Finding

Last week was a busy one for me in the world of information science.  At work, I began a project that involves designing a SharePoint library for the university’s policy documents.  I’ve been reading up on the search and taxonomy capabilities of SharePoint, while trying to get my site management sea legs.  SharePoint offers a lot of customizable views and search filters that should appeal to a lot of our users.

Also, I finally got Peter Morville’s book, Ambient Findability, from the library last week.  Ever since I discovered his blog called Findability.org, I’ve been meaning to see what he has to say about web navigation in the world of information overload.  Morville’s ideas are bounded by Moore’s Law, which acurately predicted an exponential explosion in electronic processing power, as well as Mooer’s law, which states that “an information retrieval system will tend not to be used whenever it is more painful and troublesome for a customer to have information than for him not to have it.”  Given the reality of both laws, Morville describes the various ways that we navigate the online world (which he also explains is becoming increasingly intermingled–or, as he says “intertwingled”–with the physical world) and find the information that we need.  So far, I haven’t encountered much in the way of concrete design or navigation solutions, but then again, I have a couple chapters left to go.

I also decided to check out the lastest developments in the Library of Congress’ upcoming adoption of RDA (stands for Resource Description and Access, the new cataloging rules that are slated to replace AACR2).  Apparently, LOC, the National Library of Medicine and the National Agricultural Library are recommending that RDA be more extensively reviewed and studied before it is adopted.  Hmmm.  I must admit that I haven’t had a chance to look over the proposed RDA rules yet.  Another something, something to add to my list.