BRIEF REPORT ON DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION

BY: AYOTUNDE BADARU

badaru.ayotunde@gmail.com

All documents in the library and information center is acquired, organized and preserved for users; the satisfaction of user’s needs is the main aim of the library.  However, it will be possible for the library to posses a rich quality of collection and the users will still be frustrated from the futile efforts they have made to find information. 

Document description therefore can be defined as the use of description tools in the library to provide short but essential information that describes a document for the patron.  These tools include: catalogues, index, abstract, bibliographies.  As mentioned earlier in the definition, these tools provide a brief but essential description of a document.

The catalogue can be seen as the prominent of these tools; this is because it keeps records of all holdings in the library and is usually the first point of call for a potential patron.  The catalogue can be defined as a register of bibliographic items found in the library.  The catalogue is the same but can appear in varying forms such as card, book, and with the advent of the information technology, there is OPAC i.e. Online Public Access Catalogue.  The catalogue provides what is called access points to finding a document in the library.  An access point can be seen as an entry point that is peculiar to a particular document; this is why each catalogue is just made form one document.  Examples of access points to a document are: title of the document, author, ISBN number, subject the document belongs to and of course the classification mark.  A patron using the catalogue can easily find a document in mind through the access points such as title, author or ISBN number and can also find a new document through the subject access point.  This explanation of catalogue means it needs one major form of maintenance which is continuous update to correspond with the holdings in the library so users don’t go around looking for documents that aren’t present anymore in the library.

Another document description tool is an index.  An index is a list of words or phrases in a document designed to enable the user of that document find specific information without having to browse through the whole content of the book.  The process of creating an index is indexing and an indexer is an individual who creates an index.

Back-of-the book index is the most recognized index among patrons, and as the name implies, it is located at the back of the document.  Patrons can pick a document and quickly check for terms that they feel will is important.  The back-of –the-book index is so useful, patrons use them all the time they are the library.  The back-of-the-book index provides not only words and phrases but also the page number where that word or phrase is located in the whole document; this leads to the discovery of other vital information surrounding that word.

There are other types of indexes such as bibliographic indexes, cartoons indexes, citation indexes, embedded indexes, website indexing, cumulative indexes, computer databases indexes etc.

Abstract is yet another document descriptor in the library.  An abstract is a brief summary of the main points of a document.  It is usually found at the beginning of a manuscript, project paper or other documents.  Abstracts are similar to but different from an executive summary; this is because abstracts use the same level of language and expertise found in the document and always follows a set pattern, although, the executive summary provides more information than the abstract.

Abstracts can be divided into structured and unstructured abstracts.  Structured abstracts follow a set sequence for its writing, this sequence includes: introduction, purpose, methodology, results/outcomes, conclusion, and recommendation.    Unstructured abstracts are written without any sequence but must have the same level of language used in the document as mentioned earlier.

Bibliography is a document description tool that identifies books in a library but in a specific discipline such bibliography is known as enumerative bibliography.  Another form of bibliography that is a systematic description of a book is the descriptive bibliography.