We live in the era of information. Nowadays you can find information about anything on the internet. Just type it into google and you have the answer.
Well, this doesn’t always work like that.
First, on the internet, there is a lot of information useful and useless all mixed up. And second, the internet is full of first steps, general advice, and beginner content, but when you know the basics and want to go deeper, high-quality content is harder to find.
Once you pass the amateur threshold and go to the advanced level, google is not enough to find distilled information on highly specific topics. You better start to collect and organize the sources for the moment you need it.
For you
You need to create a filtered database tailored to your specific needs. For this, you should have a system to organize the information around your subject of interest. You have to create your own scientific library.
This library to be effective has to be a process that serves your needs and grow with you, not a library that someone else built.
Your work and your interests don’t fit in a single discipline. As you move forward in your studying path, you use information from different fields to combine it and give it a new perspective. That’s why you can’t take an already built library because there would be things you don’t need and things that are missing.
The goal of building a library around your interests with a system is to serve you and your potential needs so that a little work today will save you a lot of work in the future.
Virtual
Besides, your library has to be virtual.
In our current life, we are constantly moving. We work in different places. We work on the fly.
That means, we cannot carry all the papers and books we need with us all the time. Having everything in the cloud gives us the freedom to access it at any time. Even, in the middle of a meeting.
The virtual support also opens up all the malleability of the software tools, such as searchability, connectivity, shareability…
Goal
This is the power of your virtual scientific library. You don’t just collect raw scientific data. You distill information, associate it, and interpret it, to get it ready to apply to your work and life.
The idea of creating your virtual scientific library is to convert scientific data in handy applicable knowledge.
The profiles who leverage the most from building their own scientific library are: content creators, R&D professionals, advisors, data-driven decision-makers, people interested in very specific topics, undergraduates, PhD candidates, and scientists.
Stay tuned.
Tell us
Do you have a system to organize your papers? Do you still print articles or do you have at least your most read references in the cloud?
Let us your answer in the comments.