Scholarly paper on "information scraps"

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Posted by Gorski
Nov 28, 2008 at 03:58 AM

I confess I don’t have the patience to read beyond the abstract, but others here might be interested in reading more.

Via the Taking Note blog, http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/2008/11/information-scraps.html, a paper called “Information Scraps: How and Why Information Eludes our Personal Information Management Tools.” The abstract:

In this paper we investigate information scraps ? personal information where content has been scribbled on Post-it notes, scrawled on the corners of sheets of paper, stuck in our pockets, sent in e-mail messages to ourselves, and stashed in miscellaneous digital text files. Information scraps encode information ranging from ideas and sketches to notes, reminders, shipment tracking numbers, driving directions, and even poetry. Although information scraps are ubiquitous, we have much still to learn about these loose forms of information practice. Why do we keep information scraps outside of our traditional PIM applications? What role do information scraps play in our overall information practice? How might PIM applications be better designed to accommodate and support information scraps? creation, manipulation and retrieval?

We pursued these questions by studying the information scrap practices of 27 knowledge workers at five organizations. Our observations shed light on information scraps? content, form, media and location. From this data, we elaborate on the typical information scrap lifecycle, and identify common roles that information scraps play: temporary storage, archiving, work-in-progress, reminding, and management of unusual data. These roles suggest a set of unmet design needs in current PIM tools: lightweight entry, unconstrained content, flexible use and adaptability, visibility, and mobility.

http://people.csail.mit.edu/msbernst/papers/TOIS-final-with-refs.pdf

Posted by Ken
Dec 4, 2008 at 12:07 AM

I hstarted reading this article, and its as though somebody was watching me. I guess its better than when I thought my life at work was like a Dilbert cartoon! The language is a bit thick (and academic), but it seems to be hitting a lot of nails on the head for me. I’ll try to post a bit more when I finsih reading the entire article.

—Ken

Posted by Ken
Dec 11, 2008 at 09:24 PM

Well, I finished the article. Much of it is academic, but there were a few interesting nuggets here and there. The two that I found most interesting were the discussions about barriers related to “mobile information entry”, and a companion pice of software that they have released - list.it.

The first issue gets to the heart of my vacillating between PDA’s and possibly other MID’s like the Nokia tablet for convenience, and netbooks for access to a real keyboard and full programs like Ecco. I still have not opened up the netbook I brought home. It seems like what I want, but using something on a daily basis is a whole other affair. I guess I wonder if it is better to have a limited set of tools that you can easily carry (PDA or MID with limited software), or get used to carrying a larger device like a netbook that does the job. I hope Jan will weigh in on his experiences from his recent trip with a Samsung NC10.

The second item is a program that works in conjunction with Firefox called list.it. Here is the link: http://groups.csail.mit.edu/haystack/listit/ . It looks interesting, but I have not installed it on any machines yet.

—Ken

Posted by Michal
Dec 18, 2008 at 05:22 PM

Lifehacker post about List.It

http://lifehacker.com/5113054/listit-synchronizes-text-notes-in-firefox

Posted by grapeshot
Dec 20, 2008 at 06:31 PM

heh. For a long time I, too, vacillated about what to do with these endless notes-to-myself. I can’t say I have the problem licked. My solution involves a PDA and a netbook. (Which gets used depends on where I’ll be going.) However, I have strongly considered using either a simple Moleskine (and some ingenious hacks) or this snappy little idea: http://www.diyplanner.com/templates/official/hpda

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