Information Organization in Children's and Primary Schools Libraries

The purpose of the study has been to investigate the extent that information organization (IO) in a number of children's and primary schools libraries merits the quality characteristics suggested by the library professional community schools in Tehran. 

Systematic literature review based on the PRISMA framework and focus group interviews were carried out to explore what criteria and standards are suggested for IO in children’s libraries. Data analysis at this stage was done through thematic analysis. Based on findings, a checklist was designed to find out to what extent such considerations were actually observed by librarians in libraries investigated. Data gathered by checklist was analysed by descriptive and inferential statistics.

Characteristics identified included themes and components affecting information organization process in three sections: descriptive cataloguing, analytical cataloguing, and classification. In the descriptive cataloguing section, in connection with the mains category of standard cataloguing, cataloguing according to the standards and cataloguing rules and in the category of notes, inserting abstracts and table of contents and including the age group or level of education. In the analytical cataloguing section, the focus was on the function and mission of IO; with regard to user, the focus was on the needs, interests and expressive characteristics of users in different age groups and educational levels; in the category of information sources, identifying topics and resource-based activities through communication with experts, sites, groups and organizations related to children's literature, such as groups to promote reading and attention to the table of contents and images; and in the category of methods and tools for assigning topics and standards and as specific and practical keywords as possible (via Persian Subject Headings, Subject Headings for Children, thesaurus and social labelling), creating an ontology and establishing semantic relationships between subjects, assigning more than three topics and keywords to each resource, inserting the format of the work, were suggested as a subdivision into topics as much as possible and the creation of an appropriate reference system for the uniformity of topics and keywords. With regard to classification, Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) and with regard to supplementary methods, the separation of resources based on thematic classification and separation of resources according to age group or an educational level were suggested. In the second part of the research, findings showed that more than half of the school libraries have used ISO through the National Library bibliography database. In the notes section, most librarians have listed the age group appropriate for the book. The topics in the analytical cataloguing section are devoted to items such as age group, book images, and format, CIP topics, and rarely keywords are allocated through indexing and content analysis of the book. Librarians have paid less attention to other influential components such as school functions and duties, students' interests, and so on. In the category of classification, libraries have mostly used DDC and general topics along with other symbols and methods.

Insufficient attention has been paid to storing, representing, and retrieving children's information resources based on the themes and components of the identified characteristics.