The Word Cloud

Just wondering where people go to do research.

Libraries? Internet? Any specific sites?

Internet and life experiences

Any particular sites you use? Or does is it just dependant on the topic being researched?

I Google - which is a bit hit and miss - and then plough through likely candidates on the topic being researched. Warning: it is tedious...
...But if you want to know what blood smells like at every stage of decomposition, or recipes for human flesh, or 22 ways to kill...
stephen

Oooh, my first post. So exciting!

It depends upon what sort of information you want. For example The 'Dictionary of National biography' provides more information than the same page on 'Wiki' - though occasionally the person who has done the 'DNB' entry has done the 'Wik' entry too. A local library service will provide some extra sources including 'the DNB but this also depends on which country - and county -you live in.

Google - you get better at putting in the right search terms to sift out what you want. Google Scholar is useful too - sifts out the gazillion sites which just repeat the same tired stuff you knew anyway.

I agree that you have to go very, very carefully with Wikipedia, although the links at the bottom of the page are a goldmine, and it's perfectly good for straightforward facts that no one would dispute: if it had got the date of the dissolution of the Batavian Republic wrong, someone would have corrected it.

I use Google Image/Maps/Streetview a lot. How else are you going to work out if she can... when they are... no, that was in the erotic short story I'm not allowed to own up to, so I can't tell you or I'd have to kill you. But Google Image found the Smithsonian site for me, and answered my question.

I'm lucky in teaching for the Open University, as they have the most fantastic electronic library, which gives access not only to things like the full new DNB and OED, but also JSTOR and the other scholarly archives. I'm in mourning for the goldmine that was Deb's Historical Research Page, as that seems to have vanished. (Moral, if you like and use a site, don't keep putting off clicking the 'donate now' button...)

But books still win. I'm shameless about actually buying them, because you never know when they'll save your life at 10.30 one night two novels from now. And browsing them always brings up things you wouldn't have known to Google for.

I've ordered British Library books through my local public library, though inter-library loan of all sorts does take forever. It's a huge help to be able to search catalogues online, though. The British Library I find next-to-useless, what with not being able to borrow the books (no use to a single parent with school-aged children), and having to order them (how can you be sure they're what you want?) and not being able to browse the shelves when as so often you don't know what you want... So I belong to the London Library, which was founded in something like 1865, precisely by and for people who are driven nuts by the BL. http://www.londonlibrary.co.uk/index.htm. Their electronic library also gives you access to lots of things, and you can even run a postal account, if you don't live in London and get books posted to and fro. And these days they have a coffee machine...

'COPAC' does list holding libraries and it is quite useful in finding out where old and rare books might be found, though the university library that holds the book might not allow you access.