Posted by Mary M. Molnar, Bank of America, on September 23, 2000

Two weeks ago, I asked for help in organizing all the great information that is posted on this listserv.  The responses fell into a number of categories:

(1) BUSLIB-L 

(a) One thing that might help you is our Best of BUSLIB-L page. However, we only save a small number of the BUSLIB posts here. 

(b) Although this may be too general for you, you can do a topic search of past postings at the BUSLIB-L site on escribe.

(2) e-mail Systems 

(a) Oh-oh ...... I've always wondered if there are others "out there" with my dilemma, and sure enough, here you are! I now have 196 items, and to date, the only thing I've done is to clean out all the 'peripheral' stuff in each message, leaving only the core info, and in a number of cases, re-title the message header so it identifies the content, then file it in basic categories so everything is alphabetical. For me, identifying the message title has been the most help, in cases where there's more than one subject, I cut the message into two and file each separately. Would be thrilled out of my wits to hear that somebody else has developed a much better way of handling it! :) 

(b) How about making subject folders for your e-mails corresponding to the categories in your notebook. Then just move the e-mails into the appropriate folder. 

(c) If you use Lotus Notes as your e-mail system you can classify buslib documents (and all your e-mail) on the spot to as many folders as you wish. If you want to classify your e-mails to a given subject list you will need to set up a keyword list of subjects, then classify them by selecting from the list The nice thing is then you can full text search them later. If there are Notes users out there who want a hand at doing this send me an e-mail and I'll show you how (bschless@rasco.com). 

(d) I also started saving useful-looking posts to a folder in Outlook. They are not even organized by subject, just moved into the BUSLIB-L folder. Then when I'm looking for something, I conduct an Advanced search in Outlook. To do this: Choose "Advanced Find" from the Outlook Tools menu, or click Ctrl-Shift-F. Use the Browse button to specify the folder(s) to search, and then specify keyword(s) and field(s)to be searched. Then hit the "Find Now" button. It works as long as I correctly recall the terms used in the original postings. 

(e) Create a personal folder called Buslib (or whatever) and then subfolders for various topics. Example: Buslib Economics Human Resources Telecommunications . . . When you want to search for a resource, select the Buslib folder and choose Find Items from the Tools menu. Enter your terms and all subfolders will be searched. You can add text (i.e., additional keywords) to the message to help with retrieval. Do you have an online catalog? How about adding brief records to the catalog for each resource. You could even give a location of Buslib so that it would be easy to list all the records or limit your search to just that 'collection'. My catalog allows me to create a separate, non- public database.

(3) The Internet 

(a) I am not using Outlook, but what I am doing is very similar to what you are doing with your printed records, but online. I have meta category folders set up and I file them in those folders. We are using Netscape, which I think is not that different than Outlook. I hope this helps. 

(b) I've tried several different approaches. My main concern was to keep a list of all the Internet sites that are mentioned on BUSLIB. Sites that have the librarian's "approval" if you will... I started by adding anything that looks good to Netscape bookmarks, and arranging them by categories. The drawback to this is that there is no description of why this link is so important, or specifically what the site contains. 

(c) Check out these articles from Online magazine: "Making Web Research Pay Off: A Research Manager Roundup" (July/August 1999, pages 56-60) and "Webforia Reporter: A Review" (March/April 2000, pages 58-60). 

(d) For web-based sources that are really germane to my job, I'm developing a small reference database. Using the same software that manages our online catalogue, I put together a database with fields for URL, web page title, broad subject & description/comments/strengths&weaknesses of site. Now, if I'm surfing the Internet & find a gem, or a great source is discussed on a list, I can look at it and quickly add it to the database. It's better organized than my Favorites/Bookmarks, and helps me keep track of sites I might want to add to the library intranet page. I'm not sure if I'll ever roll this out for client-use, but see it being useful for library staff.

(4) Word Processing 

(a) I know the problem. I had saved so much e-mail that the IT department was complaining because it was on the network. Now, when I want to save an e-mail thread, I save it in WORD, under the topic heading of the discussion. For want of a better way, I number the e-mails in the basic category. I didn't even know I could save e-mail messages in WORD, so this was a revelation in organizing to me. This is the process I use: 

1. Highlight an e-mail message you want to save; 

2. Go to file and click on "save as"; 

3. Choose file name (If you know it's going to be one of many in one folder, number or alphabetize, but use folder name first); 

4. Delete file from e-mail; 

5. Go to Word and create your subject folder; 

6. Once subject folder is created, go to explore and drag your new e-mail into it. (The saved e-mail messages go to bottom of folder list.)

There may be a better way to do this. I'm no WORD expert. The other thing I do, if a message gives one or two particularly good web sites, I go to the web site and save it in favorites under established categories. I don't put that message in WORD. 

(b) I don't bother with Outlook in saving all the great sites. I have a folder in Word which I use exclusively for documents by subject. I copy and paste into those documents whatever looks good. If a document gets too big, I organize it a little to eliminate duplicates This is a very simplistic approach which works very well, for me anyway.

(5) Software/Databases 

(a) I have used a personal information manager program called Sidekick for years now and it works wonderfully for this purpose. I create a memo for each category I name and just cut & paste the information from the posting into it. Although it is just cut and pasted, it is very quick and manageable with all the information I want to collect. Although I used to use more of the features, I now only use it for this purpose and for storing all my passwords. I have exported the records to my Palm Pilot and have these with me now when I travel. The software can be purchased at starfish.com. 

(b) I developed an Access database with a field for the URL, the site's name, and a field for the descriptions that are given by the person who posted it. By making the database searchable, I can search the descriptions for keywords that fit what I'm looking for. But... finding the time to maintain this is tough. I've got hundreds of messages waiting to be reviewed. The database is not real glamorous. I have an excellent grasp of Access up to the point of Visual Basic, but it could use some more fine tuning. 

(c) Enfish is a great tool that allows you to organize and search your hard drive for information. I believe Webforia does the same. I've dabbled with both products, and they seem fairly useable. Hope that helps. 

(d) A better solution for your own internal use is to set up a database. We use Filemaker Pro for this purpose. In the main Documents file, each record represents a Web site, article, or complete BUSLIB message. In the Contacts file, each represents a person, and we can link Documents with Contacts. In other words, we can click on "Author" in the Document record to get contact information, including e-mail address. The Documents record has a URL and a file path for the place where we've saved a copy of the file on our hard disk. We've had this for three years, and it has grown in sophistication. Now we also have a controlled vocabulary and subject headings file, so we can assign index terms and subject headings to a document. I think a database is the way to do, and Filemaker is very easy for the database novice to set it up. Good luck!

(6) Good Old-Fashioned Pen and Paper 

(a) This is a very retro solution, but ... I keep a Rolodex (now plural) with web sites that look good. I index them with a word or words to try to keep similar ones together (exchange rate, country information, etc.) And with some I've started added subheads like companies-international. This may sound cumbersome, but I've also had two hard drives die on me, and I know my paper information is safe no matter what. Hope this non-techie solution is of interest. 

(b) Try using a card file - index cards in a box. Arrange by subjects.

Edited on September 14, 2005