School of Library and Information Science

COMPREHENSIVE EXAMINATION
October 2005

1. Discuss the life cycle of a specific body of information, using as your example the works of a specific author or creator (for example, a scientific researcher, or a popularizer of scientific research, or a creative writer such as a novelist or poet). Consider in your discussion both the intellectual content and the physical manifestation of the work.

2. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of having the full text of four million books available for free from one website. Who benefits from this, and who is placed at a disadvantage? Why? How would this affect collection development policies and procedures in libraries?

3. Define precision and recall. What are their limitations as measures of information retrieval performance? What search strategies (or, if you prefer, what strategies in system design) can be used to improve precision in a search, and what strategies would improve recall?

4. You are the director of a type of library of your choice. Members of your community petition you to remove a series of books - both fiction and nonfiction - that they claim "celebrate the gay lifestyle." What specific series of steps would you take in response to this petition, and why?

5. There are significant differences between searching web search engines and searching commercial online databases. Discuss these differences in terms of the search process and search outcomes. In addition, describe the type of search requests that are best met by commercial online database searches and the type of requests that are best met by web search engine searches.

6. Identify and discuss four attributes or skills that an information literate individual should possess, regardless of discipline, learning environment, or level of education. In a setting of your choice, how would you promote the development of each?

7. Controlled vocabulary encompasses controlled subject terms, such as the Library of Congress subject headings, and classification systems, such as the Dewey Decimal Classification system. Explain the strengths of controlled vocabulary. Discuss what functions both controlled subject terms and classification systems serve in computer-based information systems.

8. In assessing print or electronic collections of any kind (library collections, collections, databases, etc.), people frequently seem to believe that "more is better". To what extent is this true? What are the advantages and disadvantages of using quantity as a criterion? Is it equally appropriate (or inappropriate) in the evaluation of print and electronic collections?

9. What is the intended user community for a digital library collection of your choice? How can we apply usability principles to measure the effectiveness of this digital library collection? Propose and describe a method of usability testing for the digital library collection, and include in your description how you would design and administer the test, including selection of participants.

10. Separately define the concepts: information and knowledge. Select two different, specific libraries and/or information centers and discuss how each organization provides not only information but also knowledge to their user community. Your answer should reflect the different information needs of a specific user community and the unique missions of a specific organization.