School of Information Management & Systems. Spring 2003.
  Previously School of Library & Information Studies

  245 Organization of Information in Collections.
  CCN# 42718. Mon & Wed 9-10:30. 202 South Hall.

  Instructor: Michael Buckland 203A South Hall. Office hours: Mondays 11-Noon & by appt. (510) 642 3159.   buckland@sims.berkeley.edu

245 Organization of Information in Collections. (3) Three hours of lecture per week. Prerequisites: 202 or consent of instructor. Standards and practices for description and organization of bibliographic, textual, and nontextual collections. Design, selection, maintenance and evaluation of cataloging, classification, indexing and thesaurus systems for particular settings. Vocabulary control. Codes, formats and standards for data representation and transfer.   Why take this course?
Schedule. Intended Plan.   Readings.   Previous offering.  
Learn by doing!   Assignments: 1. Me and 245.   2. MELVYL catalog.   3. Describe Four Books.   4. Preferred Forms of Names.   5. Abstracting and Indexing.   6. Subject Access: MELVYL.   7. Use a Thesaurus.   8: Social Aspects of Naming.   9: The Dublin Core.   10. Make a Small Thesaurus.   Organize access to an unusual collection of objects, create a unique online database, write a users' guide, and design a web interface for it.   Make a Small Thesaurus.   Encoding Languages.   Entry Vocabulary Indexes.   Website organization.
Other assignments relating to: Metadata standards. Classification. Cataloging. Indexing.
Prepare a critique of organization and access for an area of interest to you.
Grading: Two in-class tests (Past tests), database of a personal collection, and Critique, adjusted for attendance, participation, assignments & exercises. No final. No programming. Handouts are listed in the Schedule.
Extended course description:   Standards and practices for organization and description of bibliographic, textual, and non-textual collections. Design, selection, maintenance and evaluation of cataloging, classification, indexing and thesaurus systems for specific settings. Codes, formats and standards for representation and transfer of data.
  A continuation and expansion of the introductory core course 202 Organization of Information with emphasis on architectures for organizing and providing access to textual and non-textual materials in digital and physical collections. 245 is designed to complement 240 Principles of Information Retrieval  and 290 Classification and Bibliographical Representation.
245 is a design-oriented course using assignments to provide theoretical foundations and practical experience for current practices and emerging techniques for effective organization of information content for access and selection. Emphasis on implementation and evaluation. Designed for SIMS Masters students expecting to manage websites, databases, and both digital and physical information resources. Includes application of standard cataloging rules and indexing methods. Scope includes:
  1.Systems for organization of paper-based and digital bibliographic and textual collections of information.
  a. Use and evaluation of classification systems including those employed in the organization of bibliographic collections; organization of abstracting and indexing services.
  b. Use and evaluation of standardized codes and formats for the organization and cataloging of textual and bibliographic collections.
2. Systems for organization of non-textual collections of information (objects, images, ound, numerical and digital formats). Use and evaluation of systems. Use and evaluation of standards.
3.Design and evaluation of collections management systems, including criteria for systems design.

Expectations of students: Attendance, participation, careful writing, timeliness. Style.