Information and It's Organization 

Core Competencies:

a. explain major concepts, theories, issues and trends in knowledge representation and information organization

b. explain the relationship between information organization and information retrieval

c. explain information-seeking behavior in theoretical and practical terms

d. demonstrate proficient professional skills in information searching

e. explain and demonstrate the techniques of bibliographic organization and control

f. explain the principles and techniques of physical and digital preservation of materials

 

Description

In this assignment I compared a variety of information retrieval systems or metadata schema or standards, for archival collections, as an example. The information retrieval systems are acknowledged in the document as well as the class presentation. There are four types of metadata I acknowledge in both the document and presentation: 1. Administrative Metadata, 2. Descriptive Metadata, 3. Preservation Metadata, and 4. Technical Metadata. Metadata is, in short, defined as, "Data About Data." In both the paper and presentation, I acknowledge many types of information retrieval systems under the headings, "Resource Description Formats," "Digital Library Standards," "Information Resource Retrieval Protocols," and "information resource and retrieval standards." Types of metadata available are listed under "Digitizing Collections, Metadata Schema," "Introduction to Metadata, Setting the Stage," "Digital Archiving: The seven pillars of Metadata," and "Archival Metadata and What are Metadata Standards."

Under, "Digitizing Collections: Metadata Schema," I list many metadata schema or standards. Metadata schema or standard, "establishes and defines data elements and the rules for using those elements to describe a resource,"

I list metadata schema or standards such as: Dublin Core, EAD or Encoded Archival Description, MARC, METS, MODS, PBCore, PREMIS, TEI, and VRA Core. 

information and its organization and access document.docx

 

information and it's organization class presentation .pptx

Analysis

With this assignment I learned that there are a great variety of information retrieval systems other than those I already knew about. For example, I just had been using the search bar at UofSC's Thomas Cooper Library website, as well as my local public library, Richland County Public Library. However, I learned that there are many more ways to search for information such as Dublin Core, EAD, MARC, METS, MODS, PBCore, PREMIS, TEI, and VRA Core, and have done so. I am also going to use these information search programs to search for information at my volunteer job at the South Carolina Archives once I have graduated.

Reflection

This assignment has and will help me both in graduate school to find relevant documents as well as in my work at the South Carolina State Archives. I have had three jobs in archives (2 volunteer positions and 1 paid graduate assistant position) in archives, since the beginning of this program. I love archives because of their professional environment. Right now, I am doing transcription of written records at an archive into digital format. I will be talking to my boss at the archives about working with digital materials such as born digital collections and I will be sending the document and PowerPoint for this course to my boss soon (I am on a break from in-house volunteering to focus on school, but may be doing some at-home transcription), and will start back in December 2025 or January 2026.

These assignments may change how my boss approaches me as he will now know that I have an interest in, and understanding of, digital information retrieval and metadata standards. 

This assignment helps me to understand how to search for information, for example using Dublin Core Open Access to find scholarly articles. 

In the future, I will use these in my archival positions as well as be able to teach others, that I tutor, about metadata schema, standards, and retrieval systems.