1. Peter Skands Theoretical Physics Dept, Fermilab Information Resources A User Perspective

2. Peter Skands Information Resources - 2 Disclaimer I’m a user Not here to share my great ideas or tell you how to do things Here to share my ignorance, and tell you how I do things I apologize if there are resources out there that I don’t mention … But hopefully, the fact that I am ignorant of them, or omit them, also represents some kind of, hopefully constructive, feedback

3. Peter Skands Information Resources - 3 Information Resources My work is in theoretical physics, but probably my usage of information resources is fairly typical In which contexts do I search for information? Which resources do I use to find it? Am I successful in finding it? Is the process efficient and “not frustrating”?

4. Peter Skands Information Resources - 4 Types of Information Resources Main resource: papers Other resources I use: Reviews, Manuals, How-To’s, Tutorials Experimental data Software “Physics” software “Computing” software Conference & Workshop information Information on people Outreach-related information and illustrations

5. Peter Skands Information Resources - 5 SPIRES Thank you! When I plan a conference or workshop I go to

6. Peter Skands Information Resources - 6 SPIRES SPIRES is the main information resource When I plan a conference I check the SPIRES conference database for planning I “stake my claim” on dates by submitting to SPIRES When I forgot someone’s email address I check SPIRES HEPNAMES database Also when I want background on names unfamiliar to me I use the citations feature a lot To check how my babies are doing … and compare … As a main reference in reviewing job applications I don’t use INSTITUTIONS or JOBS or VIDEOS (But I have to say I don’t use other resources for that either)

7. Peter Skands Information Resources - 7 Comments from a novice First time I encountered SPIRES I thought … Damn, couldn’t they make this more user-friendly? I guess this is still a valid comment If you don’t find anything matching the author, try automatically searching for collaboration? But this is only really a problem for total novices And I said I wasn’t here to share my great ideas …

8. Peter Skands Information Resources - 8 Later on … I came to appreciate the philosophy I’ve seen many examples (elsewhere) of Seemingly user-friendly gimmicks that actually added time/load for the experienced user (e.g., fancy, but slow, or simply failed design) Fancy features are less robust, and hide more complexity SPIRES has a large and experienced user community Main objective: Fast/robust searching for the experienced user To aid the inexperienced, the optimal philosophy is examples If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it The SPIRES philosophy appears to be conservative, little change over the years (except some improvements in the graphic design) Not a place for trying out fancy new things every other week Thank you! (All we want is for inSpire to be as good)

9. Peter Skands Information Resources - 9 The most useful feature on SPIRES?

10. Peter Skands Information Resources - 10 Now Many of my colleagues do read the abstracts daily I don’t (any more). There are too many Not that they are not interesting, but time constraints are significant  need something more personally tailored I rely on personal interactions to get pointed to specially relevant papers Corridor gossip Lunchtime discussions Workshops, Conferences, Seminars This is not watertight, and has delay  loss of efficiency

11. Peter Skands Information Resources - 11 Historical References

12. Peter Skands Information Resources - 12 Psychological Effects Effects of the way we work with information The “old” way Go to the library, find the volume, and dig in High threshold, high immersion Away from office phone, email, … Paper, feeling of permanence, take notes, … The “new” way Click on pdf, open it up Low threshold, low immersion In office, email notification pops up, skype, distractions Screen, feeling of impermanence, harder to stay organized, … Defocussing  clean, unchanging sites help restore feeling of permanence Tools to help stay organized?

13. Peter Skands Information Resources - 13 PDG I use the pocket book more than the web site Paper is good for large amounts of flipping back and forth Permanent inhabitant of my backpack I use the theory reviews I haven’t really started using PDGlive But took a look at it for the first time during this meeting It does seem to have a slight lag

14. Peter Skands Information Resources - 14 Non-SPIRES/PDG resources I do use the rumour mill(s) as a resource I post HEP outreach-related material on Facebook From YouTube From standard News related websites I wouldn’t post a SPIRES link Again, SPIRES = professionals, not outreach For anything else I use Google Example of bad practices: ROOT (slightly less bad: Latex?) Again, SPIRES excels (easy to disambiguate from Oxford)

15. Peter Skands Information Resources - 15 Physics Illustrations My main search engine for illustrations (for talks) is Google and/or Wikipedia But get lots of junk since not dedicated-purpose Often, physics illustrations contained in pdfs or other formats that google images not optimized to search Wikipedia is better, and more referenceable, but the amount of material is smaller

16. Peter Skands Information Resources - 16 Personalization? Tools to help stay organized Too many abstracts Help retain feeling of permanence Costs of personalization Log-in, higher threshold Less uniform interface Clean  cluttered?

17. Peter Skands Information Resources - 17 An Alternative?