Methods of Organization: Case Study

Methods of Organization

There are almost always several ways to organize a collection of items. A photo collection could be organized chronologically; by event (e.g. birthdays, vacations, etc.); or by subject (e.g. trips in one folder on your computer, family pet in another). The most important consideration in organizing a collection is the use to which it will be put and who will use it. Consider the factors that will come to mind when looking for a photo in the collection: will you think of the date it was taken, the event occurring when the photo was taken, the person in the photo, or the format of the photo (black and white, colour, print, digital, etc.)?  Knowing how you will think of the photos helps in deciding how you should arrange them.

In general, there are two broad approaches to finding items. Users either know the item they are seeking, or they will want to browse similar groups of items to make a choice.

If you were organizing your music files, you could arrange all works alphabetically by title. This method would make it difficult to browse by singer or group or by type of music. If you organized alphabetically by group or singer you could solve part of this dilemma but you would still not be able to browse by type of music. You could arrange by type of music first then alphabetically by group or singer within each type.

No one method works completely. Depending upon the goals of the collection, some methods work better than others. All collections, large or small, require some form of organization to facilitate retrieval of individual, known items and browsing for other items.

The library profession uses several methods of organization. These methods have evolved over time but it can be said that the most effective means of organizing physical information resources on the shelves is by subject. In libraries, materials are arranged so items on the same subject are housed together in a sequence most beneficial to the user, i.e. from general to specific. In other words, all the books on gardening are grouped together in a sequence which begins with general gardening books and moves along to more specific topics such as growing particular plants or using particular gardening techniques.

Organizing library collections, because of the volume of material, calls for more than just grouping items by topic. It has to be a much more structured, formal operation referred to as classification. The three main purposes of library classification are:

1. To organize material in a known and logical order, thus facilitating retrieval;

2. To bring together materials on the same subject so that material is housed and used together with related material located nearby (which makes browsing possible);

3. To provide each classified item with an "address" or location symbol so that it can be found and replaced quickly and easily.

The subject classification schemes used in libraries facilitate the retrieval of individual, known items and permit browsing. There are several different library classification schemes used today. In this course you will learn about the two most widely used systems:  Dewey Decimal Classification Scheme (DDC) and the Library of Congress Classification Scheme (LCC). Both schemes were developed in the United States at around the same time - DDC in the late nineteenth century and LCC in the early part of the twentieth century. Both schemes tend to have an American perspective and reflect that time period's view of the world. Both are updated constantly to reflect new knowledge and changing social values. Both arrange materials according to subject and employ a "notation" to translate the subject content of an item into a short hand or code that determines the location of the item in the collection. Both provide detailed instructions for building the short hand symbols.