In
olden days (five or six years ago) the Internet was a quiet place.
Sort of like a small town library where you knew the librarian.
The stacks were familiar and comfortable but now the Internet it
is like a big city library with a problem. It has many librarians,
and each uses a different cataloging system. Oh yes, the books are
in a jumble on the floor. Further the Internet is changing in
unpredictable ways at a very rapid rate, so I have chosen to
parse the searching task into more manageable slices. My hope is that
some, perhaps several of these tacks, will serve your needs. At the
very least I hope they will help you develop your own paths to
information.
No doubt the best way to find stuff on the Net is to ask
someone who knows.
The telephone is a wonderful adjunct to the computer (well Ok, e-mail).
However, if you can't manage to find help from within the network of
your personal friends and colleagues, then what? Well, it depends to
some extent on the subject of the search and your expectations for
the location of the information.
BTW (By The Way) least I forget, keep a log. Serendipity works on
the Net. While looking for one thing, you will inevitably find another.
That is where a notebook and writing stick come into play. Or perhaps a
keyboard and computer, my preferred approach. Checkout my
log.
Sources of information on the Net tend to be grouped:
- Mailing lists - Here you can find people who know your subjective
interests.
- Anonymous FTP - A rich source for files. Of course, you do need
to know or be able to guess the file name to access information.
- Newsgroups - Similar to mailing lists but are often more trivial in
content, though not always.
- The Web - The commercial part of the Internet. However with commerce
comes people trying to capture your interest. How do they do this?
They provide Information you want. BTW I'm using the term
"commercial" in the generic sense. For example, UMUC
is a not for profit organization however the "study here"
message is quite clear at their site.
Some information tends to be in much demand so what happens? Specializes
tools appear. Some samples are provided:
- Finding a business
- Finding financial resources
- Finding a person
- Finding a book
An exercise for students: There are of course other data
groupings (our "many librarians" issue).
I have been cataloging them as I run into interesting
Specialized Lists. Help me add to my catalog. I'm looking for interesting
and useful lists, not just interesting sites. Send your suggestions with comment
to our class mailing list.
Just click on an area of your interest, noted in the side bar,
and away we go.
