ORGANIZATION

OF
INFORMATION
The Overview 1

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 ORGANIZATION OF INFORMATION
▪ Information organization is one form of bibliographic control. It is to
make sure all materials are manage and stored systematically for easy
retrieval process.

▪ Information organization at a library or information center are

categorized into 2 main components ;

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THE 2 MAIN COMPONENTS
ARE;
1. Physical organization
▪ It is a process of a description the material by using a certain standard.
▪ Example of standard ~
▪ AACR for the determination of ISBD and Access Point
▪ LCSH / SLSH for the selection of the subject
▪ LCC / DDC / UDC for the classification number

2. Intellectual organization
▪ Involved the arrangement and compilation of the materials.
▪ Style of arrangement
▪ Authority file
▪ Reference / Cross Reference

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 OVERVIEW OF ORGANIZATION OF
INFORMATION
BIBLIOGRAPHIC INTELLECTUAL
INFORMATION CONTROL ORGANIZATION

DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUING PHYSICAL

CATALOGUING PROCESS ORGANIZATION

SUBJECT &
RECORD
CLASSIFICATION
CATALOGUE
CATALOGUING

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 THE NATURE OF THE
ORGANIZATION OF RECORDED
INFORMATION
▪ Ronald Hagler in his book The Bibliographic Record and
Information Technology identified 6 functions of bibliographic
control. (will be discussed in next slide)
NOTE : What is bibliographic control ? (refer to IMD124)

▪ Hagler’s listed the function which emphasis upon the works of

librarians. It also reflects the major activities involved in the
organization of recorded information.

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 SIX (6) FUNCTIONS OF ORGANIZING
OF INFORMATION:
1) Identifying the existence of all types of information
resources, as they are made available.

▪ A book may be published or a Web site may be established, but

if no one knows of its existence except the person involved in
its creation → → it will be no use to anyone.

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 CONTINUE
▪ The existence of the material must be known in order to make it useful for everyone.

▪ HOW ?
▪ Existence and identity can be made known in many ways such as –
▪ Publishers’ announcements
▪ Email announcements
▪ Reviews
▪ Subject related listing

▪ Most of publishers create catalogs listing their products along with abstracts for them.
▪ Reference tools such as Book in Print are products of this activity.
▪ Some online journals send regular email announcements (with outlines of contents) to let the readers
know when a new issue is available.
▪ Some organizations allow people to sign up to receive email announcement about new information that
available.

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 CONTINUE

2. Identifying the works contained within those information

resources or as parts of them.

▪ In major of cases, one information resource is equal to one

intellectual work. However, a collection of short stories or a
group of images may be considered to be an information
resource as a whole or each individual story or artistic work
may be considered an information resource.

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 CONTINUE

▪ HOW ?

▪ It need to be identified separately.

▪ Example –

A collection of short stories. As a whole, it may be considered to

be an information resource.
Alternatively, each individual story may be considered to be an
information resources.
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 CONTINUE
3. Systematically pulling together these information resource
into collections in libraries, achieves, museums, Internet
communication files and other such depositories.

▪ The librarian, archivist and curator will have to make sure the
information resources are group together into the collection.

▪ For the material in Web & Internet, it must be pulled systematically in

order to make sure it is available for users.

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 CONTINUE
4. Producing lists of these information resource prepared
according to standard rules for citation.

▪ In library environment, the librarian will have to create the

bibliographies, indexes and library catalogs.

▪ In archive environment, the archivist will have to create archival

finding aids.

▪ In museum environment, the curator will have to create museum

registers.
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 CONTINUE
5. Providing names, title, subject, and other useful access to these
information resources.

▪ The success of retrieval of information resources through lists depends

on the inclusion of sufficient metadata.

▪ Must follow a standard ~ involved a proper access point and authority

control.

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 CONTINUE
6. Providing the means of locating each information resources or a copy
of it.

▪ For at least a century, the location of information resources is a value added by

institutions.

▪ The catalogs or other lists are created in order to give the exact physical
locations.

▪ Traditionally, bibliographies and indexes have not given location. Bibliographies

list information resources that exist somewhere but seldom tell where. Indexes
give larger resource in which smaller work being listed can be found (e.g. the
journal in which an article can be found) but do not give the physical location of
the larger resource.
▪
▪ But in lists that include electronic resources found on the Internet, it is now
common to give the direct location (in the form of the URL)
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▪ In order to accomplish Hagler’s six functions of bibliographic control,
adequate and sufficient metadata is needed.
▪ Without this metadata, information resources could not be made known
to the world.

NOTE ~
1. You will understand about this Hagler’s Six Function when you reach the metadata’s topic in Chapter 6
(Standard in Organization of Information)
2. Further reading – Taylor, Arlene G. (c2009) The Organization of Information. 3rd ed.

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A PEAK AT THE WORLD HISTORY…
▪ History stated that …

▪ 90%of human history has been lost.

▪ Primitive people has no effective method to preserve information.

▪ 3000 BC: Sumerians in the Middle East invented the first methods,
cuneiform incised on clay tablets (first one unearthed in 1802).

▪ 1500BC: the Chinese developed a more extensive list of characters in their

system of writing that they carved on tortoise shells and embossed on bronze
vessels.
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CONT…
▪ Many of these written documents were destroyed through war, prejudice and
common neglect.
▪ Papyrus scrolls at Alexandria library became the fuel to heat the public baths and the
library was destroyed during times of military siege.
▪ In the Muslim world many best libraries were destroyed by the European
Crusaders, as they swept through Syria and Palestine.
▪ Spared libraries were later destroyed by zealots of the Islamic sects intent on
suppressing what they thought might be heretical works.
▪ Genghis khan then destroyed almost all reaming Islamic book repositories.
1258, the Mongols burned all 36 public libraries in the city of Bagdad alone
in one week.

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CONT…

▪ Genghis khan then destroyed almost all reaming Islamic book

repositories. 1258, the Mongols burned all 36 public libraries in the
city of Bagdad alone in one week.

▪ 1642 during the Civil War in England many books were removed
from the monasteries, cathedrals and universities and destroyed
(some were used to rub boots).

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 Physical Organization Intellectual Organization

Bibliographic Control

Index

KEYWORD
Abstracts
s… Cataloguing Process

Descriptive Cataloguing

Classification

Subject Cataloguing

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ORGANIZATION
OF
INFORMATION
In Different Context 19

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ORGANIZATION OF INFORMATION IN
DIFFERENT CONTEXT
▪ There are many contexts in which there is a desire to organize information so
that it will be retrieval for various purposes and will be kept for posterity.
▪ Here we will be focus on three (3) environments such as :-
▪ Library
▪ Archive
▪ Museum

▪ But, we will also be glancing at a few environment that adopted the element of
organization of information such as :-
▪ The Internet
▪ Digital Library

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 LIBRARY

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INTRODUCTION
▪ We consider libraries first because…
▪ Library have the longest tradition of organizing information for
the purpose of retrieval and for posterity.

▪ Library is a depository built to contain a collection of

literary documents or records kept for reference and study.

▪ The term library is from a Latin word liber or libre, which

means book or writing.
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A sneak peak at a library...

Perpustakaan Raja Tun Uda

Shah Alam
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LIBRARY OF
CONGRESS
Jefferson Building

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LIBRARY – AN INTRODUCTION

▪Library is from a Latin word ‘’Liber’

▪ ‘Liber’ means book.

▪ Other definition ~
▪ a place in which literary, musical, artistic, or reference materials (such as books,
manuscripts, recordings, or films) are kept for use but not for sale.

▪ a collection of such materials.

(Meriam-Webster Dictionary)

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 WHEN YOU SEARCH/GOOGLE ‘WHAT IS
LIBRARY ?’- YOU WILL GET A VARIOUS
ANSWER'S, SUCH AS ..
What is the definition of library ?

What
is
library ? What is the collection in the library ?

What is the resources of the library

What is the service in the library ?

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 Roles of library :

LET’S
Types of library : 1. Often used by people who choose not to, or cannot afford to,
purchase an extensive collection themselves.
2. As places to get unrestricted access to information in many
1. National library

SEE…
formats and from many sources.
2. Public Library 3. Providing assistance in navigating and analyzing tremendous
3. Academic Library amounts of knowledge with a variety of digital tools.
4. Access to information.
4. School library
5. OPAC- allows users to search the library's holdings from any
5. Special library location with Internet access.

What you have to Profession/staff in library :

Collections in library : 1. Chief Librarian
say about a 2. Library Director
1. In a form of books / printed
2. Non - printed
library ? 3. Senior Librarian
4. Library Officer
5. Cataloger
6. Indexer

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 LIBRARIES ~ AROUND THE WORLD

VATICAN LIBRARY (Italy) Has more than 50,000 manuscripts & 350,000 printed books

LENIN STATE LIBRARY (Moscow) Collection of 25 million books & 2.5 million manuscripts

Collection more than 70 million items ;

• 17 million books & pamphlets
• The largest collection of incunabula (books printed
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (USA) before year 1501)

since 1870 LC has automatically received 2 copies of every

book copyrighted in the US. (under the Deposit of Library
Material Act)
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WE CAN CONCLUDE THAT …
1. Organizing information in library means organizing the
resources/material in the library.

2. It is a collection or group of collections of books and other print

or non-print materials organized and maintained for use, either
for reading, consultation, study & research.

3. Collections in libraries grew.

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 HOW LIBRARY ACQUIRE THE MATERIAL ?

▪ Collections in library are created through a process called collection

development.

▪ Collections are develop often in three (3) ways ;

1. Librarian learn about the existence of new works through reviews,
publisher’s announcements or requests from user and then order
appropriate materials.

2. Gift are given to the library.

3. Approval plan, worked out with one or two vendors, bring in new items
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according to pre-selected profiles
CONTINUE ~

▪ Less frequently, but still practiced in some academic and

research library

▪ Resource buying trip to purchase special materials particularly

difficult-to-find foreign language materials.

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TYPES OF MATERIALS/COLLECTIONS IN LIBRARY ;

1. Materials in the form of books

a) Monograph/ books
▪ pamphlets, other printed sheet

b) Periodical publications
▪ newspapers, journals, magazines, bulletin, proceedings conference, seminar

c) Yearly publication
▪ Year book, almanac

d) Monographic series

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TYPES OF MATERIALS/COLLECTION IN
LIBRARY ;
2. Materials that is not in the form of books:
a) Cartographic materials(Maps, globe, sailor charts, wall chart, atlas)
b) Printed music
c) Sound recording
d) Motion picture & video recording
e) Graphic materials (poster, postcards)
f) Computer files
g) 3 dimensional artifact and relic
h) Microfilm and microfiche
i) Audio visual (AV)-slides, transparencies
j) Serials

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MATERIALS IN LIBRARY ARE ORGANIZE…
▪ Is operations by which recorded information is organized or
arranged according to established standards and thereby
made readily identifiable and retrievable.

▪ The activities involved ;

1. Descriptive cataloging
2. Subject cataloging And these activities are also
3. Classification known as
4. Indexing BIBLIOGRAPHIC
5. Abstracting CONTROL

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 3.
Classification
Number

1. Descriptive
Cataloguing

2. Subject
Cataloguing

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 4. Indexing

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 5. Abstracting

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PROBLEMS IN ORGANIZING INFORMATION –
THE LIBRARIAN

▪ Cataloging and indexing are subjective acts.

▪ Librarian must determine what a specific piece of information is about,

try to anticipate all the different ways people might search for the
information.

▪ People who look for information have different reasons for wanting
the information and will search for it in different ways.

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 LIBRARIAN PROBLEMS IN ORGANIZING INFORMATION
~ CONTINUE

▪ Many people who seek information are not sure exactly what they
need.

▪ Many people who seek information do so without a vague idea of

what they want.

▪ Librarian find it difficult to focus a person’s information request as

to match their request to the information in a book, periodical, web
page etc..

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THE SOLUTIONS BY LIBRARIAN
▪ Cataloger must follow accepted rules for classifying and listing
information about library materials.

▪ Catalogers often deal with large backlogs of materials needing

processing, it is important to find out why materials are the highest
priority and need cataloging first.

▪ Catalogers must attend carefully to detail, getting spellings and

dates and punctuation exactly right, an error would make it hard
for users to find the material.
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Library Alexandria Library of Congress

The Radcliffe
Bodlean
Library

AAM Harvard Library Vatican Library 41

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