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presentation for our MBA (Executive) students

Well, this was something different for a Saturday. I just gave two presentations to our MBA (Executive) students, giving an introduction to the Library and what electronic resources it has for off-campus users.

I used to give these presentations more frequently when I lived in Minnesota - but it's been over 2 years now. So I was a little rusty, but I still feel ok about the whole thing.

My notes and slides are available here.

This blog has got off to a fairly slow start in 2006, but I think I've found a theme for the year - some practical posts on business research. I'll still write about other things, and do the occasional rant, but I like the idea of having this topic to return to.

using Gmail as a research cache

For some people, the process of research is very organized and methodical. For me research is something creative and instinctive, slightly chaotic and usually a bit messy. I am not saying that one way is better. I know that there are distinct disadvantages to my method, such as the possibility of finding a really good source through some odd combination of luck and insight - only to lose it, never to find it again because of being disorganized. So I've been looking at better ways to be organized - but not in a way which slows me down and causes me to lose my momentum. For me, research is the closest that I'll ever get to hunting. One of the things I like about it is the chase, which is why I hate things which slow me down

I have set up a separate Gmail account for my work and use it as a cache of my research. As I come across articles and sources which seem promising, what I do is compose a new email, paste in the full text and citation/URL of the article and then save it as a draft. It's a very quick process, and so I'm able to move on. The nice thing is that because Gmail is searchable, everything in this research cache is searchable - making it easy to return to the documents to dig more deeply and hone in on what is useful. It doesn't work so well with pdfs, but I can still upload the pdf and store the citation and/or URL. The other nice thing is that I can add to and search this cache whether I'm in my office or at the shared computer on our reference desk.

I am quite confident that because this research cache is personal - and can only be used by me - and because it's do with my work which is for academic purposes, that in most cases, it would be all right. To be absolutely sure, I would need to check all of the license agreements of all of the database which I am likely to use.

Currently playing in iTunes: Benzin by Rammstein

a little update

Even though I'm in this new job and haven't had the chance to accrue much vacation leave, I was able to take off the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve because the library was completely closed during this period. That was very nice and I was able to escape Sydney's oppressive heat by visiting Tasmania and catching up my family and friends there. I had so many fresh cherries there too - another person might have got sick of them, but I can never have too many cherries.

Now I'm  back at work and it seems as if the summer slowdown has officially ended with the orientation of this year's new MBA class. Then I  realized, wow - it's been a little while since my last blog post. It's been good to have a little holiday from blogging too.

I've enjoyed reading the 2005 retrospectives and New Year posts which some bloggers have written recently. I plan to do no such thing today - I do enough of this already from time to time.