LIBR 247-01
LIBR 247-10
Vocabulary Design
Fall 2005

mailing address:
Professor Judy Weedman
San Jose State University - SLIS
800 No. State College
P.O.Box 4150
Fullerton, California 92834-4150

Dr. Judy Weedman
E-mail
(714) 278-2295
(714) 278-5841 (fax)

Office hours:
chatroom, telephone, f2f (PLS 55)
Wednesday 1:30-3:00
Thursday 1:30-3:00
and by appointment


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Schedule

Vocabularies

Readings

Thesaurus

APA Resources

SLIS Blackboard Home

SLIS Blackboard Tutorials

 

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Textbooks | Course Requirements

Blackboard will be used to a limited extent. Please do not try to enroll in the Blackboard class until after the first actual class meeting.

Course Description

Principles and practices for the creation of subject vocabularies for the organization and retrieval of information-bearing objects.

This class is useful for individuals who need to design access systems where standard classification and subject heading systems such as Dewey, LCCS, LCSH, or Sears are not appropriate; special purpose collections, intranet's, and e-commerce are three examples of settings where vocabulary design is a valuable professional skill.

Course Goals and Objectives

Upon completion, the student will…

  • Understand principles of vocabulary creation and term assignment, and know the theory and practice which underlie them
  • Understand similarities and differences in vocabulary control for both analog and digital formats
  • Be able to create structurally correct controlled vocabularies based on user and client requirements
  • Be able to assign vocabulary terms for optimal information retrieval, in accordance with relevant editorial policies
  • Be able to evaluate vocabularies
  • Understand the use of metadata in providing subject access to digital materials
  • Be aware of current research and future directions in indexing

The course objectives support the following SLIS objectives:

  • Teaching the major theories, important principles, and current practice in the areas of: information management … and …. the application of diverse technologies to information management
  • Requiring students to evaluate and utilize relevant research studies from a variety of disciplines in their coursework.

Textbooks

Required Textbooks
The textbooks for this course are:

  1. Lancaster, F. W. (2003). Indexing and Abstracting in Theory and Practice, 3rd ed. University of Illinois, Graduate School of Library and Information Science.

    Order directly from the publisher. Price is $57.50, plus $3.00 for shipping and handling. All orders must be prepaid. They will accept a check (payable to the University of Illinois) or credit card.

    (217) 333-1359
    (217) 244-7329 FAX
     
    GSLIS Publications Office
    University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
    501 E. Daniel Street
    Champaign , IL 61820

    http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/puboff/
    puboff(at)alexia(dot)lis(dot)uiuc(dot)edu
  2. Indexes: A Chapter from The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Ed. (1993). Chicago:   University of Chicago Press.

    Order through amazon.com or other online vendor. Costs $8.00.
  3. ANSI/NISO Z39.19 - 1993. Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of Monolingual Thesauri. Download PDF files from: http://www.niso.org/standards/index.html

Recommended Textbooks
Baca, Murtha (Ed.) (2002). Art Image Access: Issues, Tools, Standards, Strategies. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute. (If you’re at all interested in vocabularies for art – or for images more generally – this is a great overview.)

Bowker, Geoffrey C. and S. Leigh Starr (1999). Sorting Things Out; Classification & Its Consequences. MIT Press. (The book is available from amazon.com for $13.97.)   Not a practical how-to-do-it book, but a sociological look at how we categorize things and why it matters.

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Course Requirements

Note Regarding E-mail Attachments
You may be required to send and receive e-mail attachments of a moderately large size (1MB - 8MB). If your current e-mail service provider places restrictions on the size of attachments that you can send or receive, then you will need to obtain an e-mail account without such restrictions.

As an SLIS student, you may request an e-mail account on the SLIS e-mail server. If you encounter problems with sending or receiving large attachments through your current e-mail account, it is recommended that you do so.

Reasonable Accommodation of Disabilities
Students who need accommodation due to a disability must register with SJSU's Disability Resource Center (DRC) during the first three weeks of the semester. The Center will work with the students to determine the disability, document it, and determine the services and accommodations necessary for student success. Then, the DRC will contact the faculty member to determine the types of consideration necessary.

Students attending the Fullerton campus should first contact the Disability Resource Center in San José since they are SJSU students. The DRC will then direct the students to supporting resources on the Fullerton campus.

The DRC Web site: http://www.drc.sjsu.edu/

If there is emergency medical information I should be aware of, or if you need special arrangement in case the building must be evacuated, please make an appointment with me as soon as possible, or contact me by e-mail or during office hours.

Blackboard
Blackboard will be used to a limited extent. Please do not try to enroll in the Blackboard class until after the first actual class meeting.

Grading
The grade of B reflects high quality work commensurate with expectations for graduate students. The following grade scale will be used:

97-100% A
94-96 % A-
91-93 % B+
88-90% B
85-87% B-
83-84% C+
80-82% C

Assignments
The assignments for this course are listed below with their corresponding point values:

1. Conceptual analysis and translation 50
2. Vocabulary discovery
(required but ungraded; presented in class)
 
3. Journal Indexing 150
4. Site study
(required but ungraded; presented in class)
 
5. Individual document indexes; back-of-the-book or Web site 200
6. Vocabulary Design 1 300
7. Vocabulary Design 2 300
Total points possible: 1,000

Plagiarism
All assignments submitted must be your own work. Sources must be properly cited in papers as specified in class. The San José State University regulations governing plagiarism will be enforced. Those regulations may be found at:

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