If we are asking a question, the way we ask can disrupt the course of inquiry…if we ask the wrong question.

Many other more recent books and search engines have been engaged in struggling with the semantics of questions and queries. The new one by Leslie Stebbins, Finding Reliable Information Online: Adventures of an Information Sleuth, suggests there are many issues related to ‘Search Psychology” when evaluating the reliability of answers.

Whether we are searching online or doing research for a solution, the results are based on the questions we ask and how we ask them. I found recently that when a music library was asking to find opera glass reviews, using those two separate and common words, that search results were about glasses and operas, but little about those little binoculars called opera glasses. Hyphenating the same terms, “opera-glasses,” brought reviews to the top of search results.

We have a number of issues when searching online looking for the right combination of terms and operands such as InURL:PDF and using space between words, such as the undocumented Google proximity operand, AROUND(5). Many of the tips we find for searching exist as a result of others’ trial and error or from reading books of those who have studied search extensively like Web Search Garage, Yahoo to the Max, The Extreme Searcher’s Guide to Web Search Engines, The Skeptical Business Searcher and the newer one mentioned above. Someone, maybe several, have put all the operands on the net.

Organizations have been looking for solutions to good management for decades. Such processes as used by efficiency experts, management by objectives, total quality management, quality circles, Deming methods, re-engineering, strategic planning, and most notably recent, re-branding everything. Since we keep seeing new ideas along with a plethora of books on creative thinking and innovation, perhaps we are not asking the right questions. A few years ago, Special Librarians were asking what they must do to stop their company from closing the corporate libraries, as if they could do something different to make those events stop. As I explained in a long letter to the editor of Information Outlook, “It’s not about us,” it wasn’t our fault.² Mergers require someone to pay the debt created and often some of it is born by those corporate libraries which are closed.

The real question might have been, “How do we stay connected to top management or board of directors who make such decisions?” I’m aware of one library that died and took with it all the microfiche that told the engineers what type of metals were used for connections to underwater cables—a necessary thing—lost information requiring new onsite checks.

In 60 AD, Petronius Arbiter, a Roman Imperial Army officer, was attributed as saying, “I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by re-organizing and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.”³

More recently since the 1990s, due to a translation and publication of a Russian book, Theory of Inventive Problem Solving by Genrich Altshuller, U.S. Engineers have become acquainted with TRIZ, a systematic innovation methodology. TRIZ is a process through which engineers can sort out and optimize the best approach to a solution. It’s about finding the right questions as to what is to be solved. Sometimes through the forty principles, finding ‘conflicts’ or ‘contradictions’ lead to new questions leading to different solutions than those anticipated. TRIZ is used at Boeing Company and some others. Some businesses have adapted the program or process. I’m unaware of any libraries using this powerful process, TRIZ, for finding the right questions for organizational development or re-branding.

The recent Gallup poll tells us that only 32 percent of staff of corporations (and maybe large libraries) are really engaged in all of this rebranding, re-engineering, and various innovation programs. Possibly, it is because the emphasis is on changing processes and organizational charts, rather than giving responsibility to line staff for finding solutions at lowest levels. Gaining solutions to library problems and issues should be about finding and asking the right questions. One bad or one good experience with a library with line personnel will color a patron’s confidence in all libraries.

References:

¹ Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art. (New York: New American Library, 1953), 1.

² Editor, message from author, June 1, 2004.

³ Petronius Arbiter, quoted in Quote Investigator.

Resources:

Every Google Search Operator You’ll Ever Need

The post Finding Answers III: Searching For the Right Questions first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

What is becoming increasingly difficult within this plethora of information is finding answers. In 2005, Peter Morville wrote the delightfully entitled Ambient Findability. This should be a mandatory read for librarians. Morville takes us through a discussion of a number of evolutionary methods in the digitizing of data, information, images, and how this affects findability as well as how this journey is changing the way we work and live. The wonderfully informative Web Search Garage by Tara Calishan, who blogs under several titles including ResearchBuzz, tells us how to use the Google search engine to our best advantage. There are many books on searching, with discussions about semantics and federated searching, but I’ve noted some important earlier ones below.

The paradox is that the more things we digitize, even with more and more sophisticated methods of finding them through search and probability engines, the harder it becomes to find these items. Thus we create better software to help us with the finding of digital information. The ebook Desktop Searching Handbook (DSH) arrived in January of 2005 and is a thorough review of several “major” desktop search products.  It reviews Copernic, Google Desktop Search, Lookout for Outlook, MSN Desktop Search toolbar suite, Yahoo Desktop search, and offers a paragraph each on Enfish Find, X1, Blinkx, dtSearch desktop, Ask Jeeves Desktop, Wilbur, and Isys Desktop.  Oddly, they do not include HotBot Desktop toolbar. (HotBot. “Desktop” review of the Beta version, launched in 2004 hhttp://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb040322-1.shtml)  We had software called Kenjin by the company, Autonomy, which similarly searched both desk computer and Internet at the same time. Many of these are gone now, not always replaced with better products. The new Windows 10 now does something similar with its internal program Cortana.

Beyond ‘desktop searching’ we now have some 270 special search engines to help us around the various subjects and types of access. Along with these there are a number of reviews of the Top 10, Top 40, etc. https://blog.kissmetrics.com/alternative-search-engines/ .

With all the help we still have issues about whether the answers give us more questions. Around 2002, PEW Research told us if we used Broadband we’d get more work done. What they didn’t tell us was that the data on which they based the conclusion included listening to radio and watching movies or TV shows. I’m not sure all that was “work” unless one was a reviewer or critic of such things. Thus, defining the context is important as well. I ran into this recently. Someone is doing a survey for “digital humanities librarians.” Without context we don’t know precisely the definition of “digital humanities librarian,” e.g, the subject, Humanities librarians involved in digital projects, or  the activity, Librarians involved in humane/social project such as UNESCO and others.

The government sites tell us veterans will be given long-term health care, but nothing I found seems to tells me how to find out if I’m eligible. The Veterans Administration site also tells us of Medicare and Medicaid help, but doesn’t lead one to discover for oneself what VA eligibility is or how to apply. Other than a phone call, I’m sure it’s all there, but not here, the “Extended Care” page on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ website, http://goo.gl/vZGJp9 . Almost every VA site provides information along with links to additional information, but not the answer to “am I eligible?” or “What are the exact eligibility criteria?”

At one point we had circular references in Statistical Abstracts, e.g., we were told information for one set of statistics came from the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA). When referring to RIAA inquiry of the statistics, they cited Statistical Abstracts as the source. Although dated, perhaps it’s time to get out the The Skeptical Business Searcher: The Information Advisor’s guide to Evaluating Web Data, Sites and Sources, by Robert Berkman: Information Today, Inc., 2005.

Because we librarians are used to looking things up, we forget that calling someone or finding an expert is also a process of accessing information quickly. When I worked at the Lincoln Center (NY) Research Library, we maintained a card file of subjects with names of people and phone numbers whom we could count on to help with answers. Find it Fast, an excellent book which came out many years ago, will be out in a sixth edition by the time readers see this article; Find It Fast: Extracting Expert Information from Social Networks, Big Data, Tweets, and More, Sixth edition by Robert Berkman.

Getting answers is the only reason we need to collect, process, and preserve the tons of digital and print resources being produced each day. Any suggestions or guides to finding answers should be the priority, not just providing information.

The post Finding Answers first appeared on Public Libraries Online.