The Interact2 site for my next subject, ETL505 was released today. So far, I have read the schedule and ordered the text book. I thought it might be instructive to record my initial thoughts about this subject before doing any reading or study, so that I might reflect and ruminate on my learning and how my understanding has changes over time.

This subject is about organising information and organising information resources such that someone who needs to use them will be able and likely to find them. This would, I think, have to do not only with physically locating a resource that is already known to the information seeker, but also to discovering of resources previously unknown, and determining their potential use and value to the users current information search. I hope that we shall learn about cataloging and the creation of bibliographic data. In my school library, Library management systems, such as Oliver, use the bibliographic information supplied by SCIS to create the catalog records that users search. But how do SCIS create those records? Sometimes, I change certain elements on the individual copies to enhance how I think my school community might locate and use the resource. For example, fairy tales often download as Junior Fiction, but in my library they are stored in Non-Fiction classified at 398.2 (folk and fairy tales) as most of the people who want them are not looking for a specific edition by a specific author, rather a more general need for the story, perhaps as part of a unit of work for the junior students. I hope that this subject will include some discussion of the impact of various choices when producing bibliographic data and perhaps how those choices enhance the ability and likelihood that they will be found and used.