The «Cumulus» program for managing information sources in science and technology was first presented at the CUIB (Centro Universitario de Investigaciones Bibliotecológicas) in Mexico in 2010, currently known as IIBI (Institute of Library and Information Research), on the occasion of the 7th Hispano-Mexican Seminar on Library and Information Science Research, an international gathering where leading experts from each country share ideas, perspectives, and develop joint research projects. In this context, the Cumulus program was the first specialized program designed from a documentation perspective for the systematic cataloging of information sources, presenting a hierarchical documentary analysis model that moves from institutional sources to purely documentary ones, capable of unraveling corporate authority departments, their functional and organizational areas, and ultimately concretizing into a documentary base of documents and purely intellectual resources. To enable such a comprehensive analysis, the Cumulus program features one of the most complete cataloging forms, allowing users to register information sources, their authorities, classification, and semantic relationships without closing the main working screen, while maintaining constant visibility of the descriptive information. The utility and capabilities of the program were subsequently tested when it was employed by students in the course «Specialized Information Sources in Science and Technology», resulting in an interesting experience published in the Journal of Documentation of Information Sciences.

Reference

  1. BLÁZQUEZ OCHANDO, M. 2010. Management of Information Sources in Science and Technology: Development of the Cumulus Program. In: 7th Hispano-Mexican Seminar on Research in Library and Information Science. UNAM: Mexico City. pp.447-460. http://132.248.242.3/~publica/archivos/libros/7o_seminario_hispanomexicano.pdf

Abstract

Specialized information sources in science and technology lack adequate systems for their management, cataloging, and automated representation. This is due to the fact that bibliographic managers prioritize a bibliographic description approach over the consideration of institutional and documentary sources. With the aim of experimenting with a new model of information source management based on analytical study, the CUMULUS program has been designed to provide novel solutions for the documentary treatment of sources and their semantic relationships with third-party resources. The resulting system is capable of organizing information sources with exhaustive description and control of their authorities, as well as enabling their semantic retrieval, thereby becoming a new tool for handling sources and supporting the teaching and training of future information professionals.

Keywords

Information sources, Cumulus, Science and technology, Automation, Semantic Web.