[finders] Finding Findability

[finders at findability.org]

October 17, 2006: Finding Findability

http://www.findability.org/archives/000136.php

Yesterday, I received an unusually high volume of fan mail about Ambient
Findability. I already posted one message. Here's the other:

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    Mr. Morville:

    I've had various roles in the computing business since the mid '80's and
am now in the business of acquiring marketing and customer satisfaction
information for bank executives. Ambient Findability is the most important
book on information I have ever read. It's helping me personally and
professionally. I can hardly believe how many good ideas are in the book.
It's incredible. Thank you very much for writing it.

    I am recommending it to everyone I work with in the computing and
information business, and keep a copy of it handy at my desk so I can show
it to people.

    I thought you'd like to know how I came to find Ambient Findability:
About a month ago my 9th grade son started a school science project, and
part of the required work was to prepare a bibliography. When I asked to see
his work I was aghast to see that all of the references in the bibliography
were found on the Web using Google. He had not even considered using a
library for this task. I insisted that he needed to find sources that were
known to be authoritative and that we would go to the library at once to
research it. The library had not opened yet, so we went across the street to
Barnes and Noble and went to the Science section to start looking for
references. While there, I wandered into the Engineering section and found
your book by happenstance, started reading it, and bought it before we left.

    Because his subject was a bit unusual, I explained the importance of
reference librarians and how they can help find materials to support
research. We went to the library, introduced ourselves to the reference
librarian, and subsequently found good quality information that he needed.
Although he found the critical information he needed to form his hypothesis
in a book, I don't believe he took that exercise seriously, and seems to
think it's odd that Google isn't sufficient for academic work. Our next
conversation on this subject will be about how free technology isn't a
complete answer, just partial, and needs to be augmented by a variety of
other media, including for-fee online services.

    Best regards,

    Rudy Smith

    Ham Lake, MN

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I love hearing how people found the lemur book, and it's good to hear a
first-person story about the challenges of selecting sources and evaluating
authority. So, keep those email messages coming. Cheers!