Module4

My thoughts from the lecture

By listening to the lecture, I realized how information needs keep changing into different style. I also watched the video from the New York Times, The 21^st Century Librarian. It was very encouraging! Ms. Rosalia said that where she was in an information desert, the students in the 21^st century are in the information ocean, and they are drowning information. I was inspired by her that she expressed how important schools librarians are in order to educate students to become fluent in this modern age.

From the textbook

1.       Weinberger writes at some length regarding the work of Carolus Linnaeus and the organization of biological information. Much like the Dewey Decimal System, Linnaean classification was a very important development in the organization of knowledge, but also inherently flawed because of the knowledge context in which it was created, i.e., prior to the work of Darwin. Post your thoughts to your blog.

On page 73, Weinberger says “Linnaues didn’t think he could resolve such questions finally because he could not read God’s mind…. Linnaeus came up with a highly efficient and orderly way of naming and organizing species, so scientists could agree on what species they were talking about, a condition for scientific progress.”

As it was mentioned previous modules, organizing information sometimes can be against nature. Linnaues is a person who studied and sought how information can be organized through his life and he thought he could not resolve such questions. I was surprised to know that and thought it means a lot. Even though Linnaen classification did not work out well, I agree that it led the organization of knowledge for better. I am sure that every time different kind of classifications was created, there is always something we can learn from them, and combine with other classifications to make a better one.

2.       Weinberger presents Ranganathan as the equivalent of Darwin for Dewey. What are your thoughts, impressions, comments regarding Ranganathan's Five Laws and his Colon Classification System? Post your thoughts to your blog.

I am not sure if Ranganathan is like Darwin of Dewey. The Colon Classification System is hard for me to understand. But I think his Five Laws are very significant. I believe that they are still the fundamental laws in today’s libraries.