Review of The Intellectual Foundation of Information   Organization

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	Issues in Science and Technology   Librarianship
	Summer 2000

	DOI:10.5062/F4445JF2



      

    Book Reviews
    The Intellectual Foundation of Information   Organization
      Flora Shrode
  University of Tennessee Libraries
  University of Tennessee, Knoxville
shrode@aztec.lib.utk.edu  
    


     

  The Intellectual Foundation of Information Organization.  Elaine Svenonius. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000. 255 pp. ISBN 0-262-19433-3.   $37.00 cloth.  

    In The Intellectual Foundation of Information Organization Elaine  Svenonius demonstrates how modern challenges of managing digital information relate  to long established views about how to characterize information and make it  accessible. By first examining what constitutes principles and objectives within  this field, Svenonius shows how they relate to techniques. She presents a  conceptual view of organizing information rather than focusing on procedures  followed in specific approaches. The text explores theoretical foundations of  organizational systems and investigates them from a holistic point-of-view in an  effort to explain how many approaches share common goals. 

    "Cataloging" is a deceptively easy label that summarizes what we mean by organizing  intellectual information intelligently. In some sense this book is about  cataloging, but it goes beyond what that might imply to delve into early  discussions of what information organizers should try to accomplish and to show how  historical efforts relate to organizing digital information. Svenonius discusses  bibliographic languages for works, documents, and subjects and their associated  vocabularies, semantics, and syntactical elements. Perennial problems that arise  in attempting to establish standards or to set rules for how to identify, describe,  and encode the descriptions have been addressed in a variety of ways over time, and  Svenonius shows how past analyses inform current efforts. The text revisits  fundamental questions that drive the establishment of objectives and rules for  indexing and cataloging, exploring the implications in the digital information  age.

    The book's title connotes thoughts of the lofty goal of organizing the universe of  information for easy access. This goal fuels most libraries, the librarians who  organize and work in them, and even the idea of the World Wide Web. In addition to  information science students and practitioners, The Intellectual Foundation  of Information Organization is worthwhile reading for anyone interested in  organizing information in any form. It presents a concise review of the history of  indexing systems, putting them in the context of current trends toward global  access to digital information. Svenonius, Professor Emeritus of Library and  Information Science at the University of California, Los Angeles, surveys the  history behind principles that contributed to the establishment of cataloging  practices around the world. She interweaves historical events, the emergence of  theories about how to identify all components of the bibliographic universe, and  the growth of various schools of thought about what purposes catalogs should serve.   The book is well documented with end notes and a bibliography that reflect the  author's extensive knowledge and career-long study and contributions to scholarship  in cataloging and access. Dr. Svenonius purposefully writes in an accessible style,  explains specialized terminology, and avoids relying on jargon that could burden  the text and make it difficult to comprehend. The Intellectual Foundation of  Information Organization is easy to read in spite of the complexity of  concepts it presents. It belongs in academic libraries, especially in institutions  that offer degrees and support research in library and information science.

      

  

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