KNOWLEDGE ORGANISATION SYSTEMS AS TOOLS FOR ENHANCED INFORMATION ACCESS AND RETRIEVAL: A NEED FOR THE USE OF CORPORATE TAXONOMIES ON LIBRARY PORTALS.

Taxonomies have developed over the years to reach the current status of corporate taxonomies. A number of issues that triggered the prominence of taxonomies include; information overload, information literacy, organizational terminology and “destructuring” of organizations.This research contributes to the ongoing advocacy for the use of corporate taxonomies for effective knowledge organization and information retrieval in the digital community due to the explosion of various kinds of information on the internet, changes in user information seeking behaviour and needs, and the inability of search engines to precisely recall relevant information

Decolonizing the Way Libraries Organize

Knowledge organization systems (KOSs) are social constructs that represent the needs and knowledge of specific communities at specific times and places (Olsen, 1998; Svenonius, 2000; Hunter, 2009). Libraries use knowledge organization systems like cataloging codes, classification schemes, and languages of aboutness to describe the information objects they hold. These structures are central to library cataloging (Farnel, 2017). Because library KOSs reflect the biases of the time periods and places they were created, applications of these systems outside of those contexts are potentially problematic in terms of gender, culture, and ethnic exclusion (Olsen, 1998; Alemu & Stevens, 2015). Many of the systems used in libraries throughout the world originated in the United States or Europe. It is time to consider the impact that these systems have outside of their designated contexts and how to integrate other perspectives. The purpose of this paper is to question the cultural suitability of the systems and procedures libraries have in place to organize materials. As stated by Berman, the systems and approaches that catalogers adhere to are “so slavish” (Berman & Gross, 2017). When librarians talk about changes to codes and standards that are currently in use, it is often at the micro-level. These micro-level changes include submitting a term addition or term change request to the Library of Congress Subject Headings; or adding/revising a rule to Resource Description and Access. What may be needed are not these micro-level changes, but changes at the macrolevel. Librarians need to feel empowered to go beyond the Euro-American models of library cataloging work, without feeling that they are violating the integrity of their relationships with networks and consortia. Structures need to be in place to allow libraries and catalogers to vary the way they apply the necessary guidelines. Specific examples—with an emphasis on Southeast Asia -- is presented to argue these points

Color by Numbers: An Exploration of the Use of Color as Classification Notation

Notation is a fundamental component of a classification scheme, especially library and bibliographic classification. However, notation is often considered an afterthought or auxiliary to classification itself. With the advances in technology, classification systems, including their notation, must evolve. What, if any, possibilities lie beyond alphanumeric characters and symbols? The author explores the possible use of color as classificatory notation by looking at the traditional qualities of notation and the classificatory needs it must accommodate, various theories and standards of color, and their possible applications to classification notation. Theoretical and practical implications are considered and discussed, as well as larger implications for notation and classification overall

Organizing scientific data sets: studying similarities and differences in metadata and subject term creation

According to Salo, the metadata entered into repositories aredisorganized and metadata schemes underlying repositories are arcane. This creates a challenging repository environment in regards to personal information management (PIM) and knowledge organization systems (KOSs). This dissertation research is a step towards addressing the need to study information organization of scientific data in more detail. METHODS: A concurrent triangulation mixed methods approach was used to study the descriptive metadata and subject term application of information professionals and scientists when working with two data sets (the bird data set and the hunting data set). Quantitative and qualitative methods were used in combination during study design, data collection, and analysis. RESULTS: A total of 27 participants, 11 information professionals and 16 scientists took part in this study. Descriptive metadata results indicate that information professionals were more likely to use standardized metadata schemes. Scientists did not use library-based standards to organize data in their own collections. Nearly all scientists mentioned how central software was to their overall data organization processes. Subject term application results suggest that the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) was the best vocabulary for describing scientific names, while Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) was best for describing topical terms. The two groups applied 45 topical terms to the bird data set and 49 topical terms to the hunting data set. Term overlap, meaning the same terms were applied by both groups, was close to 25% for each data set (27% for the bird data set and 24% for the hunting data set). Unique terms, those terms applied by either group were more widely dispersed. CONCLUSIONS: While there were similarities between the two groups, it is the differences that were the most apparent. Based on this research it is recommended that general repositories use metadata created by information professionals, while domain specific repositories use metadata created by scientists