Discussion 1

Briefly summarize & give your opinion of one of the following:

Levy, David M. (1995). "Cataloging in the digital order." In Digital Libraries '95: The
Second Annual Conference on the Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries, June 11-13, 1995,
Austin, Texas. Available: http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/DL95/papers/levy/levy.html (Links to
an external site.) (Even though there is some dated information in this article, his
discussion and points are still valid)
Coyle, K. (2010). "Library data in a modern context." In Understanding the semantic web:
bibliographic data and metadata. Chapter 1 (pp. 5-13). Library Technology Reports.
Taylor & Joudrey. The Organization of Information Chapters 1-3 (pp. 1-87) - just choose
one chapter or topic that interests you and write on that; you don't have to summarize all 3
chapters
Chapter 3: Development of the Organization of Recorded Information Western Civilization
This Chapter takes us back in time to the origins of how information was organized in the old
world, how it developed, how it influenced organization of recorded information in western
civilization, and in modern day society. Starting in antiquity, Callimachus is thought to be the 1st
cataloger, for he grouped books together according to their genre. Within a section of said genre,
books could appear by their author in either chronological or alphabetical order; which is the
reason why in western civilization our main entry usually consist of the author.
During the Middle Ages monks served as the manufacturers and keepers of books. For this
reason, they kept a list of their books as a form of inventory with an attached description of the
condition of the book to it. This was followed by a milestone in the history of catalogs,
Registrum Librorum Angliae. Developed by someone whose identity is unknown, the registrum
served as a form of greater classification where each English Monastery Library was assigned a
number for coding purposes. Although the Registrum was never finished, it is important to
recognize the gallant attempt to categorize information on a greater scale. Which I believe to be
directly correlated to modern societys overabundance of data and information, and our
responsibility as catalogers to further categorized such information on a greater scale.
I my opinion, it was during the European Renaissance where advancement in the field of
organization of information really took place. It is here where we saw the first designated catalog
which was divided into three sections: a call number, content of each volume, and analytical
entry. These forms of classifying information are still used today in modern society and we will
probably continue to use them in the future, but with modifications/adaptations to whatever
technological advances the future holds for us.