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Organizing & Managing
Research Using Digital Tools
Lisa Spiro
Digital Media Center
March 2009
Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/slimcoincidence/1109995859/
Feeling
Overwhelmed?
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Dutch researchers estimate that the Indexed Web contains at least
22.36 billion pages
 The hidden web (content not indexed by search engines because it
is dynamically generated, protected, etc.) is estimated to be 500
times bigger than the Indexed Web
 Approx. 7 million books have been digitized by Google.
 See http://www.emc.com/digital_universe for up-to-date ticker of
amount of data produced in 2008
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/will-lion/2595497078/
Will Abundance Lead to Better
Scholarship?
“Historians, in fact, may be facing a fundamental
paradigm shift from a culture of scarcity to a culture
of abundance… it costs no more to deliver the AHR
[American Historical Review] to 15 million people than
15,000 people; it costs less for our students to have
access to literally millions of primary sources than a
handful in a published anthology. And we may be able
to both save and quickly search through all of the
products of our culture. But will abundance bring
better or more thoughtful history?”
--Roy Rosenzweig, "Scarcity or Abundance? Preserving the Past
in a Digital Era," The American Historical Review June 2003
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/108.3/rosenzweig.ht
ml (emphasis added)
Agenda
 Open up a discussion about the impact of digital
resources and tools on research
 Introduce you to some useful tools that can help you
 Keep current in your field
 Organize research materials
 Describe some of the tools & services that the Digital
Media Center (DMC) can provide
“Methodology for the Infinite
Archive”
“The web is an archive that is constantly changing and
effectively infinite. What kind of research techniques can
historians develop to make use of it?” (Bill Turkel,
http://digitalhistoryhacks.blogspot.com/)
What You Can Do With Digital
Information
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Search
Mine
Copy
“Trap”
Organize
Tag
Visualize
Analyze
Distribute
Remix/ Mashup
Etc.
http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/emancipation/
Exploring Digital
Scholarship: Lisa’s
Dissertation Remix
 Experiment in using digital tools for research
 Remixing 2002 dissertation as a work of “digital
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scholarship”
Relying primarily on web-based resources
Using analytical tools to find patterns in information
Disseminating research electronically & openly
Blogging the process at
http://digitalscholarship.wordpress.com/
Stay Current in Your Field
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/western4uk/173094122/
Staying Current Using RSS feeds
 Subscribe to online content & automatically receive
notification of updates.
 Like having a customized newspaper delivered to your
doorstep rather than having to seek out information
 Identify sites that have RSS feeds by looking for the
RSS icon
 Publications, e.g. the New York Times science
section
 Blogs, e.g. Lifehacker
 Journals, e.g. Nature or Victorian Studies
 You can use a service like http://page2rss.com/ to
create an RSS feed for pages that don’t support RSS
How to Use RSS
 Set up a feedreader such as:
 GoogleReader: http://www.google.com/reader/ (web-
based; translate feeds, share them, star them,
organize them, view trends, etc.)
 FeedReader: http://www.feedreader.com/ (installed
on local machine rather than browser based)
 Subscribe to the feed
 Browsers such as Firefox will usually display an icon
in the address bar if the site has a feed.
 Look for words such as subscribe, feed, rss, xml,
atom, or images such as
Let Information Come to You:
Web Alerts
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Google Alerts:
 http://www.google.com/alerts
 Be notified by email when
Google picks up results
relevant to search criteria
 Specify how often you’re
notified & what you search
 Filtrbox
 http://www.filtrbox.com/
 Specify search restrictions
 Get email alerts or view online
 View “trends” in alerts
 Share articles
 Many journals & databases also offer
alerts
Organize Information Via a
Research Portal
http://www.pageflakes.com/lspiro/
How & Why to Create a Research
Portal
 Aggregate online resources (a bio, publication list, RSS
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feeds, images, etc) at a single site with minimal effort
Can serve as a start page for your research, a page that you
use to inform others of your research, or both
Information is online and available from any computer
“Widgets” include to-do lists, RSS feeds from news & info
sources, search tools, etc.
People can subscribe to the RSS feed for your portal
It’s easy to add new content
May be especially useful as a teaching tool, e.g.
http://www.netvibes.com/wesch#Digital_Ethnography
Free services for creating research portals:
 PageFlakes: http://www.pageflakes.com/
 NetVibes: http://www.netvibes.com/
Organize Research Materials Using
Zotero
 http://www.zotero.org/
 “a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you
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collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It
lives right where you do your work — in the web
browser itself.”
Developed by scholars at George Mason’s Center for
History & New Media
Efficient: Supports tagging, sorting by tags, automatic
download of citation information and PDFs of articles
Search your collections, including tags & HTML
documents
Innovative: Will ultimately support groups and
recommendation system, etc.
Need to download an extension to insert references into
Word
Requires Firefox 2.0+
How to Use Zotero
 Click on the page icon in
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the address bar to
automatically download
citation info & assoc.
files
Alternatively, you can
add item from Zotero
toolbar
Organize cites into
collections
Add tags & relationships
to make everything more
findable
Take notes
New Features in Zotero 1.5
 Automatic synchronization of collections across multiple
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computers.
Free automatic backup of your library data at
Zotero.org.
Rich-text notes.
Automatic detection of PDF metadata (author, title, etc.)
Browse through your library online.
New user profiles tied to Zotero accounts.
Preliminary support for following other Zotero users
WYSIWYG CV creator.
Ultimate goal: “aggregate & analyze shared wisdom”
(Dan Cohen)
Zotero 1.5 Researcher Page
http://www.zotero.org/tjowens/358
Zotero 1.5 Library
Analyzing Zotero Collections:
SEASR Analytics for Zotero 0.3.2
What You Can Do with SEASR
Analytics for Zotero 0.3.2
 http://seasr.org/documentation/zotero/
 Uncover patterns in data
 Submit items or collections for analysis & retrieve,
display, and store the results in Zotero
 Currently supports
 Author Centrality Analysis
 Author Degree Distribution Analysis
 Author Hits Analysis
Information Management Tools
 Mendeley: “free social software for managing and
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sharing research papers. It is also a Web 2.0 site for
discovering research trends and connecting to likeminded academics.”
Devon: Store files, categorize them, take notes, run
sophisticated searches
EverNote: Take notes, synchronize across devices
Papers: “iTunes for Research”
See http://digitalresearchtools.pbwiki.com/OrganizeResearch-Materials
Learn about software that you
can use in your research: DiRT
http://digitalresearchtools.pbwiki.com/
Cautions
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Tools come and go. To avoid getting trapped, choose tools that:
 Are fairly mature
 Have a number of adopters
 Allow you to easily export data in standard formats.
 Some tools that you download from the Internet may bring with
them risks of viruses. Check for reviews to verify that the software
is secure & authentic.
 You may be sacrificing some privacy (or dignity) in exchange for
access to some tools. For instance, PageFlakes briefly put up ads
for diet pills on user pages.
 Sometimes you can waste a lot of time learning to use a new tool
that doesn’t do what you thought it would do. Investigate the tool
before downloading it.
How the Digital Media Center
Can Support Your Research
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http://dmc.rice.edu/
 Location: Herring 129
 Part of Fondren Library
 Mission: The Digital Media Center
(DMC) supports the use and creation
of multimedia in education,
scholarship, and creative expression.
Towards this end, we:
 provide hands-on training
 consult with patrons on digital
projects
 offer access to the essential tools
for creating digital resources.
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Borrow Equipment from the DMC
 Available equipment:
 12 video camcorders
 8 audio recorders
QuickTi me™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see t his pict ure.
 5 digital cameras
 Supporting gear: mikes, tripods, etc.
 Check out for up to 3 days
 Reserve in advance
 Free to the Rice community, although
you must provide your own media, e.g.
DVDs & miniDV tapes
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Digitize Materials & Create
Multimedia
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Scan documents, oversized materials,
slides/film, etc.
Convert LPs, audio tapes, VHS tapes, etc. into
digital formats
Workstations:
 3 audio editing stations
 6 video editing stations
 7 graphics editing, web development, etc.
 1 podcasting booth (in collaboration w/ IT)
Print out posters on a plotter
Get help with all of the above
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Take a Class at the DMC
 13 free hands-on workshops
sponsored by the DMC in
Spring 2009
 Classes include:
 Video editing
 Podcasting
 Flash
 Creating DVDs
 Using the Web for
Research
 Zotero
 Digital Storytelling
Study or hold meetings at the
DMC
 2nd floor devoted to study & meeting spaces
 Beautiful views
 Comfortable seating
 Configurable: move furniture around
 Can reserve classroom/meeting space, which features
large display
 Videoconferencing unit on 2nd floor
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Work with Geospatial Data at the
GIS/Data Center
 http://library.rice.edu/services/gdc/the-gis-data-center
 Location: basement of Fondren Library
Resources
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Contact me with questions, comments, etc: [email protected]
Visit the DMC web site: http://dmc.rice.edu/
Download your own copy of these slides from
http://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/21663
Find links cited in this talk at
http://www.diigo.com/user/lspiro/dirtclass
Visit DiRT (http://digitalresearchtools.pbwiki.com/) to find more
information about digital research tools--and please provide
feedback