Notes IMC451

Paper 1

Identify four characteristics of poor information.

Irrelevant: Information is of little value when it is too old or out-of-date to be relevant to the user’s need

Swamping: It is not helpful when information is too voluminous to allow any sense to be made of it. It is the quality of information that is important, not the quantity!

Unclear: Information is poor when it is not presented in a way that will facilitate a decision.

Not all there: If information is incomplete, it may fail to provide a clear sense of the entirety of the problem

Identify four different environment in organization of information.

Explain in detail three activities of bibliographic control.

Paper 2

State and explain two basic principles of materials arrangement in Archives.

Materials are arranged by the basic principles of provenance and original order.

Provenance is the originator (i.e. the corporate body or individual) that created, gathered, maintained the collection before it was sent to the archival institution.

There is also an attempt to show the ownership history of a particular item or collection. Original order is the order in which the originator of an archival collection kept or created the collection. Today in most archives the collections are maintained according to provenance and the archives themselves maintains the original order.

Briefly describes five purposes of using one standard in organizing information in a library.

Prevent duplication of work

Allow library to better share bibliographic resources

Enables library to acquire cataloguing data that is predictable and reliable

Enables library to make use of commercially available library automation system to manage library operations

Allows library to replace one system with another

Describe 5 characteristics of useful information for decision making.

The right information

Available at the right time

Available to the right person

At the right cost

Presented in the format to facilitate decision

Discuss with examples the organization of information in library and archive

Explain with examples two phases involved in doing cataloguing process.

Paper 3

Identify five characteristics of good information.

Relevant: Information must relate to the business at hand, and fulfill the needs of the user. In theory all the information required to meet the user’s purposes must be available

Timely: Information must be available when needed, within the timeframe desired by the user

Accurate and complete: All available information should be accessible, with emphasis on the ‘right’ information. This often depends on the context

Concise: Information must be understandable to those who use it, and must be able to be absorbed quickly for action

Reduces uncertainty: A statement about the structure of an entity reduces the unknown about the entity; therefore good information should meet a user’s requirements completely.

Paper 4

Briefly analyse two different environments in the organization of information.

Library

Librarians learn about existing and new works from reviews, publishers’ announcement, and requests from patrons.

Donated gifts from patrons, organizations, government.

Physically arranged and classified (alphabetically, Dewey decimal classification, Library of Congress Classification).

This information is almost always entered in the MARC (Machine Readable Format) where it becomes electronically retrievable in the form of union catalogs

Archive

Archive materials are organized and described in groups.

Materials are arranged by the basic principles of provenance and original order.

Archive materials are electronically formatted using in MARCAMC (Archival and Manuscript Collections) format.

Define Cataloguing and list 8 areas of ISBD.

Cataloguing: The science or the profession of classifying books or other library materials and making out appropriate entries for library catalogs

LCC call numberMain entry Title and statement of responsibilityPublication EditionPhysical descriptionNotesSubject headings

Paper 5

List three (3) types of library classification systems used to organize information in the library.

Library of Congress Classification (LCC)Dewey decimal classification (DDC)Universal Decimal Classification (UDC)

Describe with example three (3) sources of information.

Primary: This is a level at which the information is generated eg: letters, making a scientific discovery, collating data, recording and oral interview.

Secondary: Secondary sources comment on events, discoveries etc. eg: textbooks, encyclopaedias, yearbooks, commentaries and articles in a serial

Tertiary: Tertiary sources are used to track existing information eg: bibliography of bibliographies, directory of directories and guide to literature.

Name three (3) examples of MARC.OCLC, TRLN, WNCLN

List two (2) differences between an abstract and an index.Abstract include a summary of the material indexedAbstract tend to be confined to narrow subject areas

Index provides users with various access points (author, title, subject etc.) to allow user to find precisely what is needed.

Paper 6

Describe five (5) citation styles in description of materials. APA style (American Psychological Association)MLA style (Modern Language Association)Chicago Manual StyleTurabian Style ManualHarvard referencing

Paper 7

Provide in full the following acronyms:a) LCSH: Library of Congress Subject Headingsb) SGML: Standard Generalized Markup Languagec) UBC: Universal Bibliographic Control

Extra

Organization of Recorded Information