The M-CaReM-AI Method: Defining Work for AI / Unit 4 MCM 098 review, 2 to 3 minutes
The Library Map
The idea
A worked example, constructed for this course, draws the library's Material Context Map from its inventory.
In practice
The team names four zones in its own words: membership, circulation, collection, and accounts and reporting. Membership holds the Member and the Membership Card. Circulation holds the Loan, the Hold, the Overdue Notice and the Circulation Log. Collection holds the Item, the Item Category, the Lost Item Report and the Interlibrary Request. Accounts and reporting holds the Fine, the Branch figures and, after some debate, the Loan Policy, because finance staff own it. Then come the arrows. A Member places a Hold. A Hold becomes a Loan when the item is ready. A Loan links one Member to one Item. A Loan produces an Overdue Notice when it is late, and may produce a Fine. A Loan follows a Loan Policy. Every Loan change logs into the Circulation Log. A Lost Item Report closes a Loan and may produce a Fine. The core things are highlighted: Member, Item, Loan and Loan Policy. Looking at the board, the head of circulation points out that the arrow from Loan to Loan Policy is the one that broke last year: nobody had drawn it, so nobody knew the overdue notices depended on it.
Where people slip
The map's value showed up in a single arrow. Drawn early, the Loan Policy link would have warned the team that changing laptop loan periods meant checking the notices. A map is not decoration; each labelled arrow is a dependency someone will need later. That is why the method asks for a verb on every arrow: follows, produces and closes each say something different about what will break when one end changes.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
Unlocks
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