Customer Reviews

Super Searchers Go to the Source: The Interviewing and Hands-On Information Strategies of Top Primary Researchers-Online, on the Phone, and in Person (Super Searchers series)

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Going to the source means primary research, and primary research includes telephone and in-person interviewing, direct observation and the use of public records and source documents.

Author Risa Sacks has found 12 researchers to explain the process, and thanks to Risa's own interviewing skills, the reader has almost 400 pages of examples, case studies, strategies, and stories. Readers will have the opportunity to learn from journalists, reporters, writers, private investigators, educators, an independent research company, a large reserach firm, a competitive intelligence specialist, and a librarian at a large corporation. Each interview ends with a list of Super Searcher Tips, and the appendix includes helpful references to websites, databases, books and articles.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in developing or improving interviewing and research skills.

by Crystal Sharp, Owner/Director, InformAction, CD Sharp Information Systems, Ltd. Canada.

This is a wonderful book -- a fascinating and entertaining look at primary research through the experience, stories and advice of twelve practioners. While most of us think of primary research as being the domain of private detectives and investigative journalists, current circumstances make it possible and often necessary, for any researcher to seek out or to verify information through consulting primary sources. Skillful use of the Internet can access a goldmine of competitive intelligence information; proper investigative techniques can lead to information not available in the best indexed databases; and knowledge of what information is collected, stored and available publicly is an asset when tracking elusive data. Most of this is learned only through experience - by doing and trying different methods. The value in this book comes from the experience shared by researchers, journalists, telephone researchers, and private investigators presented in a very readable way. The advice is practical and some of the stories are hilarious!

The book itself serves as an excellent example of the use of primary research. Risa Sacks has skillfully conducted and presented the interviews which touched on the following themes: the difficulties of engaging in primary research, the use of the internet for primary research, techniques for approaching people, interviewing techniques, methods for locating documents, legal issues and use of the phone in primary research.

This is a very useful book - I highly recommend it.

This book does contain the information it claims to; however, it is difficult to find what you want when you want. I would assume most people using this book are looking for sources of information. Since the book is layed out in a Q&A format, the sources are only mentioned within a jumble of text. Then, the sources are LISTED, but not described, in a reference at the back. So what you end up with is a list of sources at the end that have no meaning unless you look up their page number and read the whole context within which the source was related to. Now, this could have been easily remedied if the reference section in the back contained all the sources plus a brief description of what the source is...! It seems like a very basic mistake and would have been so easy to add to the book. It's quite annoying that they did not choose to do so. If anyone involved in the Super Searchers series reads this, I suggest you add this feature to your future books, as it would greatly enhance their value.

This book could do with an update since it's more than 10 years old, but the advice on doing primary research is really "evergreen." References to no-longer-available search engines or portals, for example, aren't enough to detract from the wealth of interview techniques laid out.

Through extensive Q&A-type interviews with experienced researchers, the author catalogs the thought processes and the work processes that the researchers go through in order to gather their information. Since the book concentrates on primary research--which often means picking up the phone or visiting people in person--there are lots of tips for how to get past gatekeepers, get people to take your meetings, question protocols, and ways to polish the final product.

Excellent book.