Transcript Keeping Found Things Found: Organizing Information For

Keeping Found Things Found:
Organizing Information For
Retrieval
Laura Larsson
Cedar Collaboration
November 6, 2004
The best journeys are the ones that answer
questions that at the outset you never
even thought to ask.
Rick Ridgeway
Learning Objectives
• Describe several strategies for retrieving found
information when needed
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Now that I have it, how do I find it again?
To keep or not to keep?
Cost of finding and not finding information
Retrieving specific types of information
Retrieving Information and Getting Things Done
(GTD)
Now That I Have it, How Do I
Find It Again?
• What good is information you’ve found if
you can’t retrieve it again?
• We’ll talk about specific methods of
information retrieval in a bit
To Keep or Not to Keep
• Keeping too much information is costly
• Not keeping something valuable is costly
• Costs of wrong or incomplete information
can be high, too
Cost of Finding/Not Finding
Information
• Not finding critical information can hurt your
project (and your career)
• Time spent (re)searching for information
– Billions of Web pages
– Often hundreds of thousands of hits when you do a
search
– Sifting through the retrieved information can be time
consuming and frustrating
– Knowledge workers spend up to 3 hours, 14 minutes
a day looking for information
(Source: Information Work Productivity Council (IWPC) and the
American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC)
Retrieving Different Kinds of
Information - Methods
• Ideas
• Snippets of
information
• Quotations
• URLs
• Documents and their
contents
• E-mail messages
• Images/pictures
• PowerPoint
presentations
Retrieving Ideas
• Find sites, books, newsletters, people,
Weblogs that get your creative juices
going
• Subscribe to them or visit the sites often
• Capture the key ideas in your snippet
managers or in a mind mapping tool
Searching InfoSelect Image
Retrieving Documents
• Folders organized hierarchically
• Desktop search engines (more about
these later)
Retrieving URLs
(raise your hand when you hear the
method you use)
• Send e-mail to self, with URL referencing
the Web page
• Send e-mail to others that contains a Web
page reference – with the intent to search
the Sent Mail folder or contact recipients
later to re-access the web information
• Print out the web page and put it into a
binder (or a pile)
URLs, continued…
• Save the Web page as a file (FileSave Page
as…)
• Paste into a document the URL for a Web page
• Add a hyperlink into a personal Web site
• Bookmark the Web page
• Write down the notes on paper containing the
URL and actions to be taken
URLs, continued…
• Copy to a “links” toolbar so that the web address
is always in view in the browser and can be
quickly accessed
• Create a “note” in Outlook that contains the URL
and can be associated with a date
• Source: William Jones & Harry Bruce and Susan Dumais.
How Do People Get Back to Information on the Web? How
Can They Do It Better? [Online] Site URL:
http://kftf.ischool.washington.edu/Jones,%20Bruce,%20Duma
is%20Interact%202003.htm
Retrieving URLs, continued…
• Bookmark organizers
• Search by word or phrase
Bookmark Organizer Image
E-mail
• Self-addressed e-mail
• E-mail to colleagues with cc: or bcc: to
yourself
– Then file in appropriate e-mail folder
• E-mail to a list that archives information
E-mail Folder Image
Citation Managers
• Search for specific references
– by topic, author, text words, date or
combinations
• Then turn those citations into a
bibliography
• Cite while you write
Desktop Search Engines
• Applications that search across various kinds of
files to locate that one phrase or word that you
know gives you the critical information
• Can’t find a file but you remember a word that
was in it?
• No problem, search your desktop for any file
with that information (doc, pdf, txt, xls, etc)
Desktop Search Engines
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Discover
X1
Enfish
FILEhand Search
Upcoming search engines
Upcoming Desktop Search
Engines
• These search engines will search BOTH your
desktop and the Web
• Copernic Desktop Indexer
• Lycos HotBot Desktop
• Microsoft
• Yahoo!
• Google’s Puffin
• Apple
Retrieving Information and
Getting Things Done (GTD)
• Keeping organized and caught up
• Use folders to organize files by project
• Use applications that make it easy to find critical
information
• Don’t be afraid to try out new applications that
colleagues recommend as being high quality
• Talk to a librarian about information
management and information management tools
Securing information and ideas
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Backing up (current information)
Archiving (older information)
HIPAA
Responsible use of information
Security: Backing Up
• Back up what? How often? Where? How?
With what?
• Applications for making copies of
important documents and information
– Eazy Backup
– Genie-Soft Backup Manager
Security: Archiving
• Archive old data when you no longer need
it
– To a external disk drive
– To a CD-R or CD-RW
– To a Zip disk
Security: HIPAA
• Suggestions for maintaining data and
person confidentiality come from a MMWR
article
• Link is provided in the Webliography
Responsible Use of Information
• Cite resources used from the Web and
from paper documents
• How much text can I use?
• Can I use images, software, music?
So, How Do You…?
• Find information in your office?
• Find information on your computer?
Learning is not compulsory... neither is
survival!
W. Edwards Deming (1900 - 1993)
Contact Information
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Laura Larsson
Cedar Collaboration
[email protected] or
[email protected]