Free-form, collage-building approach through wide range of resources for unknown and unexpected relationships
For instance, if you wanted to study Protestantism in a thorough and systematic way, you could just read your way through in Library of Congress order:
BX 4800-9999 Protestantism
BX4800-4861 General
BX5011-5207 Church of England
BX6101-9999 Other Protestant Denominations
BX6201-6495 Baptists
BX8001-8080 Lutherans
BX8201-8495 Methodists
BX8601-8695 Mormons
BX8901-9225 Presbyterians
Within each of those classifications, you would follow a serene progression from general works through historical works, texts, collected works, theologies, liturgies, etc.
But some topics leak across disciplinary boundaries -- an exploration of the effects of Protestantism on political philosophy, for example, or the contributions of Mormons to the arts -- and require a more adventurous approach.
For topics like these, librarians are more likely to look for clues by doing keyword searches through wider universes - the Internet, WorldCat, Dissertation Abstracts, and such. We might take known writers on the topic and do a citation search on them, which can take us in entirely unexpected directions (did you know that a citation study on Albert Einstein leads to an article in a journal of dairy science?).
What Are Your Own Mental Maps?
Identify them. Bring them out into the open and use them to nudge you to use a different mental map when you get stuck.
Got questions? This will appear as an expanded article in the April, 2002 issue of Searcher. You can also send e-mail to marylaine at netexpress.net
