first rule of information, as noted in a previous article ["My
Rules of Information,"
Searcher, January 2002], is, "Go where
it is." The reason librarians can do this stems from the mental maps we
create of where information is to be found.
Note that I used
the plural — not map, but maps. Librarians actually have a variety of information
maps. They're kind of like those anatomy illustrations in an encyclopedia,
with multiple see-through plastic overlays that one can superimpose on
the outline of the human form. Which map we use will be determined by the
kind of questions we're answering.
Why is it worth
identifying our mental maps and thinking about them? To remind ourselves
when we get bogged down in a question, that we can reorient ourselves to
a different map and a different strategy for finding answers.
Mapping Our Own Library
Since we've all
played a role in building our collections and worked with them for a long
time, most of us start the process of answering questions with what is
right at hand within our building (though some of the younger, technology-savvy
librarians may tend to go directly to the Internet and only use our collections
when that strategy fails).
Our mental map
of our collection probably combines areas and functions, perhaps something
like the one in Mental Map # 1 above.
A map like this
has one major problem. Sometimes we don't remember that information overlaps
those categories. We may end up restricting ourselves to only one or two
parts, like the reference collection and the stacks.
How many of us
who are not government documents librarians remember to think of government
documents as possible answers? When someone wants to know about college
dance programs, how many of us realize that Dance Magazine is a
valuable source? How many of us, given a how-to-do-it question, remember
to look for videos? How many of us looking for images remember that the
children's collection is a great source for pictures? (Long ago, when someone
needed a picture of the clown Emmett Kelley and the usual reference sources
weren't panning out, I headed to the children's room for Robert Quackenbush's
book about him, The Man on the Flying Trapeze, which I had just
read to my 3-year old.)
Mapping by Call Number
But we also have
detailed maps of the collections we use every day. We map by call number,
for instance, by physical location. Which of us can not be rendered totally
disoriented by a collection shift, because we always used to go there
for the quote books, and the books aren't there anymore. Perhaps
that's why some of us have committed entire classification schemes to memory.
I know that if I ever go on Jeopardy, I will chose LC call numbers
for my category (see Figure 1 on page 45).
Mapping by Type of Reference
We may also map
by format: A "Where is it?" question calls for an atlas or gazetteer, while
a "How many?" question cries out for a statistical source, and so forth.
In fact, when I did graduate work at the University of Iowa, its library's
reference collection was not arranged in straight Library of Congress call-number
order, but was divided into alcoves by reference type: the bibliography
alcove, the biographical alcove, the statistical alcove; books were secondarily
arranged by call number within those alcoves and reference types (see Figure
2 on page 46).
Mapping the Local Information
We also have mental
maps of our local information community. We know the specialties and resource
strengths of other libraries in our area. My mental map of Quad-Cities
information resources, for instance, includes genealogy materials at the
county historical societies, Davenport Public Library and Rock Island Public
Library, an agricultural collection at John Deere's library, medical collections
at local hospital libraries and Palmer College of Chiropractic, city and
county government records, and the morgues of three local newspapers. My
map also includes my mental rolodex of local subject experts: for instance,
a priest who can translate Latin; a craftsman who builds kaleidoscopes
and knows everything about their history; a long-time union official who
has the entire history of Quad City labor conflicts stored in his head;
and the county extension agent who can identify weeds and pests. See my
Mental Map # 2 on page 46.
Mapping by Likely Suspect
Another type of
mental map builds around asking who might logically generate, gather, and
preserve that sort of information. When we need official information of
any kind, we look for the relevant government agencies. When we need environmental
data, we may think of both the Environmental Protection Agency and the
Sierra Club. When we need statistics on industry, we may look for data
from both the Department of Commerce and trade associations, but when we
need data on what people think about anything, we may look for polls, letters
to the editor, and maybe communal Weblogs like Metafilter or consumer complaint
centers like E-Opinion. When we want data about who buys what and why,
we look to business and trade organizations for market surveys. When we
want to know what life was like for ordinary people at a certain point
in history, we think about books, diaries, letters, and old magazines and
newspapers. When we want research, we think of individual scholars, dissertations,
scholarly journals, and electronic databases. See my Mental Map # 3 on
Topographical Maps of the
Features of the Information Landscapes
We also have a
kind of topographical map of information, a sense of the specific information
properties of each landmark.
When do we head
for books? When people don't need primary resources and do want a lot of
background, history, analysis, and recommendations for further reading,
all in one compact package.
When do we head
for magazines and newspapers? When people want something current, easily
readable, targeted at particular interests (Cat Fancy, Model
Railroader), illustrated with both pictures and advertising (if you
need a picture of a tractor, head to Successful Farming), and often
with special supplements (the U.S. News best colleges issue, Library
Journal's architectural issue).
When do we head
for government documents? When we want something official. When we want
statistics, grants, laws, court cases, expert testimony from congressional
hearings, and the kinds of research required by law (environmental impact
statements, accident investigations, criminal profiles, etc.)
When do we turn
to AV material and all the images on the Web? When someone asks us "What
does a blue jay look like? What does it sound like?" or "Here's a picture
of this snake that lives under my house. What is it? Is it poisonous?"
or "How do I cast on stitches?"
We look to the
Web for the things it does really well: for images, animations, and sound
files, for current news, for online government documents, for interactive
learning (diagnose and prescribe treatment for patients from case files
and find out if you saved them or killed them), for online discussions
and chat with like-minded people. Above all, we go to the Net for 24/7
accessibility, and for searchable texts. When I want to find what rock
performer sang, "I'm going to raise my son to be a prophet of mistakes,"
I head to the Net.
We also get searchability
and 24/7 access with databases, but we also pay for, and get, authority;
we go there when we want some guarantee of trustworthiness. After all,
nobody publishes an article without at least one editor critiquing and
We look to organizations
— the American Heart Association, the American Kennel Club, the Red Cross,
etc. — for free information about their mission; we expect them to provide
current news about their issues, experts who will answer your questions,
archived research, perhaps a trade magazine, perhaps a bulletin board or
We look to individuals,
too. Sometimes for expert knowledge, sometimes to share ideas, and sometimes
for comfort and wisdom. We may find them on the Web, in individual or shared
Web pages and Weblogs. We may find them in chat rooms or Usenet groups
or support groups. Librarians need to remember to steer patients to support
groups as well as medical information, because the best doctors in the
world still can't tell you what it feels like to have that medical condition,
whether it's normal to spend the next 24 hours throwing up after taking
a medication, and how to handle not only the disease, but its effects on
your family life as well (see Mental Map #4 on page 46).
Guided Tour or EuroRail Map?
Mapping What Kind of Question Requires What Kind of Search
I think there's
one more mental map, and it dictates how we go about our search. In some
situations, we might choose to look through classified subject directories,
in catalogs or Internet portals, or specialized indexes; in others, we
might prefer a more free-form, keyword-based search, through general databases
or Internet Web sites or discussion groups.
We may base our
choice on whether we want to access either a limited body of knowledge,
selected and ratified by authorities in the field, or a wider-ranging universe
that includes ideas and research not yet accepted but possibly valid.
But we may also
base our choice on whether we want to investigate a subject systematically,
studying known relationships within a subject area, or whether we seek
entirely unknown and unexpected relationships between that subject and
For instance, if
you wanted to study Protestantism in a thorough and systematic way, you
could just read your way through in Library of Congress order:
Within each of those
classifications, you would follow a serene progression from general works
through historical works, texts, collected works, theologies, liturgies,
But some topics
leak across disciplinary boundaries — an exploration of the effects of
Protestantism on political philosophy, for example, or the contributions
of Mormons to the arts — and require a more adventurous approach.
For topics like
these, librarians will more likely look for clues by doing keyword searches
through wider universes — the Web, WorldCat, Dissertation Abstracts, and
such. We might take known writers on the topic and do a citation search
on them, which can take us in entirely unexpected directions. (Did you
know that a citation study on Albert Einstein leads to an article in a
journal of dairy science?).
It is your mental
map that tells you whether the structured systematic search or the Weblike,
collage-building search is most appropriate.
These are my mental
maps, and many of you may share at least some of them. On the other hand,
you also have your own mental maps, ideas about the information landscape
that haven't occurred to me.
The point of this
article is to challenge you to identify what those maps are, think about
how and when you apply them, and remind yourself that you may solve an
information problem by switching from a mental map that's not working to
an entirely different one.