LIS 419 - Project

General Note

Reports for projects should take on a formal tone, as if you were submitting this to a funding agency, or a department head, or for publication. Avoid colloquialism and use of the first person.

First Steps

Describe your project in sufficient detail so that I can tell whether it meets my requirements. This can be informal, but should mention setting and users, description of collection or item (in amount or length), likely plans for subject access.
Submit a list of: a) readings on the topic of your project, and sources in which you will look for additional materials; and, b) a list of indexing languages and/or services and/or indexed items in your topic area. APA format, remember. See Points 2 and 3 below. Precede this with a formal project statement. This should include: description of setting and users, description of collection or item (in amount or length), objectives, and preliminary thoughts on subject analysis approaches.

Reports

The final product is to be more than the index you have created. It must include a final report, which will include portions of your interim report. Do not assume that I have seen your interim report, when you prepare your final report. The in-class presentation may take the form of a talk (with media support), a completely media-based presentation, or a well-organized poster which accomplishes the same thing as a live presentation. I will ask you know towards the end of the semester what kind of presentation you would prefer to do. You will be graded for the report and the presentation as well as the product itself.

Reports will be graded for content, format, and progress, and should be formal. Reports should include the following points (asterisks identify those elements which should form the bulk of the interim report, and which will be repeated in the final report):

Description of item or collection/setting (for an existing system, include analysis of components and workflow), actual or potential users, need for subject access or improvement thereof, objectives of the project. *
Annotated bibliography on indexing this type of thing or collection and/or creating a thesaurus or classification scheme and/ or building this kind of database (see suggestions on doing an annotated bibliography at http://www.library.cornell.edu/okuref/research/skill28.htm) *
Examination of other indexes in this subject area. *
- For a single-item index, this includes other single-item indexes by the same publisher, other single-item indexes for items on the same topic by different publishers.
- For a collection or a thesaurus/classification scheme this includes indexing languages for this subject area in whole or in part, other indexing services (including electronic) for this subject, rationale for your choice of indexing language.
Detailed description of procedures and problems (* for the interim report, so far).
Detailed evaluation of your product, including performance testing (* for the interim report, details on your plans for evaluation).
Completed product (* for the interim report: substantial evidence of work completed thus far) (for final: completed and typed index or thesaurus/classification scheme, with introduction for users; completed database with user guide, printed authority files, and instructions for continuation).

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