One characteristic commonly associated with the Information Age is the
overwhelming amount of information that is produced and archived. The glut
of information poses significant challenges for scholars and practitioners who desire to maintain a high-degree of awareness concerning new research and development within their discipline. Although technology has contributed to the problem of information overload, new tools are emerging which utilize technology to monitor, retrieve, filter, sort, and organize personally relevant information.

The purpose of this article is to describe nine tactics (see Table 1) for utilizing technology to manage ever-increasing amounts of information while attempting to discern what information is most pertinent to one's personal and professional interests. Specific products will be highlighted to provide a glimpse of the potential power and value of these tools for enabling researchers, educational leaders, and technology specialists to stay apprised of new developments.

Networking
The exchange of information among scholars is a critical component of the
knowledge creation process. Information gained through networking can be invaluable in that it can renew enthusiasm for one's work, serve as a source of inspiration, and offer critical "insider information" that is not readily available through other sources. As a result, technology tools that connect individual scholars with the larger community are especially important, valuable, and necessary for maintaining a high-level of current awareness. Two technology tactics are described for facilitating networking opportunities.

Tactic #1 Attend a Conference
Perhaps the most traditional approach for staying current in one's discipline involved travel to a national conference. Of course, this approach continues to have value. Three web sites feature comprehensive listings of national and international conferences and allow visitors to search by topic, geographic area, dates, etc. to locate relevant conferences:

ERIC Calendar of Education-Related Conferences
http://io.aspensys.com/eric_cal/introduction.asp

Chronicle of Higher Education's Events in Academe
http://chronicle.com/events/

EdTech Conference Planner
http://www.thejournal.com/conferences/

These tools, individually and collectively, will assist you in making the most of a travel budget. The opportunity to attend a national conference is an excellent use of time and provides invaluable networking opportunities.

Tactic #2 Join an E-Conference
The term "E-Conference" is an umbrella term used to describe a range of
communication formats: discussion lists, interest groups, e-journals, e-newsletters, Usenet newsgroups, forums, and chat groups. The basic concept involves identifying a group with interests similar to your interests, subscribing to the messaging system, and receiving correspondence via email. To search for a group with interests similar to yours:

The Directory of Scholarly and Professional E-Conference
http://www.n2h2.com/KOVACS

AERA ListServs
http://www.aera.net/resource/listserv.htm

The Directory of Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists
http://paml.net

This is a wonderful strategy for becoming familiar with issues surrounding
a topic. Many participants simply observe the discussion but do not participate; commonly known as "lurking." This strategy seems to be an ideal way for novices to learn about a topic over time. The chief drawback to this tactic is the voluminous messages that are dumped into your email account. The result is often comparable in time and effort to finding the needle by rummaging through the haystack.

Searching
Undoubtedly, most readers have used a search engine to search for information on the World Wide Web. Indeed, web searching is a seductively simple process and can yield some interesting and useful results. Unfortunately, more often than not, the results are overwhelming and not particularly useful. In addition, significant differences are found when using various search engines. As a result, to improve the value of web
searches, it is helpful to understand the unique attributes of each search engine. A tool to assist in this process is the Search Engine Watch:

Search Engine Watch
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/

Tactic #3 Conduct a Web Search
A promising development in the area of search engines has been the creation of meta-search tools. That is, search engines that simultaneously submit a search to multiple search engines and then co-mingle the results, eliminate duplicate entries, and rank order the results based on relevance. Several metasearch tools are available, including:

Google
http://www.google.com/

NorthernLight
http://www.northernlight.com/

DogPile
http://www.dogpile.com/

These tools are valuable to researchers because they are available on-demand, are relatively easy to use, and save considerable time compared to conducting repeated searches using individual search engines.

Monitoring
The previous tactic, searching, involves an active initiative to locate relevant information. The opposite approach, one that saves considerable time, is a passive information seeking strategy. That is, someone else collects the information you desire and periodically report the results to you. Three tactics are described which utilize technology to monitor topics of personal and professional interest.

Tactic #4 Subscribe to a Monitoring Service
A strategy similar to subscribing to a listserv, (Tactic #2) involves subscribing to a service that conducts its own monitoring and provides periodic updates. Two examples of services that monitor education and technology topics are:

The Scout Report
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/index.html

EDUPAGE
http://www.educause.com/pub/edupage/edupage.html

Obviously, the value of this tactic is dependent on the quality of the search staff that prepares the messages. In my experience, I've found that the quality of the resources shared via monitoring services to be significantly higher than those exchanged via e-conferences.

Tactic #5 Create a Personalized News Monitor
Personalized news monitors are essentially customizable web pages that
allow users to define the news and current events that they want to
monitor. Begin by selecting the items you want (e.g., headlines, sports, TV
guide listings, weather, etc.), and then customize the layout.
Subsequently, whenever you visit the page, you see only the news that
interests you. Examples of personalized news monitors can be found at the
following web sites:

My Yahoo!
http://my.yahoo.com

Create Your Own Newspaper
http://crayon.net

My Excite Start Page
http://my.excite.com

While this approach places a premium on monitoring the popular press, it
can be a useful tool. Be sure to look for the Clipping Service function that will allow you to create and store a search profile about topics of interest. Whenever you review the profile you will find articles from papers around the country/world on your topic. This tactic is clearly an example of the power of technology tools that would be difficult to
replicate using traditional resources.

Tactic #6 Create a Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) Profile
To take advantage of this tactic you will probably need to enlist the assistance of a university librarian. Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) is a procedure that involves creating a search request to be executed in a specific database. Once your search profile is created, your search will be run every time the database is updated (i.e., monthly, quarterly) and you will be automatically notified of the new items indexed by the descriptors in your search profile. To learn more about SDI, visit:

Bibliography of Selective Dissemination of Information
http://www.ils.unc.edu/gants/sdibib.html

SilverPlatter
http://www.silverplatter.com/support/docs/webspirs41/ws41qs13.htm

While this feature is not currently available for ERIC, some local libraries, database providers, and third-party vendors provide this service. Unlike most methods of literature searching that require you to initiate the search, this tactic is a passive method for staying current since you periodically and automatically receive notification of new items meeting the definition of your search profile. Without question, this
tactic is extremely valuable for scholars.

Pathfinding
Historically, scholars have published literature reviews and annotated bibliographies as a means of helping others access the body of knowledge that inform an expert's understanding of a discipline. However, when conducting leading-edge work, it is unlikely that a comprehensive review is yet available. Further, complicating matters, without a colleague to share new resources, many scholars, technology specialists, and educational leaders find themselves working in relative isolation. I use the term, "pathfinding," to connote an application of technology that allows a person to benefit from the noteworthy resources concerning a topic that other researchers and practitioners would recommend to others interested in learning more about a topic. Below are three pathfinding tactics I've discovered for utilizing technology to access articles, books, and web sites that others have found valuable in their study of a specific topic.

Tactic #7 Access Recommended Articles
Searches of databases like ERIC yield lists of recently published articles. However, how can you find out which articles appear to be receiving more attention than others? One interesting way to go about this is to access the database of a document delivery system. A document delivery service allows users to locate relevant articles and order a copy of the article to be delivered via mail, fax, or email. One popular document delivery service is:

UnCoverWeb 2.0
http://uncweb.carl.org/

Why would you search a database like UnCover rather than ERIC? A search of
the database of a document delivery service will not produce all the articles on your topic; only the articles that have been frequently requested. Thus, conduct your traditional search using ERIC to obtain a comprehensive list of articles and then search CARL UnCover to locate articles that should move up on your priority list. Unless you order a copy of an article, this service is free. If you have a colleague who is an expert on your topic and can help you rank order your search results for relevance and priority you'll have little need for this tactic. Otherwise, this technique is excellent

Tactic #8 Access Recommended Books
Most readers are familiar with Amazon.com at some level. However, have you
thought about how this online service can assist you in your research? Go ahead and connect and search for a book title you commonly reference in your work.

Amazon.com
http://amazon.com

Scroll down the page past the descriptions and notice the list of recommended books. The list of recommended books is built from a database regarding the purchases by people that also bought the book you referenced. While we all have different interests, affinity groups can be composed of people share common interests. As a result, techniques derived from affinity groups can be applied to suggest books that might interest you. As a researcher, this type of list is invaluable for making me aware of related books that I perhaps have yet to discover in my work. Best of all, its free!

Tactic #9 Access Recommended Website
While one might expect tools for locating articles and books to be more advanced given their traditional use in scholarship, wouldn't it be helpful if there were similar tools for locating recommended web pages? If so, you may be interested in knowing about a free browser plug-in that provides users with a pathfinding function for any web page you visit. Go to the following web page, take the tour to learn about Alexa and then download the free software (select the version for the web browser you are using):

Alexa
http://www.alexa.com

After Alexa is installed, a small window appears across the bottom of your screen anytime your web browser is open. For any web page you visit, Alexa provides information about who owns the web site, its ranking in terms of hits, and a list of up to ten web sites that visitors to that page frequently visit. The value of this tool is immeasurable. While each of the ten related sites are not always helpful, on many occasions they have created links for me that would have taken hours to discover otherwise. I believe this is a "must-have" tool for everyone: students, technology specialists, educational leaders, and researchers.

Concluding Thoughts
Bush (1945) noted that our ability to extend the record has greatly surpassed our ability to consult and exploit the knowledge base in its bulk: "The summation of human experience is being expended at a prodigious rate, and the means we use for threading through the consequent maze to the momentarily important item is the same as was used in the days of square-rigged ships." (p. 102).

In summary, while Bush's quote still holds true, new developments are emerging which suggest interesting possibilities for research and practice. As outlined in Table 1, nine tactics illustrate the value of technology tools and tactics for navigating overwhelming amounts of information to find that which is personally and professionally relevant and useful.

It appears that Tactic #1 (attending a conference) is a baseline strategy that has proven its value historically. Tactic #2 (joining an e-conference) certainly fills the void when travel budgets are reduced and may sustain on-going collaboration between conference meetings. However the time required to sort through voluminous messages raises questions about the value of this tactic given the time and effort involved. Typical web searching (Tactic #3) seems to epitomize Bush's (1945) observation about the antiquated tools presently available. In contrast, Tactics #4, 5, & 6 (monitors) seem to offer an economical trade-off in terms of value of results in exchange for minimal time and effort. Finally, Tactics #7, 8, & 9 (pathfinding) begin to illustrate how the unique power of technology (i.e., affinity groups, e-commerce, one-to-one databases) can be harnessed to enhance scholarship by providing current awareness information in ways that are without a counterpart.

References
Bush, V. (1945, July). As we may think. Atlantic Monthly, pp. 101-108.

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Networking
Tactic 1 Attend a Conference
Tactic 2 Join an E-Conference

Searching
Tactic 3 Conduct a Web Search

Monitoring
Tactic 4 Subscribe to a Monitoring Service
Tactic 5 Create a Personalized News Monitor
Tactic 6 Create an SDI Profile

Pathfinding
Tactic 7 Access Recommended Articles
Tactic 8 Access Recommended Books
Tactic 9 Access Recommended Website