Information Resources A User Perspective

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Information ResourcesA User Perspective
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Disclaimer

• Im a user
• Not here to share my great ideas or tell you how
  to do things
• Here to share my ignorance, and tell you how I do
  things
• I apologize if there are resources out there that
  I dont mention
• But hopefully, the fact that I am ignorant of
  them, or omit them, also represents some kind of,
  hopefully constructive, feedback

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Information Resources

• My work is in theoretical physics, but probably
  my usage of information resources is fairly
  typical
• In which contexts do I search for information?
• Which resources do I use to find it?
• Am I successful in finding it?
• Is the process efficient and not frustrating?

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Types of Information Resources

• Main resource papers
• Other resources I use
• Reviews, Manuals, How-Tos, Tutorials
• Experimental data
• Software
• Physics software
• Computing software
• Conference Workshop information
• Information on people
• Outreach-related information and illustrations

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SPIRES

• Thank you!
• When I plan a conference or workshop
• I go to

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SPIRES

• SPIRES is the main information resource
• When I plan a conference
• I check the SPIRES conference database for
  planning
• I stake my claim on dates by submitting to
  SPIRES
• When I forgot someones email address
• I check SPIRES HEPNAMES database
• Also when I want background on names unfamiliar
  to me
• I use the citations feature a lot
• To check how my babies are doing and compare
• As a main reference in reviewing job applications
• I dont use INSTITUTIONS or JOBS or VIDEOS
• (But I have to say I dont use other resources
  for that either)

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Comments from a novice

• First time I encountered SPIRES I thought
• Damn, couldnt they make this more user-friendly?

• I guess this is still a valid comment
• If you dont find anything matching the author,
  try automatically searching for collaboration?
• But this is only really a problem for total
  novices
• And I said I wasnt here to share my great ideas

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Later on

• I came to appreciate the philosophy
• Ive seen many examples (elsewhere) of
• Seemingly user-friendly gimmicks that actually
  added time/load for the experienced user (e.g.,
  fancy, but slow, or simply failed design)
• Fancy features are less robust, and hide more
  complexity
• SPIRES has a large and experienced user community
• Main objective Fast/robust searching for the
  experienced user
• To aid the inexperienced, the optimal philosophy
  is examples
• If it aint broke, dont fix it
• The SPIRES philosophy appears to be conservative,
  little change over the years (except some
  improvements in the graphic design)
• Not a place for trying out fancy new things every
  other week
• Thank you! (All we want is for inSpire to be as
  good)

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The most useful feature on SPIRES?
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Now

• Many of my colleagues do read the abstracts daily
• I dont (any more).
• There are too many
• Not that they are not interesting, but time
  constraints are significant ? need something more
  personally tailored
• I rely on personal interactions to get pointed to
  specially relevant papers
• Corridor gossip
• Lunchtime discussions
• Workshops, Conferences, Seminars
• This is not watertight, and has delay ? loss of
  efficiency

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Historical References
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Psychological Effects

• Effects of the way we work with information
• The old way
• Go to the library, find the volume, and dig in
• High threshold, high immersion
• Away from office phone, email,
• Paper, feeling of permanence, take notes,
• The new way
• Click on pdf, open it up
• Low threshold, low immersion
• In office, email notification pops up, skype,
  distractions
• Screen, feeling of impermanence, harder to stay
  organized,
• Defocussing
• ? clean, unchanging sites help restore feeling of
  permanence
• Tools to help stay organized?

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PDG

• I use the pocket book more than the web site
• Paper is good for large amounts of flipping back
  and forth
• Permanent inhabitant of my backpack
• I use the theory reviews
• I havent really started using PDGlive
• But took a look at it for the first time during
  this meeting
• It does seem to have a slight lag

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Non-SPIRES/PDG resources

• I do use the rumour mill(s) as a resource
• I post HEP outreach-related material on Facebook
• From YouTube
• From standard News related websites
• I wouldnt post a SPIRES link
• Again, SPIRES professionals, not outreach
• For anything else I use Google
• Example of bad practices ROOT (slightly less
  bad Latex?)
• Again, SPIRES excels (easy to disambiguate from
  Oxford)

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Physics Illustrations

• My main search engine for illustrations (for
  talks) is Google and/or Wikipedia
• But get lots of junk since not dedicated-purpose
• Often, physics illustrations contained in pdfs or
  other formats that google images not optimized to
  search
• Wikipedia is better, and more referenceable, but
  the amount of material is smaller

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Personalization?

• Tools to help stay organized
• Too many abstracts
• Help retain feeling of permanence
• Costs of personalization
• Log-in, higher threshold
• Less uniform interface
• Clean ? cluttered?

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An Alternative?