SI 580: Understanding Records and Archives: Principles and Practices (Prof. Margaret Hedstrom)
Provides an understanding of why societies, cultures, organizations, and individuals create and keep records. Presents cornerstone terminology, concepts, and practices used in records management and archival administration. Examines the evolution of methods and technologies used to create, store, organize, and preserve records and the ways in which organizations and individuals use archives and records for ongoing operations, accountability, research, litigation, and organizational memory. Participants become familiar with the legal, policy, and ethical issues surrounding records and archives administration and become conversant with the structure, organization, and literatures of the archival and records management professions.

SI 581: Preserving Information (Prof. Elizabeth Yakel)
Preservation is commonly defined as the acquisition, organization, and distribution of resources (human, physical, monetary) to ensure adequate protection of information with continuing value for access by present and future generations. Preservation encompasses planning and implementing policies, procedures, and processes that together prevent further deterioration or renew the usability of selected groups of materials. Preservation management is most effective when planning precedes implementation and when prevention activities have priority over renewal activities.

This course teaches the basic principles, policies, and procedures for protecting information resources from loss, damage, deterioration, destruction, and obsolescence. The course introduces current methods and best practices for extending the useful life of information in a wide variety of media. Considerable emphasis is on management and decision-making and current preservation issues, particularly preservation of digital information and the use of digital technologies for preservation reformatting.

Course features lectures and discussion with some visits to campus preservation facilities and occasional guest lectures. This course is an introductory overview. Students wishing to specialize in preservation management acquire the basis for seeking additional training through Directed Field Experiences, internships, apprenticeships, workshops, and other practical engagement activities.

SI 629: Access Systems for Archival Materials (Prof. Elizabeth Yakel)
Examines the interactions of people, content, and technological tools and their relation to access to archival programs and archival materials. The course outlines and critiques assumptions about uses and use, the management of descriptive programs and the practices surrounding the provision of access to and representation of archival materials, the history and theory behind these practices, the tools and technologies that enable access, and a vision for how these basic elements can work together in access systems to better provide information to users. The course also looks at access tools and representations as part of an entire descriptive program that has economic, political, and cultural ramifications. Students examine and analyze issues of effectiveness, economics, technological implementation, and audiences for different types of surrogates for primary sources including: national and subject guides, calendars, finding aids (in paper form and online), bibliographic records (MARC), hypertext mark-up language (HTML), encoded archival description (SGML/XML/EAD), other automated systems, as well as images of the records themselves. Issues of content and context, appropriate levels of control, selection, and interpretation are studied. Doctoral students also read, critique, and participate in research in this area. The course deals with the questions of who, what, and how:

• Who are the users of archives?
• What do archivists need to know about users? Needs?
• What are the tools and methods used to provide access to archives different from tools for bibliographic systems and databases?
• What constitutes use? What are the options for access to archival materials?
• What is it about the nature of archival materials (or primary sources, or records, or archives) that is different from other types of information (library books or information databases)? What are the unique problems in providing access to them? (Keep in mind that the term "archival materials" is defined broadly and includes archives, manuscripts, photographs, film and video, sound archives, oral histories, electronic documents, and other unpublished materials.)
• How do archivists assess user needs and evaluate services?
• How do archivists use finding aids, cataloging, indexing, and imaging to improve access? How do users employ these same tools?
• How are decisions made concerning the level of access, the types of access, and the development of an access system?

The course combines theory with practical applications and there is considerable emphasis on emerging practices and tools. The course also covers research in areas of user and users, access systems, and descriptive practices.

SI 647: Information Resources and Services (Prof. Maurita Holland, Darlene Nichols)
Acquaints students with representative sources of information in all formats as well as with delivery methods for services and systems in a variety of information environments. Emphasizes the dynamic nature of contemporary provision of information service and the importance of understanding users' information needs and behaviors. Resources considered include all formats and delivery methods: print-based, vended online services, Web-based resources, Internet search engines, CDs/integrated media, large data files, digital libraries, community networks, GIS, knowledge management systems, etc. Students study a representative sample of resources and services and their applications.

Covers understanding users' information-seeking needs and behaviors and meeting those needs through both human-based/face-to-face and technology-based services, through direct or intermediated provision of information, as well as through education and training activities; evaluation of such resources and services; preparation of information resources; management issues; current developments, trends, and future research. Format is lecture and discussion, with students using actual reference questions for searching practice and to demonstrate mastery of the material. Students may work with a single partner to develop Web-based or other information resource or service plans.

• Learn about the information needs, information resources and delivery mechanisms available in both human and technology-based systems
• Study a representative sample of same and apply these sources to real-life situations
• Consider the on-going management and evaluation of systems and services designed to meet information needs
• Learn about likely developments and future research in this area

SI 666: Organization of Information Resources (Prof. Bonnie Dede)
Provides a conceptual understanding and skills in the organization, access, and representation of information in a variety of formats. Students learn basic concepts and principles of cataloging and metadata, organization and classification, and standards that have been developed for the ways in which information is organized and described.

Students work with tools that have been accepted as national standards and evaluate emerging methods that provide alternative means for providing surrogate descriptions and organization. The focus is on cataloging and classification standards and tools developed in library environments, with a view toward evaluating the effectiveness of these models in both libraries and other information environments.

Examples of standards include the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, Dublin Core, Library of Congress Subject Headings, Library of Congress Classification, and Dewey Decimal Classification. The class also looks at emerging metadata standards developed for digital record control. An emphasis is given to evaluating the extent to which current and emerging standards are developed with the needs of users in mind.

Cataloging and metadata standards are examined in the larger social context in which they were developed and are being applied, including evaluating subject access schemes and the way in which they reflect social biases and constructs.

SI 692: Practical Engagement Workshop in Archives and Records (Prof. Elizabeth Yakel)
Focuses on developing applied archival skills. Student experiences are reinforced by regular meetings with skilled practitioners in a variety of areas who share their knowledge in a structured environment.

SI 655: Management of Electronic Records (Prof. Margaret Hedstrom) (in progress Winter 2006)
Records are the corporate and cultural memory that provide proof of actions and decisions, build a knowledge-base for reflection and learning, and form a perspective on today's society that we will pass on to future generations. As organizations create and maintain more of their records electronically, they are struggling to develop effective policies, systems, and practices to capture, maintain, and preserve electronic records.

Course examines the ways in which new information technologies challenge organizations' capacities to define, identify, control, manage, and preserve electronic records. Students learn how different organizational, technological, regulatory, and cultural factors affect the strategies, practices, and tools that organizations can employ to manage electronic records. Problems of long-term preservation and continuing access to electronic records are analyzed and addressed.

Addresses electronic records management issues in a wide variety of settings, including archives and manuscript repositories.