I picked up a new book recently called Scholarship in the Digital Age:Information, Infrastructure, and the Internet by Christine L. Borgman. It is pretty interesting, and deals with how data production, accumulation, analysis and publication are changing in the21st century.

Jim.

Thanks for the thumbs-up; I read the reviews and it does look interesting indeed.

A couple of years ago I was talking to a friend who's a reader of law at a UK university. She had no idea of information management software and told me that neither did most of her colleagues. I imagine that people in her line of work that are good at using such software should be at a significant advantage (unless they spend more time CRIMPING than actually using the software do get the work done).

A similar situation had been described years ago by Tony Buzan's brother, an academic, about the advantage that mind maps gave him in his work.

Cheers
alx

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

A couple of years ago I was talking to a friend who's a reader of law at a UK university. She
had no idea of information management software and told me that neither did most of her
colleagues. I imagine that people in her line of work that are good at using such
software should be at a significant advantage (unless they spend more time CRIMPING
than actually using the software do get the work done).

Most curious as I expect that newly minted attorneys/lawyers start out researching law topics for more senior members of law firms. And, of course, MaxThink and NoteMap (ugh!) were primarily tools for lawyers. I wonder if the UK University where your friend studies law requires its law students to take a class in logic? I understand that the top law schools in the US do (or did when I was younger). I havea nephiew who is an attorney. I'll have to ask him about this. I do know that some senior attorneys barely use computers...Of course, they have clerks to do their research a,d. perhaps, some have "photographic" memories.

A similar situation had been described years ago by Tony Buzan's brother, an academic, about the advantage that mind maps gave him in his work.

If I do mindmapping, it must be within my skull. In high school and university I was forced to write outlines for the papers I was assigned to write. We were supposed to write an outline first--to clarify our thoughts and the paper's organization--before starting on the paper. I always wrote mine after. I only found outlining useful once I started using GV both for info storage and as a writing tool, but still not as a pre-thought & paper organizing tool. Perhaps If my memory were much, much better, I wouldn't be PIMming.

-c

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
>A couple of years ago I was talking to a friend who's a
reader of law at a UK university. She
>had no idea of information management software
and told me that neither did most of her
>colleagues. I imagine that people in her line
of work that are good at using such
>software should be at a significant advantage
(unless they spend more time CRIMPING
>than actually using the software do get the
work done).

I graduated from law school last May. I used ADM all through law school and it was a huge advantage. I agree that it was always curious to me that most of my classmates didn't use information management software. It's especially curious because the accepted method of studying in law school is to create an "outline" of everything you know about a topic and then to refine that outline into a tool to take into your exams (or to memorize for closed-book exams).

When I learned that I was expected to make an outline, it seemed natural to me to then try to find some good outlining software. But that's probably because, prior to law school, I was a software developer and so I naturally gravitate towards technical solutions to problems. I think most of my english major / philosophy major / poli-sci major classmates aren't as drawn towards software solutions as I am.

Most of my classmates made Word outlines (ugh!). NoteMap was sold, and prominently displayed, at the law school bookstore - and yet only a couple of my classmates used it. (We all took notes on notebooks during class, so you could easily see how everyone in front of you organized their notes.) Some people asked me about ADM when they saw me using it, and I enthusiastically praised its advantages, but I'm sure no one ever adopted it -- it just looked too geeky and complicated. I actually like Notemap, but I feel burned by the ADM dead end so I'm going with the big boys now (OneNote). I'm slowly exporting all my law school notes into OneNote outlines as I need a particular topic. I'm not totally happy with my new solution, but it's still a heck of a lot better than MS Word :)

dan7000 wrote:

...I actually like Notemap, but I >feel burned by the ADM dead end so I'm going with the big boys now (OneNote)....

I, too, actually liked moribund NoteMap, except for the Word Export problem... until

www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/632/0/more-notemap-crap-use-notemap-zat-your-own-peril

-c

I'm just finishing up my second year of law school and I've noticed similar things, though our school has seen a big uptick in Mac users who seem to use a wider variety of software. On Windows, almost everyone uses Word, though most don't even bother with outline mode. Some people use OneNote but it's a rarity. One girl takes her notes in Excel because she likes the way she controls the indentation and nothing magic happens (reformatting, auto styles, that kind of thing). The Mac users seem split half-half I'd say between Word in "notebook" mode and various outliners like NoteBook and OO. I think OO is the most popular of the dedicated outliners.

-- Alan

dan7000 wrote:

I graduated from law school last May. I
used ADM all through law school and it was a huge advantage. I agree that it was always
curious to me that most of my classmates didn't use information management software.
It's especially curious because the accepted method of studying in law school is to
create an "outline" of everything you know about a topic and then to refine that
outline into a tool to take into your exams (or to memorize for closed-book
exams).

When I learned that I was expected to make an outline, it seemed natural to me
to then try to find some good outlining software. But that's probably because, prior
to law school, I was a software developer and so I naturally gravitate towards
technical solutions to problems. I think most of my english major / philosophy major /
poli-sci major classmates aren't as drawn towards software solutions as I am.

Most
of my classmates made Word outlines (ugh!). NoteMap was sold, and prominently
displayed, at the law school bookstore - and yet only a couple of my classmates used it.
(We all took notes on notebooks during class, so you could easily see how everyone in
front of you organized their notes.) Some people asked me about ADM when they saw me
using it, and I enthusiastically praised its advantages, but I'm sure no one ever
adopted it -- it just looked too geeky and complicated. I actually like Notemap, but I
feel burned by the ADM dead end so I'm going with the big boys now (OneNote). I'm slowly
exporting all my law school notes into OneNote outlines as I need a particular topic.
I'm not totally happy with my new solution, but it's still a heck of a lot better than MS
Word :)