Here’s some information and snapshots of some of the contacts and information I had in my faithful Rolodex. This year, just this week, I’ve retired it, mostly sans regrets, but it was a truly valuable resource.. contacts you make can be golden.. and you never know when they will be of deep and true value.. in your work, or your life…
Research Gold…
This reminds me of some of the best information-fact-finding strategies I learned from my business and research colleagues in the information and research field.
- Find out WHO knows what you need to know. Then, act.
Call them, email them, contact them directly.
Human personal contact should never be shied away from; it’s the best fount of information. - Pearl-spinning, sometimes called pearl-growing, is a technique related to the above, in finding out WHO knows what you need to know. Find the closest resource to your answer, the best “almost” resource, and then look at its title, its subjects, its keywords, its references.
Somewhere in that accumulated (you gathered it) metadata is the next thread you should follow, so spin that find into a pearl, and dig deeper… you are closer than you realize to the answer you seek…
Below is an eclectic list from the old Rolodex, some places of work, colleagues, people I met at conferences and conventions, work places, film business, vendors, librarians, etc. Other are there for various reasons and contacts. Contact me for any more background or details.
For many years in the profession, I was in SLA (Special Libraries Association), and went to their annual meetings for 14 years straight. I was in the Food, Agriculture, and Nutrition (FAN) Division of SLA, while I worked in research information/patents at W.R. Grace & Co., and I planned the Pittsburgh conference for FAN, among other association activities. The Division changed in 2011.
Tymnet - 2400 baud - 301-528-9296
The Academy of Food Marketing, Saint Joesph's University,
Philadelphia, PA
Access Innovations, Inc. - Albuquerque, NM
Alpine Inn - Little Switzerland, NC
America Online, Inc. - Dulles, VA
AOL Networks - San Mateo, CA
Apple Computer, Inc. - Cupertino, CA
ASIS, American Society for Information Science
Autumn Inn - Northhampton, MA
Aubergine Information Service (Reva Basch) - Berkeley, CA
Barbara Quint (writer/editor) - Santa Monica, CA
Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc. (BBN) - Cambridge, MA
Peter Benedesk (attorney) - Beverly Hills, CA
Bernan, UNIPUB - Lanham, MD
Information Today - Medford, NJ
Brentwood Entertainment - Thousand Oaks, CA
BRS, Latham, NY
Korn/Ferry International - Atlanta, GA
Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) - Columbus, OH
San Diego Supercomputer Center - San Diego, CA
CAPCON - Washington, DC
Cargill - Minneapolis, MN
InfoQuest! Information Services - Portland, OR
Chandler's Crabhouse - Seattle, WA
Census Bureau - Washington, DC
The Coca-Cola Company - Atlanta, GA
Commerce Clearing House (CCH) - Los Angeles, CA
CompuServe - various locations
Scholes Library of Ceramics - Alfred, NY
Clemson University - Clemson, SC
College of Charleston - Charleston, SC
Congressional Quarterly, Inc. - Washington, DC
Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. - Salem, MA
Copyright Office, Library of Congress - Washington, DC
Cryovac Division, W. R. Grace & Co. - Duncan, SC
Datasearch - Ithaca, NY
Dataquest - San Jose, CA
Dun & Bradstreet - various locations
DataTimes - Oklahoma City, OK
Data Trek - Calsbad, CA
Defense Technical Information Center (DTEC) - Washington, DC
DIALOG - Arlington, VA
Disclosure - Bethesda, MD
Document Center - Belmont, CA
Dow Corning Corporation - Midland, MI
Dysart & Jones Associates - Toronto, Ontario, Canada
EBSCO Publishing - Birmingham, AL
Elsevier - New York, NY
Delegation of the Commission of the European Communities,
San Francisco, CA
Enoch Pratt Free Library - Baltimore, MD
EXXON Corporation - Irving, TX
FAXON Company - Glendale, CA
FDA, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition,
Washington, DC
Federal Information, Washington Service Bureau - Washington, DC
Financial Times - various locations
FIND/SVP - New York, NY
William Fisher, Graduate Studies, San Jose State University,
San Jose, CA
FOI Services, Inc. - Rockville, MD
Foreign Business Information, Annual Reports Service
St. Louis, MO
Frito-Lay, Inc. - Irving, TX
Gaylord - Syracuse, NY
Georgia Institute of Technology, Economic Development
Institute, Atlanta, GA
Glaxo Inc. - Research Triangle Park, NC
GPO, Government Printing/ Publishing Office - various locations
Hersey Foods Corporation - Hershey, PA
Hughes Aircraft Company - Torrance, CA
INFOGLOBE, The Globe & Mail - Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Information on Demand (IOD) - Berkeley, CA
The Information Store - San Francisco, CA
Inktomi Corporation - San Mateo, CA
Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) - Philadelphia, PA
International Trade Information Resources - Brooklyn, NY
The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Department of Medicine,
Baltimore, MD
Learned Information, Inc. - Medford, NJ
LEGI-SLATE - Washington, DC
Lexis-Nexis - Dayton, OH
Library of Congress - Washington, DC
Majors - various locations
Maricopa County Library District - Phoenix, AZ
Martin Marietta Laboratories - Baltimore, MD
Mead Data Central - Dayton, OH
McCormick & Company, Inc. - Hunt Valley, MD
Moody's Investors Service - New York, NY
National Fire Protection Association - Quincy, MA
National Geographic Society - Washington, DC
National Ground Water Information Center - Dublin, OH
National Information Center for Educational Media,
Albuquerque, NM
The National Library Bindery Company - Roswell, GA
National Library of Canada - Ottawa, Canada
National Translation Center - Washington, DC
Netscape Communications Corporation - Mountain View, CA
Niebaum-Coppola Store - Palo Alto, CA
North Carolina State University - Raleigh, NC
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, The University of
Tennessee (Fred Stoss), Oak Ridge, TN
OCLC - Dublin, OH
ORBIT Search Service - McLean, VA
The Pillsbury Company - Minneapolis, MN
Predicasts - Cleveland, OH
Price Waterhouse - St. Louis, MO
Rapid Patent Service - Arlington, VA
Rolls-Royce, Inc. - Atlanta, GA
Royal Society of Chemistry - London, England
San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG),
San Diego, CA
San Diego County Law Library - San Diego, CA
San Diego State University, Government Publications Division,
Library - San Diego, CA
Sea Breeze Inn - Cape Cod, MA
SOLINET - Atlanta, GA
Smithsonian Institution - Washington, DC
Spacesaver - various locations
Space Telescope Science Institute - Baltimore, MD
Special Libraries Association (SLA) - Washingon, DC
STN International - Columbus, OH
StorageTek - Louisville, CO
Tampa Bay Library Consortium, Inc. - Tampa, FL
Torry Research Station - Aberdeen, Scotland
UMI - Ann Arbor, MI
University of Hawaii, Hamilton Library - Honolulu, HI
University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, NC
University of South Carolina - Columbia, SC
University of South Carolina,
School of Information Science - Columbia, SC
W. R. Grace & Co., Washington Research Center - Columbia, MD
Westinghouse Savannah River Company - Aiken, SC
World Resources Institute - Washington, DC
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