Kelli Bragg Assignment #3 Technology and Libraries October 17, 2009.

Mind Mapping : A Picture is Literally Worth 1000 Words Mind mapping is a visual thinking productivity technology that uses maps to work on a problem or capture discussions of an individual or group. Although nonlinear thinking has been around for ages the format appeared in business workplaces in the 1970s and has caught more and more attention as the years pass. The recent phenomenon of text overload, caused by the ever-increasing amount of information the average person has to deal with, has made it critical to find more efficient ways to convey information (Athitakis 2009,
p.40).

This visual thinking method was coined mind mapping to fully evoke the idea that

it is a tool that uses images and words together in graphic process. The mind naturally stores and processes information in a visual manner, in fact learning by sight accounts for 60 to 80% of everything our brain absorbs (King 2009, white paper, p.3). The mind mapping method is straightforward: you write a core word at the center of a blank page. The core word is either a problem or an issue that you want to explore. From the central word, you draw out rays, using simple key words as possible solutions and related terms, and further flow ideas down into smaller twigs of issues related to the core concept, ending up with a product that looks like a cloud of words, compressing concerns and fixing in one place information easily relatable to others (Athitakis, p.40). Getzels and Csikszentmihalyi found that the formulation of a problem is often more important than its solution (Tsujimoto 1984, p. 54): mind mapping elucidates the problem because the challenge is in the center of the page and doesnt get lost in the shuffle of numerous text

Kelli Bragg Assignment #3 Technology and Libraries October 17, 2009.

paragraphs. Furthermore, you can formulate draw lines and reformulate solutions easily until you come to the best remedy.

How Mind Maps are Used by the General Population The users of mind maps range from the very young to the elderly because it can distill so much information into little space (King, white paper, p.3). Mind maps help students clarify ideas, summarize lectures notes, and plan scholarly goals. For example, Information Studies students at the University of Oulu, Finland, have been creating mind maps as a method of seeing how multifaceted the information specialist field is by connecting topics from different information research fields (Kortelainen & Vanhala 2004, p. 277, see also Fig. 1). The Higher History students at Waid Academy, Fife, used a mind map to distill coal minings history into a single, comprehensive page (Fife-education.org 2009). Teachers are employing mind maps to plan out lessons so that students can be clear about the requirements and the desired outcomes (King, 2009 e-mail). Teachers also like mind maps because they can accommodate different learning style because of the inherent multiple-modality informationtransfer capability (Murley 2007, p. 178). Mind maps can assist the population in general by helping them manage work, home, and family goals and issues (Allen 2009). Businesspeople employ mind maps because they are such good organizational tools with the bonus of being a neutral (cross-departmental). Kevin Hoffber, a managing director of Group Partners, believes visual thinking tools are perfect for collaboration because only image and keywords are used: marketing, advertising and accounting personnel each want to talk about game plans using their

Kelli Bragg Assignment #3 Technology and Libraries October 17, 2009.

jargon: mind maps are neutral, and therefore everybody can participate. Furthermore, the graphic facilitation engages employees more so than textual meeting minutes: everyone can be a part of its creation, making them more likely to cooperate with the plans discussed and since 60-80% of what we absorb is from what we see, the visualizations help attendees remember the session.

How Mind Maps are used by libraries One early form of mapping still used in the library profession today was created by Eugene Garfield: the co-citation pattern map. These Web of Knowledge citation images take a one-dimensional, complex associative-relationship list of authors and transform that list into simpler and more easily understandable two-dimensional map that visually illustrates cocitations patterns (Xia & White 2003, p.693-95). Since Dr. Garfields work revealed the power of visual displays in relation to bibliographic material, todays librarians are expanding upon Dr. Garfields author map work, hoping to make maps that are live interfaces for document retrieval. At the University of Leeds, librarians are investigating mind maps as a way to plan bibliographic searches because they enable one to see clearly the different aspects of any topic (Saunder 2008). Mapping out relationships among library items facets could be a powerful collocation tool and help increase precision on recall percentages. But librarians are not only using maps for bibliographic organization of libraries: they are incorporating maps into other aspects of library organization. Global Research Library Director Larisa Brigevich won 2008s Best Conference Paper Award at the Special Libraries Association Conference in Seattle because a mind map distilled the key points of

Kelli Bragg Assignment #3 Technology and Libraries October 17, 2009.

her 34-page paper, Doing Library business in India: A Success Story into a two-slide presentation (Brigevich 2008; see Fig. 2). Gretchen Hams, Head of Childrens Services at Darien Library used mind mapping to plan out how to arrange the childrens section of her library, (Hams; see Fig. 3) and mind maps helped Georgia Tech students plan out their physical library space (Designing Better Libraries blog 2009). Librarians use mind maps to expand childrens reading comprehension by using the main theme as the core concept, then using the branches to reveal characters and ideas from the story (The Library Lady 2009).

Pitfalls of Mind Maps Mind mapping does have its pitfalls. Since it is a new way to present and retrieve information, there is a learning curve to making effective mind maps and learning how to read them. Images don't always transcend culture, and there arent always images for the concepts you want to explore, and the information may also not be able to be formatted into a mind map, so that takes us back to text. Mind mapping is not a format amenable to publication in scholarly journals, and therefore is not a viable form for broadcasting ideas within the profession. Tony Buzan, who crystallized mind mapping in the 1970s, emphasizes that lots of color and images make the best mind maps. A person would always have to have an arsenal of many-colored artistic tools and a large white space for hand-drawing maps; and although there are software packages out there that make excellent maps, those programs aren't free. Although mind maps condense information, they cannot always show how that informations results should flow. For example, my mind

Kelli Bragg Assignment #3 Technology and Libraries October 17, 2009.

map for Assignment #3 reminded me fully what items I should cover, but did not give an help in telling me how to order the paper for the best flow of ideas (see Figure 4).

Promises of Mind Maps On the plus side, however, you can fit a lot of information and a small amount of space, and while it can be a pitfall, using images in place of words can benefit the comprehension on retention of information. There free mind mapping programs, and to make a basic mind map, all you really need is a piece of paper and pencil. Mind mapping allows you to use your entire brain. The left side of your brain is concerned with words, lines logic lists. The right side of your brain is how you experience color, rhythm, imagination, dreaming. With mind mapping you allow your brain to see the whole picture because you're harnessing the full range of cortical skills in a single powerful manner. Quite simply, you increase your potential and us of intelligence, problem-solving capabilities, and creativity. I believe the promises outweigh the pitfalls and that mind mapping might enrich the way people represent, contemplate, and receive information. Mind mapping is a powerful business tool, and powerful personal organization tool, and a great means for students to learn and retain information. Its effect upon libraries will also be great, as I think it will change librarians explore library organization, whether it is dealings within human resources, because mind maps are so amenable to collaboration among varied departments, or organization of bibliographic records, because you can explore items and their attributes in three dimensions, allowing more and better access points and so make excellent collocation tools for information retrieval by users.

Kelli Bragg Assignment #3 Technology and Libraries October 17, 2009.

Figure 1: Mind map created by a student for the introductory course in the Department of Information Studies, Introduction to Information Studies at the University of Oulu, Finland. The purpose of this mind map is to show the student various facets of the information specialist field. (Kortelainen & Vanhala 2004, p.282)

Kelli Bragg Assignment #3 Technology and Libraries October 17, 2009.

Figure 2. Mind Map created by Larisa Brigevich (2008) summarizing her paper Doing Library Business in India: A Success Story, which won the Best Conference Paper Award at the Special Libraries Associations annual conference held in Seattle June 16th through 19th, 2008. This slide show was 2 slides, distilling the key points of her original 34-page paper, which can be found online at http://www.sla.org/pdfs/2008CP_Brigevich.pdf

Kelli Bragg Assignment #3 Technology and Libraries October 17, 2009.

Figure 3 Mind Map created by Gretchen Hams (2008) to plan out the physical set-up for the new Childrens Section of Darien Library, Darien CT. Located on flickr, this mind map is one of three Ms. Hams, created for the new location; this one is entitled Picture Books 12_08 and can be found at this webpage: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hams-caserotti/3286125294/in/set72157610813121688/

Kelli Bragg Assignment #3 Technology and Libraries October 17, 2009.

Figure 4 The mind map I created for this paper using MindMeister. Even though it helped me define the topics I should cover and kept all close at hand and in mind, it did not help me determine how I should incorporate these topics (logical flow/order) in my paper since all the main branches are essentially even.

Kelli Bragg Assignment #3 Technology and Libraries October 17, 2009.

Cited Sources: Allen, David. (2009) [video] GTD Workflow map with Dave Allen Coaching DVD, Retrieved October 8, 2009 from https://secure.davidco.com/store/catalog/GTD-Workflow-Map-withCoaching-DVD-NEW-p-16554.php Athitakis, Mark. (2009). Look at it this wayAssociations Now, 5(9): 38-44. Brigevich, Larisa. (2008) Using Idea Maps for Presentations. Power Mapping Blog, Retrieved September 29, 2009 from http://powermapping.ideamappingsuccess.com/IdeaMappingBlogs/tag/special-librariesassociation/. Buzan, Tony. [Video]. Mind Mapping use both sides of the brain. Retrieved October 17, 2009 from http://www.imindmap.com/videos/2%20sides%20of%20brain.aspx. Designing Better Libraries Blog Designing the premier groups study experience on campus: The Georgia Tech Library, 2West Project. . Retrieved October 15, 2009 from http://dbl.lishost.org/blog/2009/05/12/designing-the-premier-group-study-experience-oncampus-the-georgia-tech-library-2west-project/#comments Hams Gretchen (Darien Library, Darien CT) Darien Library KidLit Reorg 2008. Retrieved October 18, 2009 from http://www.flickr.com/photos/hams-caserotti/3286125294/ Higher History Students, Waid Academy, Fife. Coal Mining in the 19th Century. Retrieved October 17, 2009 from http://www.fifeeducation.org.uk/Inspiration/MindMaps/Coal_19century.htm King, Gideon. (2009) Nova Whitepaper: 12 ways mind mapping helps with self -improvement , p. 3. Downloaded from novamind.com on October 1, 2009. King, Gideon. Email. NovaMind Lesson 7 Teaching using novamind. Received October 10, 2009. Kortelainen, Terttu and Merja Vanhala. Portfoli, Peer Evaluation, and Mind Map in and Introductory Course of Information Studies. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, Vol 45, No. 4,, pp. 273-285. The Library Lady TLL Education Services. Mind Mapping and Visual Thought. Retrieved September 29, 2009. Murley, Diane. (2007) Mind Mapping Complex Information. Law Library Journal v. 99, no 1, pp 175-83. Saunder, Jane. (2008) History Mindmaps. Retrieved October 17, 2009 from http://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/200122/history/793/history_mindmaps

Kelli Bragg Assignment #3 Technology and Libraries October 17, 2009.

Tsujimoto, Joseph I. (1984) Re-Visioning the Whole. English Journal. Vol. 73, No. 5, pp. 5255. Xia Lin , Howard D. White , Jan Buzydlowski, Real-time author co-citation mapping for online searching, Information Processing and Management: an International Journal, v.39 n.5, p.689706, September 2003