Keeping Found Things Found: Organizing Information For Retrieval

1. Keeping Found Things Found: Organizing Information For Retrieval Laura Larsson Cedar Collaboration November 6, 2004

2. The best journeys are the ones that answer questions that at the outset you never even thought to ask. Rick Ridgeway

3. Learning Objectives • Describe several strategies for retrieving found information when needed • 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)

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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)

7. Ideas Snippets of information Quotations URLs Documents and their contents E-mail messages Images/pictures PowerPoint presentations Retrieving Different Kinds of Information - Methods

8. 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

9. Searching InfoSelect Image

10. Retrieving Documents • Folders organized hierarchically • Desktop search engines (more about these later)

11. 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 othersthat 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)

12. URLs, continued… • Save the Web page as a file (FileSave Page as…) • Paste into a documentthe URL for a Web page • Add a hyperlink into a personal Web site • Bookmark the Web page • Write down the notes on papercontaining the URL and actions to be taken

13. 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 Outlookthat 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,%20Dumais%20Interact%202003.htm

14. Retrieving URLs, continued… • Bookmark organizers • Search by word or phrase

15. Bookmark Organizer Image

16. 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

17. E-mail Folder Image

18. 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

19. 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)

20. Desktop Search Engines • Discover • X1 • Enfish • FILEhand Search • Upcoming search engines

21. 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

22. 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

23. Securing information and ideas • Backing up (current information) • Archiving (older information) • HIPAA • Responsible use of information

24. 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

25. 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

26. Security: HIPAA • Suggestions for maintaining data and person confidentiality come from a MMWR article • Link is provided in the Webliography

27. 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?

28. So, How Do You…? • Find information in your office? • Find information on your computer?

29. Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival! W. Edwards Deming (1900 - 1993)

30. Contact Information • Laura Larsson • Cedar Collaboration • larsson@cedarc.info or • larsson@u.washington.edu