Organizing Knowledge is clearly written and richly illustrated with examples. Visual learners will appreciate the charts and graphics that augment the text. Chapter objectives and summaries are included, as well as references and further reading. This text is written as an overview to structuring and disseminating knowledge. The intended audience is undergraduate and postgraduate students of information management. With that view, each chapter also includes review questions. A list of figures in the front of the text provides an excellent finding aid to these illustrations. A list of acronyms and abbreviations is also included. This is a text that would benefit from an online component. A full bibliography could be included with links to further readings. Suggested readings from the user community could be welcomed. Discussions would easily grow around many of the topics.
Organizing Knowledge is in its fourth edition for good reason. The technology and systems surrounding the topic continue to evolve. Those who have used past editions will find expanded and new content in:
ontologies and taxonomies;
information behavior;
systems contexts, including digital libraries and content management systems;
markup, metadata, interoperability and the semantic web;
evaluation of information retrieval systems;
authentication and security;
project management; and
managing change.
The internet and its applications are no longer broken out in a separate chapter. Rather, the topics are addressed throughout the text. The book includes three parts with a total of 12 chapters. Part one addresses the structure and description of knowledge. Part two is the heart of the text and includes five chapters addressing access. Part three takes a broader view of organizing knowledge with coverage of organization systems and management issues.
Managers who need to oversee departments and projects as well as directors who need to provide strategy, planning and direction for library resources will find Organizing Knowledge valuable. Individual chapters can easily be used as units for specific needs. For example, chapter 12 is the “Management of knowledge systems” and includes a solid section on the management of change and project management. Both systems and people are discussed in regards to change. A chart illustrating the summary of stages in system analysis and design provides a roadmap for project management. Each stage includes purpose, inputs, process and output. Management tools such as the Balanced Scorecard and Six Sigma are not mentioned. While these are more general tools that have applications throughout the organization, mention of them in the further reading section could be useful for managers as well as students who want to have a deeper understanding of planning and analysis tools.
For those who pursue more general business reading, this text would make an interesting companion to Everything is Miscellaneous: The {ower of the New Digital Disorder by David Weinberger. Weinberger discusses the organization of information and its limitations, as well as its traditional strengths. Folksonomies are addressed in both books. Tagging and metadata are major topics, and a chapter is devoted to libraries. Managers looking to the future would do well to keep copies of both Organizing Knowledge and Everything is Miscellaneous on their shelves.
