Instructor: Debora Shaw
E-mail: shawd@indiana.edu
Phone: 812-855-3261
    or 888-335-SLIS
Fax: 812-855-6166

Office: Library 011 D
School of Library and Information Science
Main Library - 012
1320 E. 10^th Street
Bloomington, IN 47401-3907

Introduction

The representation and organization of information resources is a primary focus of the information profession. Organizational structures such as classification schemes, indexes, bibliographies and catalogs have been devised to provide access not only to the document, but to its intellectual content - the knowledge or information recorded in the document. The recent explosive growth in both the number and the variety of information resources serves to underscore the continuing need for application of effective methods of representation and organization.

Practical and effective systems of information representation and organization must depend upon a comprehensive understanding not only of the theoretical foundations of bibliographic organization but also of the basic principles of human cognition. Accordingly, this course will investigate the basic principles and theoretical foundations of traditional organizational schemes. This investigation will include materials from traditional librarianship, information science, cognitive science, semiotics, and artificial intelligence and expert systems that have contributed to an understanding of how people obtain, store, retrieve and use information. It will also examine how research in these areas can inform current practices of representation and organization in the design of more effective and more efficient information retrieval systems.
 

Course Objectives

1. To introduce a broad range of knowledge representation models drawn from the fields of information science, communication, semiotics, philosophy, cognitive psychology, and artificial intelligence.

2. To develop students' abilities to understand and effectively apply principles of representation and organization currently used to provide access to information resources.

3. To provide practical experience in applying the basic principles of knowledge organization and representation to the indexing, abstracting and classification of information in several media.

Reading Assignments

A course pack for L505 with many of the assigned readings is available in the IUPUI bookstore. Other required readings are available on the Web or will be distributed in class. You should complete the required readings for each session before the class meeting.

Grading

The final course grade will be computed on the basis of grades assigned for the following:
    Abstracts (5, at 5% each) 25%
    Class participation and in-class exercises 20%
    Leading the class 20%
    Final exam (take home, due August 3) 35%

                TOTAL 100%

Each student is expected to complete all course work by the end of the term. A grade of incomplete (I) will be assigned only if exceptional circumstances warrant, and incomplete work must be completed by October 1, 2000.

Abstracts: In the second class meeting we will discuss and practice writing abstracts. After that work you will turn in one (ungraded) abstract for evaluation. You will then complete five (5) abstracts for articles in the required readings on topics other than the one on which you will lead class discussion. You may abstract an article which already has an abstract, but yours should be different from the author- or abstracting service-prepared abstract in that it will reflect your understanding of the material and its implications for organization and representation of knowledge and information.

Class Participation: All students are expected to contribute actively to class learning in person (in class) and through the OnCourse teaching and learning environment:

    https://oncourse.indiana.edu/

These contributions include regular attendance but go beyond that to enhancing the quality and quantity of the face-to-face and electronic discussion, through comments and questions that clarify the topics and move the discussion forward. The assignments and readings for each week must be completed before the class meeting so that substantive and meaningful contributions are possible. It is expected that every student demonstrate respect for the ideas, opinions, and feelings of all other members of the class.

Leading the Class: After the class break (at roughly 7:45) the next 30 minutes will be reserved for presentation and discussion led by a group of students who will identify and direct our attention to key ideas from the week's supplemental readings or related materials. Discussion leaders should post any supplemental readings or resources they to the class list one week before their class session and post questions for discussion to the list at least one full day before their class session.

Letter grades have been defined by student and faculty members of the Curriculum Steering Committee and have been approved by the faculty as an aid in evaluation of academic performance and to assist students by giving them an understanding of the grading standards of the School of Library and Information Science. <Link to grade definitions>

Course Schedule

Session 1. Introduction to organization of knowledge and information
June 27

Buckland, M. (1991). Information as thing. Journal of the American Society for Information Science 42, 351-360.

Session 2. Abstracting
June 29

Assignment: For this class prepare an abstract of Buckland's "Information as thing."

Cremmins, E.T. (1982). "About abstracting," Information selection and relevance for abstracts," and "Abstract of the American National Standard for Writing Abstracts," and "Reading rules for abstracting" In: The Art of Abstracting (pp. 3-6, 14-18, 117-120). Philadelphia: ISI Press.

Lancaster, F. W. (1998). Abstracts: Types and functions. In Indexing and Abstracting in Theory and Practice, 2d ed. (pp. 94-106). Champaign, IL: Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois.

Spiteri, L. F. (1997). Library & information science vs business: A comparison of approaches to abstracting. The Indexer, 20, 197-200.

Session 3. Representation
July 6

Barsalou, L. W. (1992). Representation. In Cognitive Psychology: an overview for cognitive scientists (pp 52-58, 25-26, 45). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Zerubavel, E. (1991). Islands of meaning. In The Fine Line (pp. 5-20). NY: Free Press.

Session 4. Enumerative classification
July 11

Bliss, H. E. (1934). The problem of classification for libraries. In The Organization of Knowledge in Libraries (pp. 1-20). NY: H.W. Wilson.

Dewey, M. (1927). Decimal Clasification and Relativ Index (pp. 9-21). 12^th ed. Lake Placid, N.Y.: Forest Press.

Session 5. Faceted classification
July 13

Hunter, E.J. (1988). Faceted classification. In Classification Made Simple (pp. 3-7; 34-49). Aldershot: Gower.

Spiteri, L. (1998). A simplified model for facet analysis: Ranganathan 101. Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science 23, 1-30.

Session 6. Categorization
July 18

Jacob, E. K. (1991). Classification and categorization: Drawing the line. In B. H. Kwasnik & R. Fidel, Advances in Classification Research, Vol. 2, Proceedings of the 2nd ASIS SIG/CR Classification Research Workshop (pp. 67-83, focus on pp.67-72, 77-79). Washington, DC: American Society for Information Science.

Zerubavel, E. (1991). The great divide. In The Fine Line (pp. 21-32). NY: Free Press.

Session 7. Mental models
July 20

Norman, D.A. (1983). Some observations on mental models. In D. Gentner & A. L. Stevens (Eds.), Mental Models (pp. 7-14). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Devlin, B. (1997). Conceptual models for network literacy. Electronic Library 15(5): 363-368.

Session 8. Controlled vocabularies
July 25

Rowley, J. (1992). The subject approach: Introduction, processes, tools and simple evaluation. In Organizing Knowledge (pp. 159-175). Brookfield, VT: Ashgate.

Batty, D. (1989). Thesaurus construction and maintenance: A survival kit. Database, 12(1), 13- 20.

Session 9. Knowledge management, Denham Grey guest speaker
July 27

Ackerman, M. and Halverson, C. (1999). Organizational memory: processes, boundary objects, and trajectories. <Link> http://www.ics.uci.edu/~ackerman/pub/99b26/hicss99.pdf

Davenport, E. and Cronin, B. (2000). Knowledge management: semantic drift or conceptual shift? Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Library and Information Science Education, January 2000. <Link>

Data Mining: Extending the Information Warehouse Framework http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/quest/papers/whitepaper.html

Session 10 Indexing
August 1

American Society of Indexers. "Frequently Asked Questions About Indexing." http://www.asindexing.org/indfaq.htm

Bonura, L.S. (1994). "Introducing the index," Determining audiences," "Achieving completeness," and "Criteria for a good index." In The Art of Indexing (pp.3-7, 17-30, 41-44). New York: Wiley.

Saarti, J. (1999). Fiction indexing and the development of fiction thesauri. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 31, 85-92.

Session: 11. Visual/nontextual information
August 3  *** FINAL EXAM DUE ***

Shatford Layne, S. (1994). Some issues in the indexing of images. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 45, 583-588.

Blobworld: University of California Berkeley Digital Library Project http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/photos/blobworld/

Query by Image Content for Web Publishing and Multimedia Databases http://wwwqbic.almaden.ibm.com/stage/

SILS Art Image Browser http://www.si.umich.edu/Art_History/

Session: 12. Metadata
August 7

Gilliland-Swetland, A.J. (1998). Defining metadata. In Boca, M., ed. (1998). Introduction to metadata: pathways to digital information (pp. 1-8). Los Angeles: Getty Information Institute. http://www.getty.edu/gri/standard/intrometadata/define.htm

Gill, T. (1998). Metadata and the World Wide Web. In Boca, M., ed. (1998). Introduction to metadata: pathways to digital information (pp. 9-18). Los Angeles: Getty Information Institute. http://www.getty.edu/gri/standard/intrometadata/metawww.htm

Milstead, J. and Feldman, S. (1999). Metadata: cataloging by any other name ... Online, 23, 24-26+; http://www.onlineinc.com/onlinemag/metadata/

Bibliography of Additional Readings

Session 1. Introduction to organization of knowledge and information

Buckland, Michael (1997). What is a "document"? Journal of the American Society for Information Science 48, 804-809.

Wilson, Patrick (1978). Some Fundamental Concepts of Information Retrieval. Drexel Library Quarterly 14(2): 10-23.

Session 2. Abstracting

Borko, Harold and Bernier, Charles L. (1975). Characteristics and Types of Abstracts. In Abstracting Concepts and Methods. San Diego: Academic Press, pp. 5-24.

Fidel, Raya (1986). Writing Abstracts for Free-Text Searching. Journal of Documentation 42(1): 11-21.

Session 3. Representation

Brown, R. (1958). How shall a thing be called? Psychological Review 65, 14-21.

Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphorical Systematicity: Highlighting and Hiding. In Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 10-13.

Miller, George A. (1956). The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on our Capacity for Processing Information. Psychological Review 63(2): 81-96.

Wersig, Gernot (1997). Information Theory. In J. Feather and P. Sturges (eds.) International Encyclopedia of Information and Library Science. London: Routledge, pp. 220-227.

Session 4. Enumerative classification

Buchanan, Brian (1979). Introduction. In Theory of Library Classification. London: Clive Bingley, pp. 7-15.

Rowley, Jennifer E. (1992). The Theory of Bibliographic Classification. In Organizing Knowledge 2d. ed.Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, pp. 176-199.

Rowley, Jennifer E. (1992). Bibliographic Classification Schemes. In Organizing Knowledge 2d. ed. Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, pp.200-235.

Shrea, Jesse H. (1965). The Dignity and Advancement of Bacon. In Libraries and the Organization of Knowledge. Hamden CT: Archon Books, pp. 143-150.

Session 5. Faceted classification

Ranganathan, S.R. (1962). Canons of Classification. In Elements of Library Classification. Bombay: Asia Publishing House, pp. 45-69.

Vickery, Brian C. (1966). Faceted classification schemes. In Faceted Classification Schemes (pp. 30-40, 42, 45-46, 50. ). New Brunswick, N.J., Graduate School of Library Service, Rutgers, the State University.

Session 6. Categorization

Bowker, Geoffrey C. and Star, Susan Leigh. (1999). Some Tricks of the Trade in Analyzing Classification. In Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 33-50.

Jacob, Elin K. (1994). Classification and Crossdisciplinary Communication: Breaching the Boundaries Imposed by Classificatory Structure. In H. Albrechtson and S. Oernager (eds.) Knowledge Organization and Quality Management: Advances in Knowledge Organization, vol. 4. Frankfurt/Main: Indeks Verlag, pp. 101-108.

Thompson, Bill and Thompson, Bev (1991). Overturning the Category Bucket. Byte 16(1): 249-256.

Zerubavel, E. (1991). The social lens. In The Fine Line (pp. 61-80). NY: Free Press.

Session 7. Mental models

Brandt, D. Scott. (1996). A conceptual understanding of the Internet. Computers in Libraries 16(3): 39-41.

Rumelhart, David E. (1984). Schemata and the Cognitive System. In R.S. Wyer and T.K. Srull (eds.) Handbook of Social Cognition, vol 1. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 161-188.

Schank, Roger and Kass, Alex (1988). Knowledge Representation in People and Machines. In U. Eco, et al. (eds.) Meaning and Mental Representations. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, pp. 181-200.

Session 8. Controlled vocabularies

Aitchison, Jean, Gilchrist, Alan, and Bawden, David (1997). Thesaurus Construction and Use. 3d ed. London: Aslib, pp. 1-34.

American Society of Indexers "THESAURI ONLINE" http://www.asindexing.org/thesonet.shtml

Craven, Tim (1997). Introductory Tutorial on Thesaurus Construction  <Link>http://instruct.uwo.ca/gplis/677/thesaur/main00.htm

Lancaster, F. W. (1986). The influence of vocabulary on the performance of a retrieval system. In Vocabulary Control for Information Retrieval. 2nd ed. Arlington, VA: Information Resources Press, pp. 131-153.

Rowley, Jennifer E. (1992). The Alphabetical Subject Approach. In Organizing Knowledge 2d. ed.Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, pp.237-278.

Soergel, Dagobert. (1985). Terminological Control. Organizing Information. San Diego: Academic Press, pp. 213-224.

Session 9. Knowledge management

CIO Collaborating for a competitive edge, June, 2000: http://www.cio.com/sponsors/0600_km/index.html

Conversations as core business process: Download Brown & Isaacs 1996 pdf under articles:  <Link>http://www.theworldcafe.com/resources.html#articles

Open Directory, collecting information about knowledge on the web.  <Link>http://dmoz.org/Reference/Knowledge_Management/

Patterns. Making meaning in groups, leveraging language.  <Link>http://www.enteract.com/~bradapp/docs/patterns-nutshell.html

Knowledge landscapes: Unlearning to learn and compete. Download Roos & Oliver, 1999 pdf  <Link>http://www.anticipator.com/concept/kl.htm

Von Krogh, Georg, Ichijo, Kazuo, and Nonaka, Ikujiro. (2000). "Strategy and Knowledge Creation," and "Enabler 3: Mobilize Knowledge Activists." In Enabling Knowledge Creation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 69-99, 147-175.

Session 10. Indexing

Foltz, P. W. (1990) Using Latent Semantic Indexing for Information Filtering. In R. B. Allen (Ed.) Proceedings of the Conference on Office Information Systems, Cambridge, MA, 40-47. http://www-psych.nmsu.edu/~pfoltz/cois/filtering-cois.html

Henninger, Maureen (1999). What Makes a Good Web Index? The Indexer 21(4): 182-183.

Woods, William A. Conceptual Indexing: A Better Way to Organize Knowledge. Sun Microsystems Technical Report TR-97-61, April 1997. http://www.sun.com/research/techrep/1997/abstract-61.html (pdf file is 91 pages)

Session 11. Visual/nontextual information

Beebe, Caroline and Jacob, Elin K. (1998). Graphic Language Documents: Structures and Functions. In W. Mostafa (ed.), Advances in Knowledge Organization, vol. 6. Frankfurt/Main: Indeks Verlag.

Berinstein, P. (1999). The Big Picture - Do You See What I See? Image Indexing Principles for the Rest of Us. Online 23(2), 85-86, 88.

Austin, David L. (1994). An image is not an object: but it can help. In: A. H. Helal and J. W. Weiss (Eds.). Resource sharing: new technologies as a must for universal availability of information. Essen: Universitaetsbibliothek Essen, pp 277-294.

Session 12. Metadata

Arms, William Y. "Key Concepts in the Architecture of the Digital Library." D-Lib Magazine, July 1995 http://www.dlib.org/dlib/July95/07arms.html

Caplan, Priscilla. "You Call It Corn, We Call It Syntax-Independent Metadata for Document-Like Objects." The Public-Access Computer Systems Review 6, no. 4 (1995). http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/v6/n4/capl6n4.html

Gorman, M. (1999). Metadata or cataloguing? A false choice. Journal of Internet Cataloguing, 2, 85-91.

Heery, Rachel. "Review of Metadata Formats."<Link>  http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/review.html