I recently finished my 8th course in Library School, Content Representation. It was a truly excellent class. The readings were great, challenging and informative and the professor was superb. When you asked a question or introduced a topic, she was always able to provide more articles to read so that you can learn more about the topic.
The assignments were quite interesting as well. The major deliverable was a prototype mini-thesaurus and there was also a group project which involved indexing images that are currently held at the Free Library of Philadelphia. There were also two papers assigned to discuss the indexing process and the group process in which we set parameters and agreed on consensus indexing terms.
I found the projects fascinating, particularly the group one that involved agreeing on our indexing terms. It was a fairly difficult assignment, not because of complexity but because of the need to come to agreement. There were times when I thought that terms assigned were, in fact, incorrect, but the difficulty was in finding a way to challenge them that was not personal or did not cause greater problems in the group.
I am sure that this is a real problem in working groups so it was interesting to experience it in this setting. This was definitely one of the best courses that I took in the Library Science program so far. I can see myself referring to the readings later in my career.
Last week, we attended the annual Mayan Weekend and one of the first talks was about whose story or whose version is reflected in books, histories or museums. In many ways, content representation is like that--you determine what subjects best describe a book or image and that effects how a item is perceived and how it can be found.