One of the required courses for the MLIS program at San Jose State University is INFO 202: Information Retrieval System Design. Like many other future librarians, I am someone who appreciates structure and organization. Classification, cataloging systems, and metadata schemes are all different ways that we can organize information, ensuring that it is accessible to as many users as possible. This last statement demonstrates one of the commonalities that all of these concepts share - user experience. The user needs to be able to locate information or materials in order for it to be of any use to them. Part of our job as information professionals is to ensure that we use the appropriate tools to organize information so that the user can find it with relative ease.

 

One of the ways that information professionals accomplish information organization is by using classification systems. Once confined to card catalogs, technology now allows libraries to standardize cataloging with OPACS, making cataloging more standardized across different information organizations. Additionally, vocabulary plays a large role in how information is stored and accessed. Controlled vocabularies are important for providing structure and context for database searching and understanding methods of classification. A database search for “overweight”, for example, may led to very few results being returned to the user. This may be because the appropriate vocabulary for the database is “obesity.” When creating a search using this term, included in the controlled vocabulary for the database, information seekers will find more results. Controlled vocabularies provide a context for searching within an information retrieval system.

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Two ways of organizing information that are widely used in information professions are Dublin Core and the Library of Congress Subject Headings. Dublin Core is a structured vocabulary used to describe items in a collection. These can be physical or digital items. The simple model of Dublin Core consists of fifteen optional elements, used for encoding and building vocabulary that assists with the classification and organization for materials. The Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) is one of the most often used organizational schemas in libraries. The subject headings allow information professionals to group materials with similar subject matter together under a particular heading. Subheadings are also used to further differentiate resources, yet keep them grouped with items of a similar subject matter.

 

The role of an information specialist is not always to be concerned with the content of the document, but instead how it is organized and who can use it (Bates, 1999). When considering information from the perspective of a potential user, it is important to see more than what is there – to see the potential of what could be there as well.  This means that you need to be able to think creatively and slightly outside of the box to consider what another person may find useful or important about a document. This leads to the concepts of aggregation and discrimination, which both play a role in user searches for information. Aggregation is the results of a search or query that are relevant to the user’s search. Discrimination happens when there are limiting factors placed on the search to exclude certain elements.

 

For example, if I were searching a database of photographs and I wanted an image of a dog, I could enter “dog” into the search field, and the information retrieval system would return all of the results for dogs. This is an example of aggregation. If I decided that I only wanted photos of black dogs, I could enter “black” as a search parameter and it would help to discriminate among the results to only return the instances of dogs which were black. In order to accomplish this level of aggregation and discrimination in searches, it is important to know the controlled vocabulary that the database uses. For example, if the photos of dogs were not labeled by individual color, but by shades such as “dark, light, medium,” then discrimination in our search would not be successful because we did not use the proper controlled vocabulary.

 

Evidence:

 

The first piece of evidence that I submit to demonstrate my mastery of this competency is an assignment that I completed in INFO 202. For this assignment, I had to create information fields for entry into a database. In order to accomplish this, I evaluated the content of the photos that users might search for in order to create a searchable photo database. This assignment includes the fields and values that I created for each database entry. Additionally, the assignment contains a reflection on the creation of these elements. In my reflection I discuss the challenges of creating fields and values while considering what the searcher might find useful about each photograph, or what the searcher may be looking for. This piece of evidence demonstrates my mastery of the concepts of searching and creating an information retrieval system, including creating a controlled vocabulary.

 

My second piece of evidence to demonstrate mastery of this competency is a card sorting activity from my INFO 202 course. This was a group exercise, where each group member was given a set of cards with various labels. Each group member was responsible for finding participants and asking them to sort the cards into categories. The group member was tasked with observing the card sorting, and to analyze the results of the sorting. After the results of each group were analyzed, the group compared their results with one another, and wrote up our observations in a report. This activity demonstrates my mastery of competency G by highlighting my understanding of organization and the organization of information. Completing this assignment reinforced the importance of conducting user tests to determine how people think about information. This is because people will organize information differently depending on what organizational schemes are relevant to them. Deciding the best way to organize information to accommodate the most users is one important aspect of information organizations.

 

The third piece of evidence that I submit in evidence of my mastery of competency G is a PowerPoint presentation that I created as a part of a special studies section, working with Dr. Sandra Hirsh on her book, Information Services Today: An Introduction, 2nd edition. This presentation was created as supplementary item for chapter 14 of the book, “User Experience.” Information accessibility and user experience are complementary concepts. Approaching organization of information from a user perspective helps to ensure that information is accessible. This chapter demonstrates my mastery of the concepts of user experience because, in order to create this presentation, not only did I have to learn and understand the concept of user experience, but I also had to consider how best to present this information to students who would be experiencing these concepts for the first time.

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Conclusion:

 

Information is only useful if it is accessible. Organizing information appropriately increases its findability, and makes it accessible to a larger number of users. There are many factors that need to be considered when organizing information in such a way that it is grouped appropriately. Cataloging physical materials might answer the question of where an item belongs on a shelf, but organization can become more complex when dealing with digital materials, or items in a database. This added complexity is one area where user experience and usability design can be a useful tool. Conducting tests to determine how information users search for information, and what criteria they find useful for such searches can help information professionals determine the best methods to use to ensure that information and materials are accessible to as many users as possible.

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References:

Bates, M.J. (1999). The invisible substrate of information science. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 50(12), 1043-1050.

 

Belkin, .J. (1993) Interaction with texts: Information retrieval as information-seeking behavior. In: Information retrieval '93. Von der Modellierung zur Anwendung. Konstanz: Universitaetsverlag Konstanz, 55-66.