Methods describing how-to effectively keep your Internet information under control are outlined here.
The continual development of the United States' (and the world's) service-based economies has increased the total volume of available information. Instead of manufacturing and selling widgets, we are developing and selling skills. These skills inherently require the ability to observe situations and perform actions. The process of observing situations and performing actions requires more than simple data and information. It requires knowledge, but knowledge is recorded as data and information. Consequently, business is increasingly concerned with its accumulation of knowledge, or as it is frequently called, its "intellectual capital."
This realization has given rise to the popular idea of "knowledge management." There are a small, but growing number of knowledge managers, knowledge workers, knowledge systems, and Chief Knowledge Officers (CKO) within business today. The purpose of these groups of people and things is to make the most of the knowledge any one company has and leverage it better than its competitors. It is believed that the business who better leverages its accumulation knowledge will be the business who prospers.
Obviously business is feeling the need to garner better control over its intellectual capital.
Concurrently, the Internet and networked information in general as also increased the total volume of available information. Now anybody can be a "publisher" and many people do. Yes, much of the information is not necessarily what you may want or need, but one person's sour milk is another person's cheese. These factors have contributed to greater feelings of information overload. Information overload is nothing new, but in the increasingly specialized environment in which we live information overload makes itself more readily apparent.
Effective use of your computer can help you cope with information overload. Email is a good thing to work on first. One principle that can be diligently applied is the ABC Rule. Classify your email into three catagories. The A catagory you will act upon and delete it when you are done. The B catagory you will file and possibly index (using something like WAIS). The C catagory you will delete right away. Your mailbox is not a to-do list. Don't keep things there as reminders of projects. Add those reminders to your calendar (be it electronic or not) and delete the original.
When subscribing to mailing lists, subscribe in digest mode. This will reduce your volume of email considerably. When you get the digested mailing, scan the summaries for interesting content. If you see a topic that is discussed again and again, then consider reading it even though it may not particularly interest you because it apparently interests many other people. When you are done with it, delete it. Remember, you can almost always retrieve again.
Finally, concerning email, try using your email program's filtering features. This will separate your personal/work-related mail from the more general email noise.
When reading journal articles in printed or electronic form, read the first two paragraphs, the last two paragraphs, and the footnotes (or URLs) first. If the content of these sections interest you, then read the balance of the text. This is will work most of the time since these sections are good places to find summaries of the document's content.
When browsing online documents or sets of documents (like browsable lists), use judiciously your browser's back button and not the navigation links found within the document. This way you will leave a "trail of bread crumps" and make it easier for you to go back from whence you came. Additionally, it makes it easier for you to traverse all possible paths. Furthermore, using the back button will reinforce the content you browsed since you will be seeing it at least twice.
Consider "surfing the 'Net" without loading images. This not only downloads pages faster but it also eliminates much of the superfluous data bombarding your senses. Good HTML design does not require lots of images.
Use your browser's bookmark features. Take the time to organize your bookmarks, but also regularly take the time to weed its collection.
Some businesses are trying to deal with these same sort of problems with knowledge management. The sites listed below are collections of pointers to knowledge management definitions, texts, and technologies. Read them and compare what they say to the traditional purposes of librarianship.
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Author: Ash, Jerry
Title: Knowledge Management Links
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Description: Short essays surrounding the topic of knowledgement and how it effects business are collected here.
Author: Bellinger, Gene
Title: Knowledge Management
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Description: After an introductory essay, this page includes pointers to references, introductory and advanced articles, books, organaizations, and products all dealing with knowledge management.
Author: Inference Corporation
Title: Knowledge Management Resource Guide
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Description: Created by a company providing consulting services, this is a list of knowledge management resources created for the perspective of business managers.
Author: Public Service Commission of Canada, Strategic Planning, Analysis and Research Branch
Title: Corporate Intelligence and Knowledge
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Description: Here you will find a collection of books, articles, and links to information on corporate intelligence and knowledge. The items are many times in French since this list is generated in Canada and they are offically bilingual.
Author: Special Library Association
Title: Selected References on Knowledge Management
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Description: Lists of articles, websites, and software dealing with the issue of knowledge management, this site seems to be maintained. "If its created by librarians, then it's got to be good."