Gathering Information Information Collection: Garbage In – Garbage Out

Where will I find the best information? Libraries – public, university, private, specialty Internet – Believe or not – not all information is on the internet Personal acquaintance – if you do not have them seek them out Specialty associations and museums – Businesses Government other Non-Profits -

Start with Questions What are the key sources – Government? Academic? Non-Profits? Business? Etc. What are the major issues and debates? What are the key theories, concepts, and ideas? What are the key positions taken? What are the main questions and problems that have been addressed?

Who? Who are the key players – the researchers, writers, knowledge workers? Who are the people that are innovative and perhaps less well known? Who are the ones applying the knowledge – Where are the communities – in associations, gathered around a journal, on the social pages of the internet?

Cover the Environments Social Political Religious Economic Technological Scientific Consider how each discipline approaches the problem or topic and where the information is housed.

Organizing as You Go Is your information analysis or synthesis? – Analysis (select, dissect, differentiate) – Synthesis (integrate, reorganize, combine) What are the analogies, metaphors used to present ideas? What are the key definitions What are the comparisons and contrasts contained within the information?

Classification Sorting and organizing things such as ideas, into categories and labeling those categories to reduce information into manageable elements. Matrix maps, feature maps, tree constructions, and concept maps are a few of the mapping techniques available for managing your information.

Concept Map

From my booknotes folder

Tree Map

Taxonomic Map

Models for Information Gathering Subject specific, or discipline model The classification scheme – Library of Congress or Dewey Decimal Classification Vocabulary controlled catalogue – the old card catalogue, now database based Published bibliographies and indexes The METHODS OF SEACRCH MODEL – which includes the best features of them all

The Methods-of-Search Model 1. Controlled-vocabulary searches in manual or printed sources. 2. Key word searches in manual or printed sources. 3. Citation searches in printed sources. 4. Searches through published biographies (including sets of foot-notes in relevant subject documents – foot note chasing).

5. Searches through people sources (whether by verbal contact, , electronic bulliten board, letters, etc.) 6. Computer searches - subject heading, classification number, key word, or citation, adds the possibilities of postcoordinate Boolean combinations for more precise searching.

7. Related-record searches in multiple databases. 8. Systematic browsing of full-text sources arranged in predictable subject groupings.

“More than any other model, it permits researchers to achieve a sense of “closure” in their research by enabling them to see the full range of search options available to them, and to see which avenue remain to be explored if their first attempts do not yield satisfactory results.”

Conclusion Gathering information to answer a question that solves a problem is commonly called research – I call it LEARNING