Organizing Knowledge: An Introduction to Managing Access to Information

by Jennifer Rowley

The fourth edition of this standard student text, Organizing Knowledge, incorporates extensive revisions reflecting the increasing shift towards a networked and digital information environment, and its impact on documents, information, knowledge, users and managers. Offering a broad-based overview of the approaches and tools used in the structuring and dissemination of knowledge, it is written in an accessible style and well illustrated with figures and examples. The book has been structured into three parts and twelve chapters and has been thoroughly updated throughout. Part I discusses the nature, structuring and description of knowledge. Part II, with its five chapters, lies at the core of the book focusing as it does on access to information. Part III explores different types of knowledge organization systems and considers some of the management issues associated with such systems. Each chapter includes learning objectives, a chapter summary and a list of references for further reading. This is a key introductory text for undergraduate and postgraduate students of information management.

Genres: Nonfiction, School, Library Science, Textbooks, Reference, Grad School

392 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 1987

Reviews

[Charlotte]

a very useful guide to librarianing ( It's a word!)

[Vidu]

Read for GLIS 619: Info Behaviour and Resources

[Lindsay]

A well-written, well-organized textbook that serves its purpose. We actually used and read it in class.

[Benjamin Fasching-Gray]

I found myself thinking at each chapter, "oooh. That's the kind of work I *really* want to do." I found this much easier to get through than Introduction to Cataloging and Classification or Cataloging and Classification: An Introduction both of which I tried to read on my own, as opposed to this book which I read for a class.

By including chapters on user behavior, and context about how cataloging rules and norms developed, this book manages to take this driest of subjects and make it digestible. Also, the British-ness of it made for a more international focus, which I also appreciate.

[Danielle]

The information is great and very useful to me 3 years after I first read it. However it is not a book that is easy to digest. I had to read in chunks. I suggest marking passages and advice that you find important as you will come back to it at a later date.

[Kim]

Insanely dry and dense, making it quite hard to stick with.

[Jeffrey Babbitt]

It's not my favorite subject, and due to the nature of that subject, the book is a bit boring. But there is a little bit a dry humor that pokes its head up every now and then that helps to relieve the boredom.