The Discipline of Organizing

Organizing is such a common activity that we often do it without thinking much aboutit. In our daily lives we organize physical things--books on shelves, cutlery in kitchendrawers--and digital things--Web pages, MP3 files, scientific datasets. Millions of people createand browse Web sites, blog, tag, tweet, and upload and download content of all media types withoutthinking "I'm organizing now" or "I'm retrieving now."

Thisbook offers a framework for the theory and practice of organizing that integrates informationorganization (IO) and information retrieval (IR), bridging the disciplinary chasms between Libraryand Information Science and Computer Science, each of which views and teaches IO and IR as separatetopics and in substantially different ways. It introduces the unifying concept of an OrganizingSystem--an intentionally arranged collection of resources and the interactions theysupport--and then explains the key concepts and challenges in the design and deployment ofOrganizing Systems in many domains, including libraries, museums, business information systems,personal information management, and social computing. Intended for classroom use or as aprofessional reference, the book covers the activities common to all organizing systems: identifyingresources to be organized; organizing resources by describing and classifying them; designingresource-based interactions; and maintaining resources and organization over time. The book isextensively annotated with disciplinary-specific notes to ground it with relevant concepts andreferences of library science, computing, cognitive science, law, and business.