By Daniel M. Russell, Knowledge Management Technologies

While reading the Atlantic Monthly on a bright winter morning, I learned that as of February 28, 1997, the Library of Congress will no longer accept orders for catalog cards, forcing libraries to turn to other sources if they'd like to keep their physical card files going. They've sold millions of these basic tools since 1902. Now they plan to keep selling the data but not the physical form. Those little 3X5 cards are beginning to boil away under the online super nova. Cliff Stoll's rants about the loss of the physical card catalog notwithstanding, this seems to be a kind of bellwether, a pivotal move in the ongoing chess game between what the information supplier provides and what the information consumer needs. It's a recognition that business really isn't going on as usual. The end of the LOC card sales is an event that signals the transition to online resources by even the most conservative of information providers. A while back, I gave an Interface Forum at Apple on the topic of how people do research on the WWW. I've been interested for quite a while about how anyone actually manages to get something useful from the gentle chaos of information that percolates around us. At the end of that forum, several people suggested that it would be really useful if I would summarize those points. Here are a few of the tips from that talk. A short and to-the-point description of some of the best ways I've found to do web searches. Think about what you want to find. I know this sounds incredibly retro, but it's a good first thing to do. Push away the keyboard for a moment and think, "What am I looking for? What characteristics would it have?" In particular, think about the special qualities of what you seekdo you need a thesis or a magazine article? A Java applet or a piece of Objective-C code? Would you like a single mathematical formula or an entire explanation about the theory and practice surrounding your question? As you'll see, the more you know what what you're looking for, the better you can target your search. Especially useful things to know about your target include probable domain of origin (.edu? .com? .gov?), document type (paper? journal article?) and when it might have been published on the Net. Use a detailed search query. The way most search engines work is to look for whole documents (usually Web pages) that contain the best match between what you give as a query and what's on the page. Continue Overview | Digital Photography Course | Science with eMates | Spotlight Essay | Book Review | Community Networking | INET '97 | News Page One | Find It | Apple Computer, Inc. | Contact Us | Help