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Database
Searching:
Personal Qualities and Attitudes Facilitate Effective
Searching
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Assume
- That you will
never
know enough
- That you will
always
be naive about most
subjects.
Be
confident
- That you can always learn the
techniques for searching any database.
- That the information is there,
somwheres.
Be creative in
pursuing any search.
- The people who write the
documents, who abstract them, who index them (create subject
headings for documents) are a wide range of people.
- Try to think how they were likely
to have approached their tasks.
- Non-linear thinking is an asset.
That is, the ability to go mentally in multiple directions
("thinking out of the box") in order to solve a problem can be
very valuable.
Experiment
(but
preferably not in $360/hour databases)
- When you are learning
- When you just can not find an
answer with your usual range of strategies.
Be willing to
learn
- New search software
- New techniques.
- Information environments in which
the content is in a linear (A to B to C) or necessarily logical
order.
Finally
- Experience and subject knowledge
are important, but they are only two of the necessary
factors.
- Scholastic aptitude helps, but it
is no absolute indicator of searching capability.
- Degrees mean little or
nothing.
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