描述信息管理的澳洲essay

从最早的时候开始,信息管理实践便已经适应了好几个世纪的发展和信息创造增长及为人所利用。在信息管理实践中,特别是在上下文的信息存储和检索是在信息学习领域中被学者讨论的最常见的话题。这对组织和管理信息系统化很重要,他可以被使用,并确保信息在人类生活水平中的相关性。
 

正确的方法和系统可以应用到存储和检索信息的过程中,应该可以被用于研究实现成功管理信息的目标。Korfhage, R (1997) 说,在设计一个有效的信息检索系统的过程中,重要的是要理解系统的组件和系统可以使用的方法。检索系统设计和评价的类型包括正式的建模、分析研究、模拟和用户测试。常见信息检索系统的基础是系统中匹配的文档和查询效率。系统中文件在词汇层面的准备情况,确定了在匹配查询之前文档中单词和短语的数量。语言、务实和探索技术被用来确定涉及一些需要通过用户查询信息的文档的意义。

 

The information management    
 

From earliest time, the information management practices have been adapted for centuries along with the development and growth of information created and utilized by people. The practices in information management, especially in the context of information storage and retrieval is the most common subject that being discussed by scholars in the field of information studies along the years. It is important to organize and manage information systematically so it can be use and ensuring the level of information relevancy in human life.

 

The right method and system that can be apply into the process of storing and retrieving information should be studied so it can be use to achieve the goal of successfully manage information. Korfhage, R (1997) said, in designing an effective information retrieval system, it is important to understand the components of the systems and the methods that can be use with the system. Types of retrieval system design and evaluation include formal modeling, analytical studies, simulations and user tests. Common basis for information retrieval systems is matching documents in the system and queries efficiently. Documents in the system are prepared at the lexical level, determining the number of words and phrases in a document before it can match to the query presented. The linguistic, pragmatic and heuristic techniques were used to determine the significance of a document in relation to the information need presented through the query given by the user.

Korfhage, R (1997) also discussed about the concept of a document, which includes formally and informally data records from printed books and papers and informal printed data such as messages and letters. He also differentiates the concept of document and query but they are equal as they were both used in the information storage and retrieval process. In his writings, Korfhage defines the documents as surrogate document where it is a representative to the actual document. It was stated that information retrieval focuses how to generate and evaluate document surrogates in response to information need. Document surrogate or surrogate record can be seen as a linkage to the full documents. It identifies and provides means of linking user to the actual records. It provides little information about the actual documents or records. As an example, it bears title, abstract and other information about the materials other than the full version of it. The usage of document surrogate can enhance the effectiveness and efficiency in the process of information retrieval and storage.

 

Surrogate Records: Now and Then.

 

Information storage and retrieval has been based on classifying or indexing and other bibliographic method. It is also in creating and searching of surrogate for a document. These are the information retrieval process before 1950 as stated by Meadows (1999) in his paper. The creations of surrogate record become much abundant as the information works grow. Literature becoming more absolute in every fields of knowledge and the information management becoming more sophisticated eventually. Based on this situation, various kind of tools were created since the time where man created information and used them in their daily life. These tools are used to ensure the retrieval and storage process become more easier and faster. It is important element in managing information and every sources o it need to be organize and manage systematically.

 

Information storage and retrieval usually related with an entity where all these information are being kept. Traditionally, all information that was published will be kept in library and other places depend on type of materials that they bears. Some are stored in museum and archive. Published literature such as books, journals, magazine and other materials is growing everyday and this is an indicator that reflects the needs of managing it wisely. As stated, management of information main objective is to ensure all information are easily store and above all, it can be easily retrieved by people who needs it. This is where surrogate record play its role. This is how surrogate record emerge and developed from one type at first in it development into various kind of method as time passing by. According to Meadow, (1999) as cited from the writing of Kramer, 1963 and Johnson (1970), mechanical aid (catalogue records), to information retrieval first appeared when the first library catalogues were created, some say in Sumer four millennia ago, some say in Greece merely two millennia ago. These catalogues were basically lists of book titles or broad subject categories.

 

Catalogue record evolved even better in the early 19th century where it came in form of a card. Many issues and restriction on the usage of book catalogue such as in term of space for storage and difficulties to update the information of the records in book catalogue forced libraries during that time to develop a catalogue records in a form of card. Meadow, (1999) described that catalogue card allowed for more than one entry point or search key. It was easy to update but, of course, there would normally be only one copy of it; the user had to come to the central location. As usually, every new invention has it own weaknesses. Each development in the creation of surrogate records are based on the development and growth of collection stored in libraries. The evolution of forms of surrogate records also influenced by the development and emergence of new technology especially in information technology such as computer and internet.

 

Before the era of computer, information storage and retrieval process were done manually and traditionally as stated above. Book and card catalogue was used to manage and organize all materials so it can be easily retrieve by user. As collection grows, and libraries become more open, these methods are no longer relevant to be applied. New approach to tackle new development in the field of information storing and retrieving were developed and invented inline with certain issues and new trends in information management.

 

Globalization is a term that all information-related individuals must aware of. Either he or she works, study and teach in the information field, managing collection in libraries or archive, everybody must know how to suite and adapt into that kind of situation. The emergence of internet has fastened the process of globalization. In the globalization era, information are shared and being accessed from and to any location around the world. We are no longer bound by the wall of traditional libraries in retrieving and storing information. Access to information is now become unlimited and also the creation of information is increasing. This requires new measures especially in the process of storage and retrieval of information. Resources are now not only tied up in form of printed but also electronic resources have also existed as the result of rapid technology growth. This requires new form of management for this kind of resources. In an electronic environment, resources storage are known as databases. Database as defines in Dictionary for Library and Information Science (2004), a database is a collection of information that is organized so that it can easily be accessed, managed, and updated. In one view, databases can be classified according to types of content: bibliographic, full-text, numeric, and images. Centralized and decentralized databases are being access and the developers used I to store and then retrieve information from it.

 

Robinson, (2004) in her literature review, stated, the world of remote access electronic resources is an ever-expanding and rapidly changing ocean of knowledge. Within this ocean, waves of information technology continually create challenges for the description of new types and formats of electronic resources. Catalogers need to be able to describe precisely the characteristics of these resources, as well as how they are packaged and delivered to users. The development of international and national cataloging guidelines for the description of remote access electronic resources has been slow. The complexity and variety of electronic resources seems to daunt catalogers more than the complexity and variety of print resources. Remote access electronic resources in particular are often treated as indescribable aliens in the realm of bibliographic description.

 

Standardization Plays Its Role

 

At first, the creation of surrogate records were bound by the creators' own usage. It was to eased the process of storage and retrieval of information in his or her own environment. But, as the information and literature grows, the role of surrogate record also grow inline with the development and changes in the information technology. The invention of database and internet have gave a deep impact on the development of surrogate record and its concept in information storage and retrieval.#p#分页标题#e#

 

As the result from the information sharing and globalization of resources, several standards for the creation of surrogate record were made and established. Standardization is very crucial in every aspects of human life. It is an important entity in the field of information storage and retrieval. Coetzee (2004), defines standard as something that, through authority, use or universal agreement, serves as example or model that can be followed and against which quantity, weight, extent or quality can be measured or evaluated. Standards usually go through a number of stages before they are finally accepted and becomes official. If formally ratified by an officially recognized body, it becomes a de jure standard, but if it is only widely implemented in practice, it is a de facto standard. She also stated that standards provide a unified structure, a statement of minimum expectations and guidelines to determine when absolute uniformity in execution is essential and when it is not. A standard is ignored when it is perceived as either unnecessary, or as too difficult or costly to implement. It is important to have standard in the process of creation of surrogate record for the information storing and to be used during the process of retrieval of particular information.

 

There are various kind of surrogate records that its function is to lead users to the actual records or documents. These surrogate records are created based on special standards that are recognized by information practitioner around the world. It is used in libraries, museums and even in electronic environment. One example of surrogate records that being used in the information environment Is Bibliographic records. Cataloguing records for example, consist of many kind and forms. Comes in a form of printed format and machine-readable format. Both formats have their own standard in constructing it. Bibliographic standard play an important roles within both environment. Coetzee (2004) once again cleared bibliographic standards are standards aimed at consistency and uniformity of practice in the creation of bibliographic records. Standards which are applied to achieve bibliographic control are based on the principles of adequate identification, search ability and consistency so that no two different documents can be confused with each other, the description of a given document can be accessed by any data element or access point. It is also important so it can be judged by the cataloguer to be relevant to users the many details comprising a description and presented in a uniform manner so that they can be interpreted without unnecessary ambiguity.

 

Globalization of Surrogate Records: The Beginning

 

According to Thomas (1996), after World War II, the publication output increased enormously and libraries could no longer acquire and process everything in a timely fashion. The Library of Congress launched its Shared Cataloging Program, to spread the load of cataloguing in stead of attempting to catalogue everything themselves as before. Records created by other libraries working to good standards, could be accepted as they stood. This idea was also accepted by IFLA for its programme for Universal Bibliographic Control (UBC). If all countries compiled national bibliographies it would be possible to locate all information, no matter where it was produced or in what language, with obvious advantages, especially for research. An increased awareness of the importance of standards and the quite amazing degree of agreement reached in 1961 at the International Conference on Cataloguing Principles, where a set of principles were agreed upon, also paved the way for international cooperation and the development of new standards to make this possible. Before this, each library worked according to its own standards, but in the bigger picture of international cooperation, this was no longer feasible. A number of new initiatives followed after this conference. It led to the 1967 edition of AACR, dealing mainly with access points. In 1969 the International Meeting of Cataloguing Experts met to formulate an international framework for the description of books. A number of national bibliographies were compared to establish differences and similarities between countries. It was realised that the similarities were much more than the differences. It took only three years to complete the ISBD (M), and others for other kinds of material soon followed. In order to prevent divergence between the ISBD's, a general framework, the ISBD (G) was published in 1977. The underlying principle of the ISBD's was that the national agency of each country would create an authoritative description for works published in it own country, which would then be available to other countries for copying and adding their own access points. The prescribed punctuation would ensure that areas in the description and elements in the areas would be recognizable even in other languages.

 

From the Traditional Towards the Electronic Environment

 

The world is rapidly changing especially on the rising of new technology. Changes are felt in every aspect of human life. The world of information also never been left behind and they are directly affects by these developments. It is a shift that information environment needs to coupe with. Information management atmosphere are rapidly changing in line with the advance achievement in human technology. It has influence not only the process of information but also its standard. Once, people were using traditional tools such as card catalogue or any kind of bibliographic records in printed format. Nowadays, as the result of emerging new technology such as computer and the internet, this has changed everything. Bibliographic records are evolving from printed format into electronic format and so are their standards.

 

Coetzee (2004) explained that probably the most important factor bringing about changes in the cataloguing environment was the increasing use of computers in libraries. Many libraries developed their own computerized systems, custom made for their own purposes, which worked well, but when libraries researched the possibility of exchanging bibliographic records and other forms of cooperation, it became clear that standardization was essential to achieve this successfully. Computers need standards for electronic storage and transmission, and for formats within which the data is recorded and to some extent for the data content itself. The computer has become the primary communication device, also on the information scene. She also stated that the development of MARC formats by the Library of Congress and the British Library in the late sixties opened the possibility of increased cooperation among libraries. In the early seventies, there was a proliferation of MARC formats, differing considerably. The ideal of international cooperation was therefore limited, because conversion programs were needed to transfer data from one format to another. In the early eighties IFLA developed UNIMARC as a universal standard on which new formats could be based, to achieve optimal compatibility. USMARC was however too well established by this time and networks with huge databases created in the United States, were all based on USMARC. Although member libraries of networks all use the same standards, many variations in interpretation and application still occur causing many duplicate records to be created, affecting optimal retrieval. UNIMARC is used extensively in Europe, but the availability of millions of records in USMARC makes it more profitable for libraries to use USMARC, or MARC21, as the harmonized USMARC and CANMARC became known.

 

The Importance of Standard

 

The most important advantage must be saving of time and money, reducing the cost of bibliographic work by using each other's records interchangeably or acquiring records produced centrally. This requires that libraries use a common set of standards and follow a common set of procedures to develop consistent structure in their catalogues. Standard records can be use without change or adjustment. Cooperative uses of bibliographic records demand standardization and make the multiple use of the same bibliographic record by different institutions and for different purposes in the same library possible. It also increases the quality of cataloguing, because standardization is a prerequisite of quality control. Standards promote universal bibliographic control and this in its turn, makes resource sharing possible, because of the possibility of compiling joint or union catalogues, enhances both the availability of cataloguing copy and efficient use of interlibrary loans. The bibliographic structure leading a user to information must be sound. The user can then expect that the transition of one file or database to another will be transparent, meaning that all can be searched in essentially the same way. Bibliographic standards give searchers a sense of familiarity. Standards make better provision of service possible because most other bibliographic resources such as bibliographies are also compiled according to the same standards. It also leads to optimum retrieval from any catalogue.

 

Type of Bibliographic Standards

 

Technical standards

 

Specifications or technical standards should be followed closely in order to ensure compatibility. Examples are:

 

Standards for the exchange of machine readable bibliographic records (ISO 2709 : 1996).

Codes for the presentation of the names of countries (ISO 3166:1993)

Standards on specifications for the title leaves of books, presentation of title information of series, etc. It would also help cataloguers if publishers followed these standards.#p#分页标题#e#

 

Item identifiers

 

These standards help to identify items by using unique numbers. Examples are:

 

International Standard Book Number (ISBN)

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

International Standard Audiovisual number (ISAN)

 

Format standards

 

These standards make it possible for computers to process and manipulate bibliographic data and are essential for the exchange of records and other data. Examples are:

 

MARC21

UNIMARC

 

Data content standards

 

These standards aim at ensuring consistency of practice in the creation of bibliographic records. Their application requires understanding and good judgement. Unfortunately the existence of these standards does not guarantee identical results. Examples are:

 

International Standard bibliographic Descriptions (ISBD's) which deals only with the descriptive part of bibliographic data and prescribes punctuation.

Anglo American cataloguing rules, 2nd ed. 1988 revision (AACR2R) which is continually updated and of which the first part consists of the ISBD's for all kinds of library material.

Library of Congress Subject Headings which is also continuously updated to include new concepts and terms

Dewey Decimal Classification of which the 22 nd edition is the latest. It is also kept up to date as far as possible.

 

Internet cataloguing standards

 

These standards aim at creating order on the Internet. An example is:

 

Dublin Core

 

Catalogue
 

Catalog, descriptive list, on cards or in a book, of the contents of a library. Assurbanipal's library at Nineveh was cataloged on shelves of slate. The first known subject catalog was compiled by Callimachus at the Alexandrian Library in the 3d cent. B.C. The library at Pergamum also had a catalog. Early in the 9th cent. A.D. the catalogs of the libraries of the monastery at Reichenau and of the abbey at Saint-Riquier, N France, included summaries of the works cataloged. In 1472 the monastic library at Clairvaux was recataloged and one of the earliest union catalogs was made-of the contents of 160 Franciscan monastery libraries in England. In 1475 the Vatican librarian, Platina, cataloged that library's 2,527 volumes. About 1660 Clement, librarian of the Biblioth que du Roi under Louis XIV, compiled a subject catalog and inventory of manuscripts. The printing of the British Museum catalog was begun by Panizzi as keeper (1837-56) of printed books. Charles A. Cutter devised the modern dictionary catalog (with)author, title, and subject arranged in one alphabet) for the Boston Athen um library. Melvil Dewey devised his decimal system in the 1870s; the system was widely applied in smaller libraries and many large ones. In 1901 the Library of Congress began the practice of printing its catalog entries on cards 3 by 5 in. (7.6 by 12.7 cm) and distributing them to other libraries for a small fee. The National Union Catalogue, begun in 1952 by the Library of Congress, collated the card catalog entries of the larger American libraries and printed the results in book form. The advent of the computer has dramatically expanded the ability of libraries to provide extensive bibliographic services. By consulting an electronic catalog, such as the WorldCat of the OCLC Online Computer Library Center, a person can access more than 35 million catalog records in some 25,000 libraries around the world.

 

Dublin Core

 

A set of meta-data descriptions about resources on the Internet. Used for resource discovery, it contains data elements such as title, creator, subject, description, date, type, format and so on. Dublin Core descriptions are often included in HTML meta tags. All Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) elements are presented in the following structure. Example of meta tag:

 

Name - label

 

ID - unique identifier (often same as name)

 

Version - DCMI version

 

Registration Authority - "DCMI"

 

Language - written language

 

Definition - explanation and concept

 

Obligation - must value be present?

 

Datatype - value type

 

Maximum Occurrence - limit to repeatability

 

Comment - remarks about its application

 

Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)
 

The Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) comprise a thesaurus (in the information technology sense) of subject headings, maintained by the United States Library of Congress, for use in bibliographic records. LC Subject Headings are an integral part of bibliographic control, which is the function by which libraries collect, organize and disseminate documents. LCSHs are applied to every item within a library's collection, and facilitate a user's access to items in the catalogue that pertain to similar subject matter. If users could only locate items by 'title' or other descriptive fields, such as 'author' or 'publisher', they would have to expend an enormous amount of time searching for items of related subject matter, and undoubtedly miss locating many items because of the ineffective and inefficient search capability.

 

Metadata

 

To ensure correct and proper use and interpretation of data, all users and owners of data should have a common understanding of the meaning or semantics of the data. To achieve this common understanding, a number of characteristics, or attributes of the data have to be defined, also known as metadata (ISO/IEC, 2003). Metadata is often defined as data about data (e.g., NISO, 2004; Duval 2001, Cabinet Office, 2006). It is "structured information that describes, explains, locates, or otherwise makes it easier to retrieve, use or manage an information resource" (NISO, 2004, p.1), especially in a distributed network environment like for example the internet or an organization (de Carvalho Moura et al., 1998). A good example of metadata is the cataloguing system found in libraries, which records for example the author, title, subject, and location on the shelf of a resource. Metadata is usually categorized in three types (Lambe, 2007; NISO, 2004; NISO, 2007):

 

Descriptive metadata describes an information resource for identification and retrieval through elements such as title, author, and abstract.

Structural metadata documents relationships within and among objects through elements such as links to other components (e.g., how pages are put together to form chapters).

Administrative metadata helps to manage information resources through elements such as version number, archiving date, and other technical information for purposes of file management, rights management and preservation.