Information Search

The following is an information awareness report I created about my recent attempt to learn about the art of home brewing.

During a conversation with a co-worker, I learned that he brewed his own beer in his apartment. I like to cook, perform home and bicycle maintenance and generally work with my hands, and prefer to make as many of the products that I use at home as I can, so I was immediately interested. This is a topic I know nothing about, so I began a search for information.

I began by questioning my co-worker and discovered he has brewed beer for many years. I asked him the following questions:

“How did you first become interested in brewing beer?”

“Where did you find information?”

From these two questions I learned that he became interested after meeting people who brewed their own beer and he sought their advice about how to start brewing beer. He had also read books about brewing and he recommended two that he knew were available at the library: Brewing the World’s Great Beers by Dave Miller and Clone Brews by Tess and Mark Szamtulski.

To find the books that were recommended, and to see what other titles were available, I searched the catalog of the Columbus Metropolitan Library. After finding the two suggested titles, I performed the following searches:

brewing beer

clone brews

Belgian style ale

This search returned over 100 titles, many of which focused on brewing beer. The books ranged from a Dummies book to titles that focused on a specific style of brewing. Since I also had access to it, I then searched CML’s Premium Resources, a collection of online databases, with the following search:

brewing beer

This search yielded 86 articles, but scanning the first 20, I did not find one that was actually about brewing beer. I didn’t really expect to find much from this resource, an introductory article at most, so I turned to Google.

I performed the following search on Google:

brewing beer how-to

The first hit was the site www.howtobrew.com. Maintained by John Palmer, it is actually a book on brewing beer that can be read entirely on this site. The detail was astounding; a very scientific approach.

My initial information search was very satisfactory. I feel like I now know that finding information about this topic is easy and that I have my choice of either print or electronic resources. This has encouraged me to begin reading about brewing, formulating new questions and conducting additional research. I do not believe that there are any validity issues with my sources. The books were recommended by a knowledgeable person and were both in their second edition. The website is the top hit on Google, showing that it is a popular first place to start for brewers. The author is clearly displayed and a copyright placed on the content. I used the search link:www.howtobrew.com in Google to find out that 110 sites link to this website and nearly all of them are also about brewing.

I feel like my information needs have been met for the time being. Since brewing is a complicated task, a detailed review of my information sources will be necessary in order to evaluate any gaps in my knowledge. Also, because this is a process, performing the actual steps and attempting to brew will certainly reveal gaps, and hopefully yield beer.

Documenting this process has shown me that if I know someone who is knowledgeable in an area, I am inclined to consult them in order to begin my search for information. If I perceive my information needs to be complex or detailed, I would rather start with the library catalog than the internet, though I was happy to find and use a good internet source.