

information systems. In K. Haycock, & B. E. Sheldon (Eds.), The portable MLIS: Insights from the experts (pp. 112-126). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Evidence Files

Click to download the following files:

LIBR-202 Project #1: Building Awareness of a Classification

LIBR-202 Project #2: Describe and Build a Database

Goodreads Folksonomy