Li804#1 Overview
- 1. LI 804: Theory of Organization of Information Overview
- 2. Why we organize information Nature of information Inherent need There is a basic drive in humans to organize. Francis Bacon’s Taxonomy of Knowledge Makes sense of the environment (Weick) “ Organizations must make interpretations. Managers wade into events and try to impose order—develop models, bring out meaning, assembling conceptual schemes.” Facilitates retrieval “ Information may be accumulated in files, but it must be retrieved to be of use in decision making” (Kerka 1979) Posterity Facilitates memory
- 3. Nature of Information What is information? Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom Buckland
- 4. Information Information-as-process (Informing) Information-as-knowledge (Uncertainty) Information-as-thing (Objects, Data, Docs) (Buckland, M. JASIS, (Jun 1991)
- 5. Terminology Organization Any order that is consciously invoked Classification The placing of subjects in categories; in organization of information, classification is the process of determining where an information package fits into a given hierarchy and often then assigning the notation associated with the appropriate level of the hierarchy to the information package and to its surrogate.
- 6. Kinds of Information What are we organizing in libraries? Recorded information is the kind of information that we organize. Information container Information package
- 7. Inherent need Star patterns Other examples?
- 8. Retrieval Tools Bibliographies – list of information packages Pathfinders – subject bibliography Catalogs – provide access to individual items in collections of information packages Indexes – provides access to analyzed contents Finding aids – inventory of archival collection Registers – museums, like catalog Search engines and directories – computerized, allows keyword searching Other retrieval tools?
- 9. Activities of organization Identify information packages as they are made available Identify works contained in them Pull these packages together into collections Produce lists of these packages in acceptable citation form Provide access through name, title, subj. Provide means of finding each package
- 10. Some More Activities of Organization 6 functions of information organization Taylor, A. (pp. 2-5) (based on work of Hagler) Hagler, R. (1997). The bibliographic record and information technology (3 rd ed.). Chicago: American Library Association.
- 11. Organization of Information in Different Environments Libraries Museums and Art Galleries Archives Internet Digital Libraries Personal and Work Spaces
- 12. Social and Cultural Implications Internationalization Biases Reflects most prevalent mainstream version of relationships between terms Classifications are bounded systems Olson, H. Mapping beyond Dewey’s Boundaries: Constructing classificatory space for marginalized knowledge domains. Library Trends; Fall98, Vol. 47 Issue 2, p233, 22p
- 13. Bounded Systems Socially constructed Reflect the same biases as culture Marginalize some groups and topics Set them apart in ghettoes Exclude Need rhetorical spaces Tend to classify published works
- 14. Bias in Classification The problem of bias in classification can be linked to the nature of classification as a social construct. It reflects the same biases as the culture that creates it. Existing literature has criticized the most widely used classification in the world, the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), for its treatment of women, Puerto Ricans, Chinese and Japanese Americans, Mexican Americans, Jews, Native Americans, the developing world (including Africa, the Middle East, and Melanesia), gays, teenagers, senior citizens, people with disabilities, and alternative lifestyles. (Olson, 1998) Allocation of 80 percent of DDC's religion section (the 200s) exclusively to Christianity
- 15. Unpaid labor: Men’s roles vs women’s roles Concept of unpaid labor . Entry from A Women's Thesaurus: unpaid employment UF nonwage labor BT employment NT unpaid household labor RT economic value of women's work homemaking unpaid labor force valuing children volunteer work The term unpaid employment in A Women's Thesaurus is a subdivision of employment. However, when we try to classify it in the same way in DDC, we find that the relative index sends us to 331.125, Labor actively employed: Entry from DDC: 331.125 Labor actively employed That portion of the total available supply of labor employed at any given time Including types of employment Class here utilization of human resources, employment, comprehensive works on employment and compensation DDC Index Terms: Employment Human resources--utilization--economics Occupations--active employment
- 16. Product Created a network of intersections Different from DDC Creates meaning differently Puts different spin on existing concepts Abandon DDC? Paradoxical spaces Place concept of unpaid labor and paid labor next to each other
- 17. Classifiying or Cataloging? Classification: The placing of subjects in categories; in organization of information, classification is the process of determining where an information package fits into a given hierarchy and often then assigning the notation associated with the appropriate level of the hierarchy to the information package and to its surrogate.
- 18. Classifying or cataloging? Cataloging: The acts of preparing surrogate records for information packages, choosing appropriate access points, and maintaining the system through which the records are made available. Taylor 2004 Glossary
- 19. Some Theory Theories of categories include the following: Aristotle’s Theory of Categorization Wittgenstein’s Theory of Family Resemblances Zadeh’s Fuzzy Set Theory Lounsbury, Berlin and Kay, Kay and McDaniel’s studies of kinship, and color Brown’s Theory of Basic Level Categories Berlin et al.’s Studies of Basic Level Categories Rosch’s Prototype Theory
- 20. Theory in detail Aristotle: Things are placed in the same category on the basis of what they have in common. A category was like an abstract container with things either inside or outside the container. The properties the things inside the container had in common were what defined the category. Arranged in a hierarchical fashion—he believed that there was a perfect hierarchy for the world—we just needed to find it.
- 21. Theory in detail 2 Wittegenstein challenged Aristotle’s theory when he declared that game does not fit the classical mold, because it has no single collection of common properties. Game can be for amusement, education, competition, may involve luck or skill. Game category has no fixed border because new games can be added to it, video games, interactive computer games. It’s family resemblances that unite games into a category, not common properties.
- 22. Theory in detail 3 Zadeh: Noted that some categories are well defined, while others are not. One either is or is not a member of a club; the category of tall is “graded”, that is, it depends somewhat on the perspective of the observer. Or a short person looking at a person who is medium tall would probably describe that person as tall. He designed set theory to deal with graded categories.
- 23. Theory in detail 4 Lounsbury, Berlin, McDaniel, Kay: Native Americans kinship—in some groups, all the uncles, great-uncles, brothers of the mother are called a category name that is different that those of the father. It is not so in our culture. Color studies: In different languages, people express colors by between two and eleven names. People who use only two names can differentiate eleven colors, but cannot name them. Language and color play major role here.
- 24. Theory in detail 5 Brown: He studies people’s perceptions of categories as they learn. Children will start at a very basic level: flower. That he termed a natural category. Others such as rose, tulip, pansy, or plant are terms of the imagination. Berlin: There is a universal level at which people name things: for plants and animals it is at the genus level: oak, not tree, and not white oak
- 25. Theory in detail 6 Rosch: 1973-1981—If categories are defined only by the properties members share, then no one member should be a better example than another; Not so, her colleagues all asserted that robin is a better example of bird than ostrich. There are also ad hoc categories: “things to take camping” members will be determined by the experience of the person or people who are going camping.
- 26. Some More Theory Theories of classification Ranganathan’s Theory of Five Fundamental Categories ( personality, material, energy, space, and time) Koch’s Four Varieties of Classification Schemes ( universal, national, subject, home-grown ) Dewey’s Classification of Knowledge ( Computer science, info. & gen. works; phil. & psy.; religion, social sciences; language; science, technology, arts & rec.; lit.; history & geography ) Classification of Collections (LCC) (General works, phil., psy., religion; aux sciences of hist.; history gen & old world; America; America;--------Agriculture; Tech.)