Project Evaluation

My searching project was very enlightening to me. I’ve been interested in cybersecurity and privacy issues for a while – ever since I began reading about the work of Edward Snowden to expose privacy violations within our government – and I was very interested to see what I could learn about this controversial and ever evolving topic. Searching through the vastly different databases has shown me how wide reaching this topic can be and how many different disciplines are affected by the need for online security infrastructure. I was very surprised to find that these searches lead me to investigating topics like cyberpsychology – an up and coming field centered on how we interact with the world online – and software standardization.

Searching so many different databases shows that you never really know what you will find in these unique databases. For example, I wasn’t sure what to search in PsycInfo and ended up learning about the previously mentioned field of cyberpsychology. This project put into my arsenal of tools many new databases that I would not have spent much time working with. Now I know how to search in these databases if or when I received a specialized question. Learning more about how to manipulate limiters was also an important element of this course for me. While I always knew they were there, practice makes perfect and having to search so many databases, each with their own set of unique limiters and abilities, really made me aware of what exactly each limiter was doing and how it was affecting my search. 

Social Media Searching

Social media search is a great way to see what is being said about your topic in real time. Social Mention is a social media search engine that searches blogs, social media mentions, images, comments and news articles. It also ranks the “sentiment” of the mentions and how often a topic is being discussed. It is an excellent tool to gauge public interest in your topic. The search interface is not complicated, so I simply searched “cybersecurity” and browsed the various tweets, blogs and mentions that were pulled for the topic.

What I Learned

I honestly cannot say that I learned much about my topic from this search. While the results were interesting, especially the information about the “sentiment” of the public towards the topic of cybersecurity, I did not see any hard facts about cybersecurity that stuck out to me. When we consider one of the earlier articles that I read on the subject of social media research however, the worth of such a tool becomes more clear. A researcher might be able to use this tool to determine how often a corporate entity is mentioned or how much information is being divulged about a company through social media.

The most helpful thing I learned about searching in this database is to make sure of the "Sort By" and "Results" drop down menus at the top of your list of results. If you're looking for up to the minute updates, the "Results" menu will give you updates only from the last couple of hours to days, which can be useful if you are researching a fast changing topic.

Reflections

Social Mention is a quick way to get an idea of what is going on with your topic right that minute. For more popular topics, this tool may be more useful. For example, if you wanted to know how the public perceives a certain public figure, you would be able to see Social Mention’s take on their opinion about the piece. I was especially curious about the “passion” element that was measured, which purported to show how likely a person talking about the topic will talk about the subject again. 

Google Image Search

In the spirit of the excellent graphics from the Pew Research Institute in my previous search, I decided to search for “cybersecurity infographics” in Google Images. Because of the very theoretical nature of my topic, searching simply for “cybersecurity” yielded some very boring pictures of computers with locks around them and Matrix-esque images of “cyberspace”. Adding the term “infographic” to my search resulted in much better results that really teach why to invest in cybersecurity and how to ensure the safety of personal and corporate data. Just to test it out, I also filtered my search by my favorite color – blue! The image I selected is from the Silicon Valley Bank and provided detailed statistics about cybersecurity and tech companies.

What I Learned

I was shocked to learn that only 8% of the surveyed companies were using some sort of security software to protect their data. IT professionals that I have worked with previously have always made it sound like that was a standard practice.

Before this course, I had no idea that there were search tools for the Google Image Search.  The Usage Rights feature is extremely helpful, especially if you are helping a patron to decided which images are available for them to use in a classroom setting or for a personal project. 

Reflection

As usual, Google produces useful, on point results for my query. I had a great time messing around with the search tools to see how each different element changed my search results. As I said before, no one has ever pointed these tools out to me before and I am looking forward to sharing these tips with patrons and colleagues. 

Statistical Database Search

I used the opportunity to search a stats database to show how important and valuable good cybersecurity policy is by searching for information on how many people are affected by poor security online. I searched the Pew Research Institute for the term “identity theft”.  I was able to find a study on the number of people who experienced identity theft and information about the types of internet users who are most likely to have “negative” experience online related to privacy and their reputation.

What I Learned

I learned that 1 in 5 internet users experiences some form of identity theft, with internet users from lower income brackets experiencing the most negative attacks on their personal information and online reputation.

I did not really learn anything about searching from this particular database because the search was so limited and simple, but I do recommend reading through all your results (or at least the first page worth of results) when searching on this website. Sometimes the titles of documents can be a bit unimpressive but the summary will show that they are deeply relevant to your topic.

Reflection

The Pew Research Institute was a great choice for this search and I think it would be very useful to other people looking for statistical information, primarily because the results were so easy to read and understand. With statistics and numerical information, I always find myself getting in over my head – having to reread information in order to understand the sometimes higher level statistical information I have found. However, the Pew reports were easy to understand with clearly labeled illustrations and helpful bullet points that made the information digestible. 

LexisNexis

LexisNexis is a popular database, frequently used by those in the legal field. Prior to starting my MLIS degree, I worked as a case manager/paralegal for a large plaintiff’s law firm and we were often using Lexis Nexis to access information relevant to our cases.

For this search, I decided to search only for “cybersecurity” hits that were published in the last year. I also decided to remove “Company Profiles”, as those hits had not been useful to me in previous LexisNexis searches I have done with previous employers. One the results page, I decided to further limit my search to the industry “Information Security & Privacy”.

The article I found was a short news clip that was similar in topic to the article that I found through DIALOG – “Technology: Dissecting The First Version of the NIST’s Cybersecurity Framework”.

What I Learned

I learned today that NIST – the National Institute of Standards and Technology – does not create standards that are required by law. While they are recommendations for best practices and sometimes lead to regulations, companies are not required by law to meet these standards. However, their publications are influential within the industry.

Similar to DIALOG, I recommend limiting your search to a specific industry if possible. It made my results much more targeted and more relevant to the type of information I was seeking. Some topics do not lend themselves well to this process, but cybersecurity definitely fell comfortably under "information security".

Reflection

In my previous work as a paralegal for a major plaintiff’s law firm, I used LexisNexis daily and there is truly nothing like it for searching for case summaries and case law. The indexing on court cases (particularly the ability to search cases by subject) found in LexisNexis is far superior to other products on the market (for example, WestLaw) and I highly recommend LexisNexis as the first stop for any legal searches that need to be done. However, I find LexisNexis to be much slower than other databases we have used and not as intuitive. I would hesitate to put a user with little experience searching databases to work with LexisNexis because the number of results returned is so high and limiting your results takes practice. In general, I would say that I prefer other databases interfaces (such as JSTOR’s or the various ProQuest databases) over that of LexisNexis, especially for materials such as articles that are archived in other databases.  

DIALOG

DIALOG had always been described to me as cumbersome, difficult to use and not worth the effort when other databases provide similar products without the hassle. However, I found DIALOG to be very intuitive (perhaps because of the ProQuest interface that has been placed on top of the content) and I was very pleased to find a great deal of information about my topic while searching this database. For this search, I was guided by the Online Information Retrieval Lab 2 and by using the Help features in DIAGLOG.

I conducted a command line search in DIALOG with “cybersecurity” in the title, “privacy” as a subject and limited my search to articles. I found this type of search to be much more useful that a standard keyword search. I was returned only 77 results, but they were all very specialized and very much on topic with my search project. I searched within the Telecommunications industry sector, which also helped to return very specific results.

The article that I found to be most interesting was titled “IS NIST Turning Weak Cybersecurity Standards Into Aggressive New Privacy Regulation?”

 What I Learned

Recalling information from my first search about cybersecurity, I was intrigued to find out more about the ways that the federal government is dealing with cybersecurity issues. NIST is the National Institute of Standards and Technology and is part of the United States Department of Commerce. This short article discussed how NIST is responding to calls for standardization in cybersecurity practices.

I definitely recommend spending the time to compose a good command line search, as I will discuss further in my Refecltion. Although it is not as intuitive for a beginner searcher, the results are definitely more useful and relevant. The command line search shows the true power of the DIALOG search database. 

Reflection

Easily the best thing about DIALOG is the ability to sort by industry. If you are searching for technical topic, the time saved by presorting your results to include only journals that publish in your field is incredible. While this does limit the number of results you are receiving (and as such, may not be ideal for someone writing a dissertation or other major research paper where more information is better), for a targeted search – such an undergraduate paper or a search based on personal interest – the industry sorting allowed by DIALOG is wonderful. I did spend a bit of time in the Help section of DIALOG simply because I had heard so many negative things about the searching in DIALOG from older colleagues. The Help section is very good and helped me to quickly put together an effective command line search.  

WorldCat

I have been using WorldCat for many years. It was a huge part of my undergraduate experience and I have been recommending WorldCat to friends and patrons ever since I began working in a library. I find WorldCat to be particular useful when tracking down a resource that I need right away – something that I cannot wait 2-3 day for via interlibrary loan. Because I am lucky enough to live in a major city, I am frequently able to track down a book or resource through WorldCat at a local library. For this project, I decided to search for a book on cybersecurity with an emphasis on research. After reading about social media research in my last search, I decided to see if there were any materials in my search that would be informative for a librarian who is conducting research.

I conducted this search as part of our Online Information Retrieval Lab. The requirements of the lab were to search for your topic, then limit by the years 2012-2014. Using that search, I was able to locate a book that fit my initial search project.

I found Jody R. Westby’s Legal Guide to Cybersecurity Research. I am particularly interested in this text because it was published by the American Bar Association (a very reputable publisher of legal information) and, as a (hopeful) future law librarian I would be interested in learning what special concerns there may be in searching for information about cyber and network securities.

What I Learned

I cannot say that I learned much about my topic specifically through this search, because of the nature of this database. Unlike other databases, I was not reading an article about my topic. However, browsing the results that were returned did give me an idea of what types of information is available about the topic of cybersecurity and the wide range of subjects that are involved in the study of cybersecurity, privacy and our ideas about identity on the web.

While this is not something learned specifically from my time in this course, I do recommend always inputting your zip code when searching WorldCat unless you are very specifically looking for materials in other areas. Your zip code will stick around anytime you log on to World Cat with the same IP address and it will make quick searches for resources that much faster.

Reflection

I still think that WorldCat is one of the most useful websites in a librarian’s arsenal. I always have a positive experience with WorldCat and while I haven’t needed to use it specifically in my work as a reference librarian yet, I like knowing that I am not limited to my own library when searching for resources. Like I said in my initial search explanation, living in a big city has its advantages. I imagine that WorldCat will also be useful if I decide to work more with collection development, as I compare the collection of my own library with the libraries of peer institutions.