Knowledge Organisation and Retrieval Questions and Answers

Answer: C

Each area is separated by dot space, hyphen space (a full stop, space, dash, space).

AACR-II follows the punctuation of the International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD), in which each area of the description, such as title and statement of responsibility, edition, and publication, is preceded by a full stop, space, dash, space, unless it begins a new paragraph.

The forward stroke (/) is used inside the first area, before the statement of responsibility, not between areas. A backward stroke has no role in ISBD punctuation, and a bare hyphen is not the area separator.

Answer: C

MARC 21 is the merger of USMARC and CAN/MARC.

In 1997-99 the Library of Congress and the National Library of Canada harmonised their two national MARC formats, USMARC and CAN/MARC, and issued the result in 1999 under the name MARC 21. The British Library later adopted it in place of UKMARC.

UKMARC was replaced by MARC 21, not merged into it. UNIMARC is a separate international format from IFLA, and ISBD is a description standard, not a MARC format at all. SMARC is not one of the formats that formed MARC 21.

Answer: C

The section is the Relative index.

Dewey's relative index lists subjects alphabetically and shows, for each, the different disciplines in which it is treated. 'Water', for example, has different numbers under chemistry, economics, public health and engineering. Because it relates a subject to the disciplines in which it appears, it is called relative.

The schedules are the classified tables of numbers themselves, the manual gives advice on difficult classification decisions, and the glossary defines terms. None of these relates subjects to disciplines.

Answer: A

Statements a, b and c are correct, so the answer is (a), (b), (c) are correct.

The Universal Decimal Classification was developed by Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine through the institute that became the International Federation for Documentation (FID), which maintained it for most of the twentieth century (a). The Library of Congress Classification was developed by the Library of Congress (b). The Bibliographic Classification was devised by Henry Evelyn Bliss (c).

Statement d is wrong: the Library-Bibliographical Classification (BBK) was developed in the Soviet Union by Soviet libraries, not by Jesse Shera, the American theorist of social epistemology. Options including d are wrong.

Answer: C

Statements a, b and d are correct, so the answer is (a), (b), (d) are correct.

A folksonomy is a classification that emerges when users attach their own tags to digital content, as on social bookmarking and photo-sharing sites (a). It is social and collaborative, built up by many users tagging (b), and it can grow for broad (macro) or narrow (micro) subjects alike (d).

Statement c is wrong: folksonomy works by tagging online content, not by classifying physical objects. Every option containing c is therefore wrong.

Answer: C

The DDC editors are Custer, Mitchell and Ferguson, so the answer is (i), (ii) and (iii) are correct.

Benjamin A. Custer edited the 16th to 19th editions of the Dewey Decimal Classification, and John S. Mitchell the 20th to 23rd. Milton J. Ferguson was editor of the 15th, 'standard', edition of 1951.

Gerald Salton was a computer scientist known for the SMART information retrieval system and the vector space model, not an editor of DDC, so options including iv are wrong.

Answer: A

The order in the key is (c), (a), (b), (d), (e).

The process starts with the document: it must be read before anything can be said about it. The indexer then decides what the document is about, translates that aboutness into the vocabulary of the thesaurus, identifies the concepts to be included, and finally arranges them in classified groups.

Only one option begins with reading the document. The other three begin by determining aboutness, translating it, or identifying concepts, all of which depend on having read the document first.

Answer: A

The order is (a), (e), (b), (c), (d).

In the ISBD (M) title and statement of responsibility area the elements come in this sequence: the title proper, then the general material designation in square brackets, then any parallel title (preceded by =), then other title information (preceded by :), and finally the statement of responsibility (preceded by /).

The other options are wrong because they either put the general material designation last, start with the parallel title, or start with the statement of responsibility; the title proper always comes first and the GMD follows it directly.

Answer: A

The order is (a), (c), (b), (d), (e).

A 13-digit ISBN has five parts: the prefix 978 (or 979), the registration group for a country or language area, the registrant (publisher) element, the publication (title) element, and a single check digit at the end. For example, in 978-81-xxxx-xxx-x the 81 identifies India.

Putting the publisher before the group reverses the hierarchy: groups are allotted first and publishers within them. The options that move the check digit from the end, or start with the title, are wrong for the same reason.

Answer: A

The key's matching is a-i, b-ii, c-iii, d-iv.

Two dates settle it. Ranganathan's Classified Catalogue Code was first published in 1934, and the second edition of the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, AACR-II, appeared in 1978. Only one option pairs the code with 1934 and AACR-II with 1978, and it also gives cataloguing-in-publication 1966 and MARC 1977.

The other three options put the Classified Catalogue Code at 1978, 1966 or 1977, all far later than 1934, so they cannot be right.