Notes IMC451

Paper 1
Identify four characteristics of poor information.
Irrelevant: Information is of little value when it is too old or out-of-date to be relevant to the
users need
Swamping: It is not helpful when information is too voluminous to allow any sense to be
made of it. It is the quality of information that is important, not the quantity!
Unclear: Information is poor when it is not presented in a way that will facilitate a decision.
Not all there: If information is incomplete, it may fail to provide a clear sense of the entirety
of the problem
Identify four different environment in organization of information.
Explain in detail three activities of bibliographic control.

Paper 2
State and explain two basic principles of materials arrangement in Archives.
Materials are arranged by the basic principles of provenance and original order.
Provenance is the originator (i.e. the corporate body or individual) that created, gathered,
maintained the collection before it was sent to the archival institution.
There is also an attempt to show the ownership history of a particular item or collection.
Original order is the order in which the originator of an archival collection kept or created the
collection. Today in most archives the collections are maintained according to provenance
and the archives themselves maintains the original order.

Briefly describes five purposes of using one standard in organizing information in a

library.
Prevent duplication of work
Allow library to better share bibliographic resources
Enables library to acquire cataloguing data that is predictable and reliable
Enables library to make use of commercially available library automation system to manage
library operations
Allows library to replace one system with another
Describe 5 characteristics of useful information for decision making.

The right information

Available at the right time
Available to the right person
At the right cost
Presented in the format to facilitate decision
Discuss with examples the organization of information in library and archive
Explain with examples two phases involved in doing cataloguing process.

Paper 3
Identify five characteristics of good information.

Relevant: Information must relate to the business at hand, and fulfill the needs of the user. In
theory all the information required to meet the users purposes must be available
Timely: Information must be available when needed, within the timeframe desired by the
user
Accurate and complete: All available information should be accessible, with emphasis on
the right information. This often depends on the context
Concise: Information must be understandable to those who use it, and must be able to be
absorbed quickly for action
Reduces uncertainty: A statement about the structure of an entity reduces the unknown
about the entity; therefore good information should meet a users requirements completely.

Paper 4

Briefly analyse two different environments in the organization of information.

Library
Librarians learn about existing and new works from reviews, publishers announcement, and
requests from patrons.
Donated gifts from patrons, organizations, government.
Physically arranged and classified (alphabetically, Dewey decimal classification, Library of
Congress Classification).
This information is almost always entered in the MARC (Machine Readable Format) where it
becomes electronically retrievable in the form of union catalogs

Archive
Archive materials are organized and described in groups.
Materials are arranged by the basic principles of provenance and original order.
Archive materials are electronically formatted using in MARCAMC (Archival and
Manuscript Collections) format.

Define Cataloguing and list 8 areas of ISBD.

Cataloguing: The science or the profession of classifying books or other library materials and
making out appropriate entries for library catalogs
LCC call number
Main entry
Title and statement of responsibility
Publication
Edition
Physical description
Notes
Subject headings
Paper 5
List three (3) types of library classification systems used to organize information in the
library.
Library of Congress Classification (LCC)
Dewey decimal classification (DDC)
Universal Decimal Classification (UDC)
Describe with example three (3) sources of information.
Primary: This is a level at which the information is generated eg: letters, making a scientific
discovery, collating data, recording and oral interview.
Secondary: Secondary sources comment on events, discoveries etc. eg: textbooks,
encyclopaedias, yearbooks, commentaries and articles in a serial
Tertiary: Tertiary sources are used to track existing information eg: bibliography of
bibliographies, directory of directories and guide to literature.
Name three (3) examples of MARC.
OCLC, TRLN, WNCLN

List two (2) differences between an abstract and an index.

Abstract include a summary of the material indexed
Abstract tend to be confined to narrow subject areas
Index provides users with various access points (author, title, subject etc.) to allow user to
find precisely what is needed.

Paper 6

Describe five (5) citation styles in description of materials.

APA style (American Psychological Association)
MLA style (Modern Language Association)
Chicago Manual Style
Turabian Style Manual
Harvard referencing

Paper 7
Provide in full the following acronyms:
a) LCSH: Library of Congress Subject Headings
b) SGML: Standard Generalized Markup Language
c) UBC: Universal Bibliographic Control

Extra
Organization of Recorded Information