Keeping Found Things Found
The Keeping Found Things Found research project at the University of Washington’s Information School takes the problem of information retrieval one step further by examining how people save, reaccess, and reuse items they’ve already found. Their current focus is on how people do this with regards to information they’ve found on the Web. Some of their papers and presentations and surveys they would like people to complete are available through their Web site .
Their research seems to indicate that people may be relying heavily on search engines as a way to find a Web site again, instead of bookmarking the site or noting the site’s location using another method.
Of the methods people use to get back to Web sites examined in their work, I saw nothing about the role of blogs. Several bloggers use their blogs to store links to Web sites they find interesting, whether it’s using the Web space to post a bookmarks/favorites file so they can access it from multiple computers or just making note of an interesting Web site, like I am doing now. (Blogs as a knowledge management tool.)
Thanks to the ResourceShelf for including information about this interesting research project.
(Here’s another hint, KFTF folks: page titles on Web sites help search engines identify your pages, which in turn helps people retrieve them and find them again.)
