The objective of the course is to give a solid understanding of the principles, issues, practices, and problems in organization and representation of documents, information, knowledge, resources.  More specifically the objectives of the course are:

1.   To stress the understanding of user needs as the basis for making decisions about the organization of information and materials.

2.   To impart an understanding of the nature and characteristics of recordable information and an understanding of ways of representing and relating information through a broad continuum, from the full text to a brief surrogate.

3.   To introduce a wide variety of methods of organizing and retrieving recordable information with emphasis on underlying principles and relationships.

4.   To emphasize the identification of problems in organizing information and materials for use and to acquaint students with the potentialities and limitations of various methods as solutions to these problems.

5.   To provide a basis for comparing and evaluating the effectiveness and appropriateness of various methods of organization for specific situations.

Study Tips

The outcome of this course depends to a large degree on your active participation. This means that it is important that you have read and understood the assigned texts for each class. You need to read the texts in such a manner that you can ask and answer questions about them. In other words, you control your outcome of the course. It is your responsibility to do what is necessary to understand the texts, e.g. read the texts multiple times, write an abstract or outline of the texts, participate in study groups.

I urge you to use a critical approach when reading the texts. This means that for each text you should think about what the main point of the text is.  What is the author’s message?  What is it that he/she wants to convey?  Do you agree with the author?  Why/why not?  Place the text in a context. Consider for example how the text/author--consciously or unconsciously--relates to other texts in this course and other courses in the program.  How does it relate to other discussions we have had in this course?  Etc., etc.

Always remember to ask and answer the most important question when facing scientific and scholarly literature: SO WHAT? This is a simple way to evaluate whether the text makes a difference to you, and whether it brings the field a step further.

Ideally, you should read all assigned readings for each class meeting. I have provided two mechanisms to guide you and help you prioritize your reading:
1) I have listed all the readings in a suggested reading order.  This order reflects a progression through the issues that I think will be helpful.
2) I have classified each reading as basic, recommended, or optional.  Basic (B) material should be mastered by every student, recommended (R) material should be mastered by students seeking a good knowledge of the subject, and optional (O) material should be mastered by students with special interest and aptitudes.  You should note that sometimes the full, best, or most comprehensive understanding of a basic reading may not come before reading an optional reading.

It is your choice which readings to read if you cannot read all of them. However, most of our discussions, exercises and assignments will assume that you've read and understood all the material through the recommended level. 

There are four required assignments in this course; full description of each assignment is available at the Sakai site.

For all written assignments:  They should be submitted in the Drop Box on the Sakai site; and should be formatted to be double-spaced, single paged, with one inch margins, typed using the 12 pt Times Roman font, and follow standard citation practices (such as Chicago, APA, MLA).  Please use either Word or PDF file. 

Please review the material you covered in Cite it Right, familiarize yourself with this site (about plagiarism) and UofT's plagiarism policy, and consult the writing centre, if necessary.   Here is a general statement on what I look for in a paper -- and here is my interpretation of the UofT grading system.

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Ungraded Exercises

Ungraded exercises give each student introductory experience in preparing bibliographic descriptions, providing subject headings, and assigning classification numbers. These exercises form the basis for a portion of the class discussions and are considered an essential part of the course.

Materials are placed in the Katharine L. Ball Cataloguing Laboratory in the FIS Inforum.  Please return all materials so others can find them easily. Suggested solutions for most exercises will be posted in the Cataloguing Lab and in binders at the Inforum Circulation Desk.

Help sessions to assist with the exercises will take place on the following days in the Cataloguing Laboratory:

Thurs Feb 21, 9:00am-12:00noon in room 418
Tues Feb 26, 9:00am-12:00noon in room 416 (Note room change for this date only)
Thurs Mar 6, 9:00am-12:00noon in room 418
Tues Mar 11, 9:00am-12:00noon in room 418
Thurs Mar 20, 9:00am-12:00noon in room 418
Tues Mar 25, 9:00am-12:00noon in room 418
Thurs Apr 3, 9:00am-12:00noon in room 418
Tues Apr 6, 9:00am-12:00noon in room 418