FACULTY OF INFORMATION MANAGEMENT UNIVERSITY TECHNOLOGY MARA

(UiTM) CAMPUS REMBAU, NEGERI SEMBILAN

BACHELOR OF INFORMATION SCIENCE (HONS.)

LIBRARY MANAGEMENT

IMC451

INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT
(RETRIEVAL TOOLS)

PREPARED FOR:

PUAN INTAN NURBAIZURA

PREPARED BY:

NURIN QISTINA BINTI ZAMRI (2021885766)

SUBMISSION DATE:

13 MAY 2022

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 Acknowledgement

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim, first and foremost, I would like to praise and thank to the Almighty
God for giving me the strength and His blessing because of that I finally to accomplish this
assignment. I also would like to express my special thank of gratitude to my lecturer Puan Intan
Nurbaizura, who gave me this opportunity to do this assignment. Without her support and
advice, I will not be able to complete this assignment. I am very appreciating what have he
done explain about assignment. May Allah reward her for all of her effort.

I would like to extend my deepest gratitude and special thanks to all who have directly and
indirectly guide me to write this assignment. I express my deepest appreciation to my beloved
parent, family, and classmates for their continues encouragement are greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

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 Table of Contents
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 4

1.0 Elements of Finding Aid ........................................................................................................... 5

2.0 Arrangement ................................................................................................................................... 7

3.0 Title Page ......................................................................................................................................... 8

4.0 Scope and Content .......................................................................................................................... 9

5.0 Collection Summary ....................................................................................................................... 9

6.0 Access and use ............................................................................................................................... 11

7.0 Contents Listing ............................................................................................................................ 11

Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 14

References ............................................................................................................................................ 15

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Introduction

Have you heard the term of retrieval tools? Retrieval tools are systems created for
researchers to retrieve information resources. All of the information that is collected by
libraries, archives and museums will organize recorded by a system because retrieval tools are
essential of building blocks. Information retrieval tools are useful for educational achievement.
The skills required for specific recovery stored in the document, rather than the potential
accuracy and adequacy of the information, are unrelated to the study of all information by
students. To prevent the problem of information retrieval, the user may require skills like
information retrieval skills, operational research skills, and research strategies, which will
make them a simple task in the procedure of retrieving information together (Jansen and
Pooch,2000). There are few basic retrieval tools we need to know which is bibliographies,
catalogues, indexes, finding aids, registers, and online database. For this assignment, I would
like to choose finding aids for my further investigation. I choose finding aids because I find
this subject is interesting for me to accomplish my investigation. Other than that, another reason
I choose finding aids because I want to explain this finding aids matter in my perspective.

Finding aids are actually archival terms for a guide or inventory of an archival
collection’s contents. Finding aids are tools that assist users in locating information within a
particular record group, collection, or series of archival materials. Published and unpublished
inventories, container and folder lists, card catalogues, calendars, indexes, registers, and
institutional guides are all examples of finding aids. Finding aids are formal publications that
assist the user in locating information about a record group, collection, or series of archival
materials (Finding Aids Type, 2016). In documents, archival materials were described called
finding aids or collection guides. Finding aids can come in many forms and range in detail from
a brief summary of a collection to an itemised list of its content, but most will fall somewhere
in the middle. The level of detail and description is determined by the repository’s resources
and the collection itself. It is because not all the locating aids are available online. Besides, the
use of finding aids is different for each organization. It is mean every organization has their
own way to use their own finding aids in order to retrieve information.

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1.0 Elements of Finding Aid
1.1 Descriptive Summary
The basic bibliographical information found in a library catalogue record, such as
the repository, creator, title, date, abstract describing the material’s subject matter,
quantity of materials, and call phrase which is the collection number assigned to the
collection by the repository.

1.2 Biographical / Historical Note

Information on the collection’s creator, including significant historical details that
contextualize the archival materials. The length of biographical or historical notes
should be appropriate for the collection’s complexity and quantity. Most collections
require no more than one or two paragraphs, and users rarely read lengthy
biographical or historical annotations. The note should connect the collection’s
material to the creator’s life and functions. This is also included sufficient details to
explain how and why the materials were developed, constructed, acquired, or
utilized.

1.3 Arrangement
A list of the series into which the collection is divided, or a brief description of how
the materials are organized, such as “The collection is organized by type of material,
then chronologically”. Even if the collection is so little or minimally processed that
it is only arranged as one series, the arrangement note should always include a list
of series titles, dates, container numbers, and extent. This list acts as a connection
to each individual series on the internet.

1.4 Scope and Content Note

A short summary of what is in the collection, including the types of materials and
the collection’s subject focus, with some highlights listed.

1.5 Administrative Information

Collection provenance, limits on access and usage, copyright notices, recommended
citation, and related documents in the repository.

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1.6 Title Page
Usually at the early of the finding aids will be includes the name of archival
repository, the title of the archival collection, finding aid creation information, and
a date range for the items are all listed.

1.7 Access and use

If an archival collection has any restrictions in place that prevent users from
accessing it, this information will be stated here. This part also contains information
on how the archives got the collection, citation notes and copyright, as well as the
place of storage.

1.8 Contents Listing

“Container list” or “Box and Folder list” are the other names for it. Contents listing
is a list of the materials in the collection, organized by box and folder. Depending
on the extent of the collection and individual repository practices, the level of detail
in this section may vary.

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2.0 Arrangement
2.1 This is arrangement of finding aids in The Library of Congress. The collection is
all arranged in alphabetically way by type of material.

Image 1

2.2 Image below show, the arrangement from UMBC Library. The arrangement is
different from The Library of Congress because this arrangement is organized by stating how
many series it has. The number of series is depending on users searching for.

Image 2

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3.0 Title Page
This is the beginning of the finding aids for The Library of Congress. It shown the
name of the archival repository which is Manuscript Division, Library of Congress
Washington, D.C. Next is the title of the collection, W. Somerset Maugham Papers A Finding
Aid to the Collection in the Library of Congress. The finding aid creation information is
prepared by Harris Heiss, revised by Margaret McAleer and the latest revision is on April 2010.
Lastly, for the date range of materials is from the year 1897 to 1966.

Image 3

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4.0 Scope and Content
In this section, the finding aids provides an overview of the types of materials that
users have searching for in the collection.

Image 4

5.0 Collection Summary

5.1 For this section which collection summary or summary information, it listed all of
the summary about the materials that users have been searching for. For finding aids in The
Library of Congress, their collection summary starts with title, span dates, bulk dates, ID
Number, creator, extents, language, location, finding aid permalink, LCCN Permalink and
summary. For collections without online finding aids, there will be lines on the catalogue
description that will provide a reference to help the users find the paper version in the library.

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 Image 5

5.2 Image below shown, the descriptive summary for the materials that the users have
searching for. For UMBC Library, the descriptive summary has abstract for the material and
it is different from The Library of Congress descriptive summary. The function of the abstract
is to give a brief description of the collection content.

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6.0 Access and use
6.1 This is access and use from UMBC Library. Usually if there any restrictions placed
on an archival collection that prevent users from accessing to it, the information will be stated
here. If the users have no problem on accessing it, the information will be stated “No
restrictions” just like in the image below. The users can continue their searching without having
an issue. In addition, there is another information in this section which is UMBC is the
copyright owner.

Image 6

7.0 Contents Listing

7.1 For this section, it is called contents listing or container list. This section will show
the users box-by-box, folder-by-folder list of materials stored in the collection. The details on
this section depending on what collection scope of users searching for and also depends on the
individual repository practices. Images below shown the example of a numerous listing of
series that related from what users looking for.

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Image 7

Image 8

Image 9

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Image 10

Image 11

Image 12

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Conclusion

Overall, the existence of finding aids in retrieval tools is very helpful for the researcher
to retrieve an information. These finding aids also make it easier for researchers to determine
if the records in the collection or fonds hold information that is significant to their research. If
the finding aids did not exist or invented at the first place, our journey will be very difficult for
us to find an information that related because we do not know where to start to find our source
information. The existence of finding aids also help all the librarians to arrange all of the
information whether the old or the newest collection of catalogues. However, there are still
many people out there especially university student does not know how to use finding aids
correctly because they are not exposed to such information. Maybe some of the student know
how to use finding aids because some of them are from library management courses.

I hope this such information especially finding aids could be known all the people on
how to use it so that they can retrieve any information easily.

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References
Echem, M. (2018). Information Retrieval Tools and Library Physical Environments as
Correlate of Library Utilization by Students in River State University Library, Nigeria.
Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal), 1-5.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/1772

Finding Aid Type. (2016, August 15). National Archives. Retrieved May 8, 2022, from

https://www.archives.gov/research/catalog/lcdrg/elements/findingtype.html

Jansen,B.J. and Pooch,2000. A review of web seacrhing and a framework fo future reseacrh.
Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 52(3): 236-246

Library of Congress Finding Aids: Search/Browse. (2022). The Library of Congress.

Retrieved May 11, 2022, from https://findingaids.loc.gov/

Research Guides: Archival Research: Archives & Finding Aids. (2022, April 28). Mina Reels
Library. Retrieved May 9, 2022, from
https://libguides.gc.cuny.edu/c.php?g=169626&p=1172479#s-lg-box-wrapper-
4179991

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