Information Overload

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Information Overload
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• "A weekday edition of The New York Times
  contains more information than the average person
  was likely to come across in a lifetime in 17th
  century England."
• R.S.Wurman, Information Anxiety(written in 1989)

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• Heres an amazing statistic The average person
  receives 63,000 words of new information every
  day. Thats about the length of a novel. The
  cascade comes in the form of e-mails, tweets,
  Facebook updates, and a zillion further ways we
  consume data these days. If you had this crazy
  idea and wanted to read everything you got in
  2011, says Robby Walker, who calculated the
  words-per-day statistic, it would take you the
  first three months of 2012.
• http//www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-06-19/is
  -cue-the-cure-for-information-overload

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Information Overload

• Having so much information available that you
  either cannot assimilate it all or it feels too
  overwhelming to take any of it in

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Information Overload

• Overwhelmed by the amount of information
• Dont understand the available information
• Desperate to know if certain information exists
• Dont know where to find information
• Unable to access information

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Research on IO

• Once workers are interrupted by an email it takes
  an average of 24 minutes to return to the
  suspended task
• 2,300 employees judged nearly one third of the
  emails they receive to be unnecessary, but spend
  two hours a day processing them
• http//www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/sep
  /24/information-overload

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Info Overload Results In

• Anxiety / Stress
• Delay in Decision Making
• Lack of Job Satisfaction
• Waste of Time
• Working Longer Hours

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My Information Overload

• My jobs (librarian plus UC advisor)
• Grad student
• Personal life
• E-mails, voicemails, meetings, grading, my
  homework, research, keeping up with friends and
  family, etc.

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Your Information Overload?
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Solutions

• Related to research
• Organizational
• Individual

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Acceptance

• Thomas Young (1773 1829)
• English scientist, researcher, physician, and
  polymath
• Last person to know it all

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Research

• Remember people who can help you
• Remember skills from LIB 103

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Taming the Web RSS

• RDF Site Summary / Rich Site Summary / Really
  Simple Syndication
• RSS is a standard XML format for delivering
  content that changes on a regular basis
• Content is delivered in small chunks, generally a
  synopsis, preview, or headline

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Taming the Web Apps!

• http//evernote.com/
• https//www.pulse.me/
• Have not tried but sound interesting
• https//www.cueup.com/
• http//exceltasks.com/informationoverload
• http//springpad.com/about

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RSS

• Instead of always checking your favorite sites
  one at a time
• Lets you know when your favorite websites have
  been updated through feeds
• Through your e-mail
• Through the web (e.g. Firefox)
• Through aggregators like Bloglines or Google
  Reader

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Using RSS

• Look for small, orange icons (RSS or XML)
• How it works

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Overview
Click this for video http//www.commoncraft.com/
rss_plain_english
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Blogs Wikis

• Let someone else do the work! Great for sharing
  information
• BlogsExample http//chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcam
  pus/
• Search for blogs http//blogsearch.google.com/
• WikisExample http//www.libsuccess.org/index.php
  ?titleMain_Page
• Search for wikis http//www.wiki.com/

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Research Alerting Services

• Lets you know about new materials (alerts you)
• Books and articles
• Most databases
• http//library.uncw.edu/faculty_instructors/alert_
  services

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Alerting Services

• "New book" alerts (will e-mail you when new
  books arrive)
• Go to library website (http//library.uncw.edu)
• Click on My Library Account
• Log In
• Click on Library Home at top, right
• Click on Find Books More
• Perform a search
• Click on gray box (Save as preferred search)
• Click on the Patron Record button at the top
  (blue box)
• Click on the Preferred Searches button on right
  (blue box)
• Click the box next to your search terms in the
  column labeled Mark for Email
• Click on Update List (blue box)

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Other Tools
Keeping Your Citations Organized

• Bibliographic Management Tools
• EndNote or EndNote Web
• Zotero

• Library Toolbar
• http//library.uncw.edu/tools_widgets

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Out in the Workforce (and now)

• Employer best practices
• What method will you use for communication?
• E-mail?
• Short messages EOM (End of Message)
• Encourage brief messages (no more than 5
  sentences)
• Use specific subject lines (not FYI or
  tomorrow)
• Resist replying to all
• Avoid personal e-mails to colleagues on work
  e-mail
• SharePoint? Blogs/wikis?
• File Sharing
• Establish best practices for file naming
  (mins.docx vs. curriculumcommitteeminutes10-12-09.
  docx)

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Organizational Continued

• Listservs
• No need to maintain contact lists individually
• Practice good etiquette (keep the personal out of
  professional)
• Set limits for yourself and respect other
  peoples limits
• You cannot be available 24/7
• Dont expect others to be either
• Do not have meetings without agendas, moderators,
  or a minute taker

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Individual Suggestions

• Organize your work space
• Everything has a home
• File cabinet with folders
• Book case for books
• You use it, you put it back
• Set up time each week (15 minutes on Fridays) to
  weed, recycle, organize, clean, etc.
• You do NOT need to print everything
• You do NOT need to keep everything
• You do NOT need to read everything

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Keeping Information

• Ask these questions
• Can I get this info elsewhere if I do need it?
• Is this something I really need? How will it help
  me?
• Now that I've read it and understand it, do I
  need to keep it?
• If I do keep it, where can I put it so that it is
  easily accessible and I dont have to hunt for it?

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E-mail

• How many accounts do you need?
• One personal and one professional (?)
• Do not leave inbox open all day
• Determine specific times that you will check
  e-mail
• E-mail signature that reads I answer e-mail at
  10 a.m., 1 p.m., and 4 p.m. If you need a quicker
  response, please call.
• Act on message when you get it (Respond, delete,
  file)

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E-mail Continued

• If you have to keep messages, create folders
• Useful names
• Once a week or month weed (put this on your
  calendar)
• Dont save everything be realistic
• Modify junk folders in your e-mail
• http//www.uncw.edu/itsd/help/spam.html
• Store large files on TIMMY or in Drop Box - not
  in your e-mail
• http//uncw.edu/ITSD/learning/TimmyFileStorage.htm
  l
• https//www.dropbox.com/

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Phone Calls

• Do not answer phone calls from unrecognized
  numbers (unless it is your job to answer the
  phone)
• Do not answer phone if you are concentrating on
  something (they can leave a VM)

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Technology

• Is your technology stressing you out?
• Take a day off!
• Leave the technology at work (dont check e-mail
  at home)
• What are you REALLY missing?

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Personal Life

• Get rid of junk mail (save you and save a tree!)
• http//www.stopjunkmail.org/
• Can you keep work separate from personal?
• Disconnect from technology
• Social Networking
• Cant keep up on Twitter/Facebook/Tumblr?
• Create lists (e.g. Important People)
• Do you really need 500 friends? Really?
• http//www.digsby.com/ (brings all your contacts
  together in one place)

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Other Tools

• http//www.feeddemon.com/
• http//readitlaterlist.com/
• http//www.rememberthemilk.com/
• Firefox bookmark add-ons