Access is necessary if the information is to be used. Organization is accomplished by creating a structure that is unique to the information or collection in question. Organization systems establish and consistently apply rules for ordering the information, which in turn make finding information easier.

5 Ways of Organizing Information

Richard Saul Wurman states that there are “five ultimate hatracks”, or ways to organize information: by location, alphabet, time, category, hierarchy or LATCH.

Location

• Good for organizing items that come from different places
• For example, organization by nationality or region

Alphabet

• Best for organizing large numbers of items
• For example, words in a dictionary or names in a phone book
• Good when users of the information come from different backgrounds but all share knowledge of the alphabet

Time

• Good for organizing events, or anything that happens over time
• For example, a guide to TV programming in a given week, history books, a checkbook ledger

Category 

• Best for organizing items of similar importance
• For example, organization by subject, or format, or other content based characteristics that all the items share

Hierarchy

• Organizes items by magnitude
• Good for assigning value or weight to the information
• For example, small to large, less important to more important, older to younger

Here's one example of a combined organization scheme: a video store like Blockbuster. Their movies are organized by sections such as recent releases, horror, drama, comedy, foreign, etc. [BY CATEGORY] and then within those categories, alphabetically by the title of the movie [ALPHABETICAL]. 

The library is similar, in that books are shelved more or less by subject [CATEGORY], and then within category by author’s last name [ALPHABETICAL], or, when the subject category itself specifies the author, by the title of the book [ALPHABETICAL]. 

Wurman, Richard Saul. Information Anxiety 2. Indianapolis, Ind. 2001.

A classification system is a logical system for arranging and organizing things. Wurman’s “five ultimate hatracks” are all classification systems. When we talk about the classification of information, we often use the term “bibliographic classification.” Bibliographic means “pertaining to the history, identification, or description of writings or publications.” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)

“Bibliographic classification may be defined as a set of organizing principles by which information is arranged, usually according to its subject matter. The subject divisions identified are generally assigned a coded notation to represent the subject content. Individual items are placed within the appropriate subject area, either in a physical arrangement or described in a catalogue or database.

“Classification groups ‘things’ together by seeking out similarities or likenesses within them.”
-John Feather and Paul Sturges, eds. International Encyclopedia of Information and Library Science. New York: Routledge, 1997. “Classification,” pp. 57-58.

Here are examples of some commonly-used systems for classifying information:

• The classified section of the newspaper

• The Dewey Decimal System - Used in smaller libraries, such as public and school libraries.

• The Superintendent of Documents (SuDoc) System - Used for United States Government Publications.

• The Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) - Used extensively in Europe.

• The North American Industry Classification System - For classifying economic and company information by industry.

• Subject-specific systems - Developed in order to organize the information in a particular field.

• The Library of Congress (LC) Classification System - Most useful for large libraries, such as university libraries, because of the level of detail into which it can be broken down.