August 1954 — Vol. 35, No. 8 — How To Get Information
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Few top executives try to carry in their
heads all the facts they need in the course of a day's work.
They know it isn't what a man remembers that matters, but
what he can find out.
The person seeking information is often surprised by the
ease with which it can be found. There are many sources, and
the people in charge of them have the greatest goodwill toward
inquirers who have kindred interests.
Because most of the truths learned by mankind will be found
in printed matter of one sort or another, this Monthly Letter
will be concerned with literature as a source of information.
It is in literature that the concrete experiences and the
outlook of humanity receive their expression. We are not concerned
with book criticism, trying to appraise what is creditable
to the author, but are trying to give some little guidance
to what will be profitable to the reader.
No one need apologize for having to look things up. The
world is constantly changing, with new ideas crowding upon
the heels of new facts. Things that were important ten or
twenty years ago recede in relative significance, and things
unheard of then - even unthought of - usurp their place in
our lives. We need to supplement our knowledge along certain
lines that are of special importance to us, and in other lines
we should know where and how to learn what we find it necessary
to refer to from time to time.
Starting to Search
Every person who has occasion to seek information frequently
will develop his own methods, but there are some general procedures
about which everyone should know. The more systematic a search,
the more likely it will be to yield bonus results.
When approaching a subject that is quite new to the searcher,
it is well to read a general article about it in an encyclopedia
or some other book of reference. This provides the bird's—eye
view from which to select particular parts for detailed search.
It also gives the reader a rough idea of the language and
terms used, so that he will better understand what he reads
later. It will give him the words to be looked for in indexes.
Go first to the books that are most accessible, those in
your own and in the office library, then to those in the nearest
public library, and if further pursuit is necessary, to private
libraries and publishers. Alongside this precept may be placed
a second: work from the most likely source to the least likely.
The early part of the search is relatively simple, but thereafter
one of two paths must be chosen. As the more obvious gaps
are filled, it may be necessary to discriminate more carefully
so as not to be lured into side paths, or, if the gaps do
not fill in it may be necessary to dig deeper, to discover
more words and ideas to follow as guides.
Lionel McColvin, chief librarian of the City of Westminster,
has written a book called How to Find Out. In it he
suggests that the seeker of information should decide what
is the subject of his inquiry and to what branch of knowledge
it belongs, and then go on to define it as closely as possible.
Suppose you wish to write an appreciation of heating plants
today compared with those of earlier days. The all—embracing
catch—word is "engineering". A subdivision will be "heating",
and this in turn will be broken down into various classes
of which "boilers" will be one and "furnaces" another. "Furnaces"
will include many types, such as those using gas, coal, electricity
and oil. An analysis like this eliminates a mass of irrelevant
material and at the same time discloses the field that must
be examined.
Public and special libraries in Canada generally use a system
of cataloguing that brings related books together on the shelves.
The librarian, given an array of catch words and an objective,
can produce in a few minutes the best books to meet any specific
need.
Know What You Want
There is a better way of exploring than merely fumbling
around an ocean in the hope of hitting a continent.
Essential to efficient search is knowledge of exactly what
is wanted, and what for. Librarians and others whose job it
is to find information for executives know all too well the
difficulty of doing an expert job with inadequate briefing.
Many inquirers, for some unknown reason, are reluctant to
disclose their precise needs, or they credit one with the
ability to read their minds. It will pay librarians, secretaries,
and others who do research for executives, to coax out of
them sufficient briefing to enable a good job to be done.
Executives, too, will find it advantageous to take the time
and trouble to go into some detail about their needs, telling
exactly what it is they want to know. Not only will they assure
themselves of getting more complete and more enlightened answers,
but they will prevent the extravagant waste of energy represented
in their subordinates' efforts to find the answers to vague
questions.
Suppose an executive asks his secretary or a librarian for
figures showing the money supply in Canada in a recent month
and in 1914: he will be given two figures which are practically
meaningless, $9,409 million and $1,136 million. Both the population
and the value of money have changed in these forty years,
so that the gross comparison has little significance. If he
asked for figures showing the money supply per capita in dollars
of equal value he would be given a meaningful comparison:
$ 553 and $290.
To ask questions for himself or others to answer should
be second nature to the research—minded person. No one
solves a problem until he knows that one exists, and only
the faculty of asking questions will reveal that. Charles
Steinmetz, wizard of the C.G.E., is quoted as saying: "There
are no foolish questions and no man becomes a fool until he
has stopped asking questions." All discoveries of truth, whether
truth in business facts or in philosophy, are reached by people
with a questioning turn of mind going round and round items
of information in ever—narrowing circles.
Using A Library
No efficient information service can exist without a working
library. A library devoted to distributing novels and uplift
books would not contribute so much as a powerful platitude
toward increased production or higher sales, but a working
library brings vast human knowledge and experience to those
who wish for them and are imaginative enough and energetic
enough to reach out for them.
One does not have to be a trained librarian to use the wealth
of a library in an advantageous manner, but one should know
enough about it to guide the librarian intelligently toward
finding what one wants. A walk around the stacks in the firm's
library or in a public library, accompanied by the librarian,
will reveal the width and scope of what is available. Those
shelves hold the symbols that stand for almost everything
we know about the universe.
The observer with a curious bent of mind must be struck
by the great difference in quantity in the various sections
of literature. When we contemplate the immense number of books
in the science and economics sections we realize the need
for sharpening our inquiries so as to find answers to exact
problems. One man who didn't know the detail with which some
subjects are written about gave his bookseller an order for
a copy of every book in any language dealing with Napoleon.
The first instalment, says Conan Doyle in Through the Magic
Door, was 40,000 volumes.
Special Libraries
A special library is a service organized to make available
all experience and knowledge that will further the activities
and common objectives of an organization or group, such as
an industrial concern, a university, a profession, etcetera.
It is staffed by persons who, in addition to their professional
library training, have acquired knowledge of the activities
served by the library. The slogan of the Special Libraries
Association is "putting knowledge to work."
The special library is the veritable heart of all research
activity. In business as in science the library is not merely
a repository of books but a creative participant in research
and product development, full of life and vitality.
Books, periodicals, newspapers, pictures and atlases, form
the basic materials of most library collections, but because
of the rapidly—changing face of nature and of business
special libraries also shelve mimeographed and other processed
reports, clippings, circulars, letters, speeches - anything,
indeed, which gives information about the special interests
of the organizations served by the libraries.
Thus, when a report on railroads is in hand, the writer
will draw upon the special library for books telling the history
and development of railroads in general and in his territory,
the invention of methods of transportation, the problems of
transportation involving technology, economics, geography,
and politics, and the contribution railroads have made to
the industrial progress of nations.
He will refer to government year—books and periodical
reports for the statistical data he needs, to company reports
for details of capitalization, costs and profits and to industrial
association reports for an outside appraisal of railroad operations.
Then, because what makes its way into books and formal reports
is frequently out of date even before it is printed, the writer
will consult newspapers and mimeographed sheets for the latest
opinions and comment and news given by officials of the railroads,
the government and other interested parties.
The privilege of turning for all this material to an adequate
and well—planned library, staffed by efficient people,
is a blessing to any executive. There should be some library,
large or small according to need, in every office and workshop.
Even the smallest office needs dictionaries, gazetteers, standard
textbooks on the business, trade directories, and so on.
Special librarians are known to be optimists, but their
optimism is based solidly upon their experience that there
is hardly anything in any field of human interest on which
they cannot turn up at least a partial answer on some written
or printed page.
Nature of Resources
Foremost among reference books are encyclopedias and dictionaries.
The fore—runner of modern English encyclopedias was that
of Ephraim Chambers, whose two volumes published in 1728 were
translated into French and provided a model for the great
35 volume Encyclopédie of Diderot and D'Alembert.
Chambers invented the system of cross—references now
so widely used, to take the reader from place to place where
information could be found in his books. This is a device
that should have the attention of everyone seeking complete
data. Most encyclopedias give the bulk of their information
under the most specific heading possible, but they will refer
to the larger theme of which it may be a part and to related
topics.
It seems simplicity itself to find a word in a list that
is arranged alphabetically, but there are pitfalls which can
be avoided by making oneself acquainted with the sort of alphabetization
employed in the particular books being used. For example,
the Encyclopedia Britannica has, in this order: Bank
(a card game); Bank (with references to Banks, History, etc.);
Banka (an island); Bank Acceptances; Bank Account; Bank Balance;
Bank Charter Act; Banker; Banker Marks (stone—cutters'
symbols); Bankhead Highway; Bank Holidays; Banking and Credit;
and then, several pages further along, Bank of England, and,
following biographies of several persons named "Banks", a
long article on Banks, History of.
Dictionaries that are adequate for everyday reference can
be obtained in vest—pocket size, and they range upward
to sets of several big volumes. Hours of labour and much misunderstanding
may be avoided by paying attention to the page or pages telling
how the dictionary is arranged and what the abbreviations
mean.
A language dictionary (there are many other sorts, as we
shall see) is not a language lawmaker, but a record of the
practice in speech and writing of intelligent people of the
present time. For rules and style one must go to books of
grammar, or to school texts such as H. W. Brown's Creative
English, or to the Emily Post of literature, H. W. Fowler's
Dictionary of Modern English Usage.
Dictionaries of synonyms and antonyms - words of like and
opposite meaning - are handy for the person who wishes to
brighten his letters or his reports by avoiding clumsy repetition.
One volume is devoted to the word "very", for which it provides
about 7,000 substitutes. Another has 1,300 pages of verbs,
adverbs and adjectives with which to give wings to our writing.
There are rhyming dictionaries for poets; dictionaries of
quotations (covering a wide range, such as Bartlett's, or
a single author, as in the Everyman Shakespeare); dictionaries
of places, of dates, of people, of abbreviations, of mythology,
and, in fact, almost every item within the range of man's
thought and activity. Science, engineering, chemistry, commerce,
economics, psychology, law, music, medicine, printing, physics,
sociology m every one has its own special dictionary. There
are dictionaries of proverbs, epigrams, slang, obsolete words
and anecdotes. Hobbyists like stamp collectors and gardeners
have dictionaries available to them. There is a dictionary
of occupational titles, containing definitions of job titles
with descriptions of the duties involved in the different
jobs. There are several indexes to the Bible, giving chapter
and verse references for thousands of words and phrases. And,
of course, there are dictionaries designed to show the words
of equivalent meaning in two or more languages. There is a
dictionary of engineering and industrial science in seven
languages.
Directories
Nearly everyone has a directory of some sort: telephone,
city, etc. Business or trade directories serve as sources
of information in each type of enterprise covered, giving
information about buyers, sellers, changes in operation, new
products, and data that can be presented statistically. The
Canada Trade Index (annual, Canadian Manufacturers'
Association, Inc., Toronto) lists about 10,000 Canadian manufacturers
with addresses, branches, export representatives, trade marks
and brands, and a wealth of related information.
Corporation directories tell in detail about the operations
of business enterprises and government units which offer opportunities
for investment. A directory of directors lists members of
the boards of Canadian businesses.
There are several directories giving information about current
publicity media such as newspapers, magazines, radio and television.
They tell publication dates and deadlines, sizes of pages,
circulation, advertising rates, and all else needed by the
buyer of publicity.
Reference Books
Besides encyclopedias and directories there are many other
reference books which are storehouses of information in which
items may be found with a minimum of trouble. It has been
said that if you give an intelligent man an encyclopedia,
an almanac and a time—table he need never be bored.
It is interesting, and rewarding, to thumb through reference
books just to see what is in them. Many dictionaries have
lists of proper names, foreign phrases, and synonyms. A search
will reveal information you do not expect to find within such
austere covers, such as lists of wedding anniversaries, the
language of flowers, and forms of address.
Almanacs, such as the Canadian Almanac, contain all
you would expect to find in such books, like the time of the
rising and setting of the sun, lists of members of parliament,
names of associations and their officers, university and school
lists, names of post offices, and so forth, but they also
answer your questions about weights and measures, what railway
a town is on, who is clerk of any municipality in Canada,
and the customs tariff on any article you contemplate bringing
into the country. Only scrutiny of the thousand and one things
covered by an almanac will reveal what a treasury of information
it is.
Nearly every country has a year—book. The Canada
Year Book (The Queen's Printer, Ottawa) has 1,324 pages
in its 1954 issue, and the index extends over 26 pages with
about 4,000 entries ranging from "Aborigines" to "Zinc". It
has chapters devoted to giving facts about every facet of
Canadian life and activity.
In addition to the comprehensive biographical records of
the Who's Who type there are books confined to listing
prominent people in particular professions and businesses.
These tell the career, appointments, publications, and affiliations
of men and women, living and dead.
Periodicals
Reference books are not enough. We need to look forward
as well as backward. What is in process of happening now?
What difference does it make to business or life if it is
happening?
Rapid changes in the economic world have placed new importance,
upon periodicals. Business magazines, with their up—to—the—minute
data and current statistics constitute one of the most alive
elements of business literature.
A library is judged not alone by the presence of appropriate
titles on its magazine list, but by the efficiency of the
methods used in their servicing. In some organizations the
librarian scans periodicals as they come in, and writes the
page numbers of the articles of interest to each officer of
the staff against his name on a printed circulation sheet.
In others there is a special staff, acquainted with the immediate
interests of the officers, to cull articles of significance.
To locate an article in a periodical it is helpful to use
one of the published indexes giving the name of the author,
the title of the article, the date, volume number and pages
of the periodical, and sometimes an abstract. These indexes,
one or more of which can be found in most libraries, are published
monthly and collated quarterly, semi—annually and annually.
There are special indexes for agriculture, industrial arts,
education, law, drama, engineering, architecture, and so forth.
A file of newspapers is useful in many offices, particularly
if they are newspapers that publish indexes periodically.
Newspaper libraries usually are willing to look up items,
and some have copied their past issues on microfilm, thus
making a search of the files quick and easy.
Pamphlets and Booklets
Accurate and up—to—date information on hundreds
of topics is given in government publications, issued by federal,
provincial and municipal bodies. In Canada Year Book 1954
there is a quick—reference guide to sources of official
information, federal and provincial. The subjects are grouped
under 112 headings, ranging from "Agriculture" to "Workmen's
Compensation".
The Queen's Printer, Ottawa, issues a monthly catalogue
of all federal government publications. A Reference Paper
(No. 67, issued by the Information Division of the Department
of External Affairs, Ottawa) gives 14 pages of government
and non—government sources of information about Canada.
It tells the nature of each publication and the address to
which to write for copies. Provincial government publications
may be obtained from the Queen's Printer in the capital city
of the province concerned.
Business houses and industries, too, issue pamphlets which
provide valuable information. Some companies issue regular
trade journals, others distribute advertising literature which
contains technical information concerning their products,
and others publish house organs.
Additional to all these are the "services" which analyse
conditions in business, financial and scientific fields, and
provide abstracts. Market surveys combine statistical and
other data so as to make it possible to deduce potential demand
for various products. Trade and commercial associations will
answer inquiries on matters relating to their sphere of activity.
Abstracting journals which collect together and make abstracts
of information published on particular subjects are of special
importance in the scientific world. Valuable information is
to be had in the reports of learned and scientific societies
and in the publications of research foundations. Much potentially
valuable material appears in doctoral dissertations written
by candidates for degrees in universities. Certain magazines
and indexes list these unpublished works, and some institutions
provide abstracts. Museums are treasuries of scientific, artistic
and historical information. And, finally, a personal inquiry
addressed to a person who is expert in the subject being investigated
will often bring the required information.
The Spirit of Inquiry
These are some of the sources of information. To make the
best use of them, there are two habits of childhood which
we would do well to retain as we grow older: curiosity and
observation.
Those who succeed in maintaining a lively spirit of inquiry
find it rewarding in more ways than one. Besides acquiring
knowledge through research, they increase their understanding,
and they find joy in the search itself.
It might be a good thing for us to create needs for information
where none naturally exist. It is astonishing how interesting
even the simplest job can become when we start asking questions
about it.
Even if the answers to our questions do not turn out to
be what we expected, or if the object we sought ceases to
have any point in the new situation we uncover, no true values
have been destroyed or impaired by learning the truth about
them.
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