What kind of searcher are you

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What kind of searcher are you?

• How to plan your searching to be most effective
  different strokes for different folks!

Larissa Moebs, MLIS, MA Public Services
Librarian Illinois Central College Spring 2006
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Mappers/Builders

• Mappers tend to sit and generate ideas about
  their topic long before they write, they are
  mostly prone to writing outlines for their
  argument then finding the proof in something
  they read somewhere along the way.
• Their research is constructed and informed (by
  their outline) before they ever start looking for
  anything.
• They might brainstorm and diagram relationships
  between concepts long before they start searching

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Pearl-growers

• These are the people who tend to find the
  perfect resource, then track down all of the
  references the author of that source used.
• They will also follow up with other materials by
  that same author in the hopes that related
  concepts are discussed.

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Berry-Pickers

• These sorts tend to meander their way through the
  haze of information, following any piece of
  material that looks interesting or promising.
• Eventually, they end up with so much information
  that they have all that they need to make a
  highly-informed argument

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Pros and Cons

• There are pluses and minuses to each system
• Berry-pickers take longer, but are able to add
  more depth through the breadth of their journey
• Pearl-growers get definite, solid, good data,
  but might miss some of the connections the
  berry-pickers made
• Mappers/builders have things well organized, but
  might get swayed away from a well-rounded
  argument by pre-conceived notions.

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THERE IS NO RIGHT WAY!!!

• Just because weve looked at the three most
  common ways of searching, doesnt mean that you
  do something thats a combination of them or
  something else completely different
• Now, however, you may know how you search and the
  potential pitfalls of that mechanism so that you
  can borrow from another search philosophy

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Whats common to ALL searching?
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Boolean is just a fancy way of saying how you
combine search terms for better results

• AND means that the two search terms BOTH have
  to appear in the results (narrows the field)
• OR means that either of the two search terms
  have to appear in the results (broadens the
  search)
• NOT means that the designated term CANNOT
  appear in the results

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ANDWhere they overlap is the result of an AND
search
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ORa graphic of the results of an OR search
all of the materials in BOTH circles are part of
the results
Term B
Term A
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NOTthe shaded area that ONLY terms A B share
(NOT C)
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So when is this useful?

• Example
• Search Dolphin AND Intelligence and most of the
  results are from Sports Illustrated (probably not
  what you were initially thinking)
• Search Dolphin AND Intelligence NOT football
  and you get something a lot closer to what you
  were probably looking for.

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The heart of it

• No matter what your search style, understanding
  it (and its potential shortcomings as well as
  strengths) and applying the use of the Boolean
  tools will save you time in the long run.

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NEVER FORGET

• SEARCHING IS WORK!!!! This is NOT something that
  you spend an hour or two at and get good results
• SEARCHING IS ITERATIVE In other words, each
  result can and should lead to a new search if you
  have good information
• NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE so, you CAN run into dead
  ends dont get frustrated, just try a different
  way.