Students are proficient in the theory and application of skills essential for knowledge representation in evolving technology environments, in any chosen area of specialization.
III.a. Students analyze, organize and describe various formats of information objects.
—5937 Rare Books/Special Collections (elective)
Not all information is neatly organized into bits and MARC’s, as digital-born vs a digitized representation of an information object has certain metadata inputs, descriptors, and formats. This prospective exhibition plan organizes various information objects from photos to pamphlets, physical statues and toys, instruments, catalogs, advertisements to ancient artifacts in the MET. They are ordered chronologically and their historical contexts described. Understanding what an information project is is just as important as describing said object and thus is key to organizing it and the information gleaned from it.
III.b. Students identify and apply best practices in the use of different technologies for knowledge representation.
—6711 Organization of Information (core)
The Internet is ever-growing and is highly integrated into modern library and information science, and folksonomies—tags, hashtags, social media and user-made categorizing—is a very important and organic form of information organization, which are indicative of non-information-professionals understanding of information organization. With this in mind, librarians must understand the fluid anatomy of folksonomies to not only understand how digital-born or internet-using patrons search and retrieve information but how information is organized in a decentralized, non-library professional environ as well. This paper encapsulates the valuable lessons I have learned in the ways to navigate the Internet’s evolving forms of information organization, how to track said evolution, and to better add to a library’s query system’s controlled vocabulary’s associated terms.
—6711 Organization of Information (core)
On the other side of that coin is a break down of highly controlled metadata schema, wherein the aforementioned paper tracked the organic evolution of a variable, changing term and vocabulary scheme, this one is highly defined by a nearly-universally used metadata standard. Metadata are the building blocks of modern library and information science and what makes knowledge infrastructure work. Learning the complexities of schema, using assigned media materials, I displayed their metadata plainly as I would input in a digitized archival material or article in a database. Adapting to a stricter schema means understanding its rules and the library and information science field’s standards LIS professionals abide by.