Planning an information finding strategy

Planning an information finding strategyIt might be worth spending a few minutes thinking about a general strategy for finding information for the project:  1  Background information: sources can include general, broad introductions r  publications  such  as  subject  encyclopedias.  How  much  background information do you need or do you have time to find and use? 2  What are the key sources in the subject? How are you going to identify     them? 3  Is there anyone who can help you decide where to start? 4  Peripheral information. Do you have the time and does the project warrant large amounts of reading around the subject? 5  Do you need to find everything written on the topic or only major seminal     works or something in between? You will need to be able to judge the importance of materials. Omitting to mention a key work on a topic could be disastrous. Resource discovery: where details of relevant materials can be found Having  identified  what  information  is  required,  obtaining  resources  for research is a three-stage process: •  Resource discovery - that is, finding out what resources exist in the chosen     topic area •  Resource location - finding out where those resources are stored •  Resource access - actually obtaining the item(s) in full text (or equivalent) Information providers, bodies such as the JISC and librarians are working towards seamless online provision where the user discovers a resource and obtains immediate access to the most appropriate copy  (i.e., the copy to which the researcher has the best access for the circumstances, e.g., fastest, nearest, and so on). Although this situation exists in some areas, (depending on subscriptions and service providers) it is not universal and it is probably necessary to work through the three steps of the process. Resource discovery is the process of finding the details  (bibliographic or otherwise) of existing resources that are relevant to the chosen topic. There are a number of sources available that enable the researcher to perform this task. In general they comprise abstracts and indexes, catalogues, and bibliographies, although there are other sources that can be tapped. This chapter is concerned with where to look to discover resources and discusses the features of online databases. Chapter 6 gives details of how to search for resources.