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Course Description
This course does not provide an introduction to the organization of knowledge. It introduces the organization of information instead. We cover the very basics organization of information as practiced in libraries. This is a type of activity basically known as cataloging. We only look at the basic groundwork of cataloging. We look at the background of the activity. We also consider the wider world is doing with respect to organizing information. Here we place particular emphasis on activities that have connections to the world wide web.
Course objectives
After taking this course the students
Prerequisites
There are no formal prerequisites for this course.
Instructor
Thomas
Krichel
Palmer School of Library
and Information Science
C.W. Post
Campus of Long Island
University
720 Northern Boulevard
Brookville, NY 11548–1300
krichel@openlib.org
work phone: +1–(516)299–2843
Private contact details may be obtained from the online CV.
Class structure
Classes will be held in room 126 of the Westchester graduate campus of LIU, between 16:45 and 18:45. The instructor will be there shortly after 12:00. Students are welcome to join the instructor for a quick dinner after class.
Class details
| 2010–01–20 | 16:45 to 18:45 | introduction to the course and instructor background |
| 2010–01–27 | 16:45 to 18:45 | FRBR |
| 2010–02–03 | 16:45 to 18:45 | relational databases |
| 2010–02–10 | 16:45 to 18:45 | no class |
| 2010–02–17 | 16:45 to 18:45 | characters |
| 2010–02–24 | 16:45 to 18:45 | documents and records |
| 2010–03–03 | 16:45 to 18:45 | XML based metadata |
| 2010–03–10 | 16:45 to 18:45 | identifiers, Dublin Core and RDF |
| 2010–03–17 | 16:45 to 18:45 | AACR description 1 |
| 2010–03–24 | 16:45 to 18:45 | AACR description 2 |
| 2010–03–31 | 16:45 to 18:45 | no class |
| 2010–04–07 | 16:45 to 18:45 | AACR Access points: name |
| 2010–04–15 | 16:45 to 18:45 | Library of Congress Subject Headings |
| 2010–04–21 | 16:45 to 18:45 | Library of Congress Classification |
| 2010–04–28 | 16:45 to 18:45 | Conclusions |
To print the slides in Microsoft powerpoint, press control-p to print, then under "Print what" choose "Handouts", and under "Color/grayscale" choose "Pure Black and White". You can also use openoffice to print the slides.
Readings
There is no required textbook for this course. The instructor will try to photocopy relevant materials, or refer you to the home grown resources.
Assessment
Before each class except the first and second, there will be a quiz on the issued covered in the previous class. The average of all the quiz results will count for 10/19 of the assessment. Each student will be expected to set up a personal library with at least five different items cataloged. The result of this will constitute 3/19 of the grade. The remaining 6/19 is based on a essay on a topic related to the course contents. The topic of the essay needs to be agreed with the instructor.
Mailing list
There is a mailing list for the course at https://lists-1.liu.edu/mailman/listinfo/cwp-lis512-krichel. All students are encouraged to subscribe. As a rule, answers to email sent to the instructor will be copied to the list. There are exceptions to this rule
Literature
There is no required textbook for this course.
An important documnet that we use is IFLA (2008) known as FRBR.
Taylor and Joudrey (2009) is probably the most widely used textbook. It is a poorly organized bird's eye view. What they cover is so broad that one does neither get a basic understanding nor a cerebral challenge.
Chan (2007) is better organized, but it's focus is too narrow on cataloging. When the author strays away from narrow cataloging it becomes clear that her knowledge about related topics is limited.
Gorman (2004) is an admirable piece of work. It does an excellent job at detailing AARC rules in an easy-to-understand, no nonsense way. It does not providing a rationale.
To understand more of the logic behind cataloging, Svenonius (2000) promises to be of some use. However, it is an extreme snorefest, a wonderful help for a sleepless night.
There are two useful mailing lists. For traditional cataloging, the main list is AutoCat For thought-provoking expert reflection on the future of library catalogs sign up to the NGC4LIB mailing list.
The Library of Congress provide excellent training materials. Two that we use are Basic Subject Cataloging Using LCSH, and Fundamentals of Library of Congress Classification.
The students also have access to the Library of Congress's classification web.
Finally, Thomas Krichel has made up some home grown resources.