Research Journal Pt 1- Summary

Summary:
Since I have spent many hours searching Cannell's Library databases, I felt sure that I would know most of the material presented on IRIS. I realized that there was still much to learn and found the tutorials helpful for this project. I was pleased to discover ways to save search results using GoogleDocs and MySchooling. Even though I have used the Deep Web, I did not know that was what it was called or what the difference was between this type of search and regular search engines. I appreciated the refresher course for finding information using Call Letters and the Dewey Decimal.

While searching the articles on "Privacy," I found a wealth of information in numerous areas affecting all our lives. The relevance of the term "privacy" in the 474 articles retrieved in the Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL) ranged from 100% to 1%, therefore I decided to use the first and last article available to compare how the two authors dealt with the issue. The results were interesting. Jeroen Van Den Hoven's article, assessed at 100%, outlined the differences between the right of an individual to control anything that surrounds their personal and private lives as well as the need for the public to be informed of dangers that may be concealed from them due to the privacy rights of those who may be dangerous (1490). In addition, Van Den Hoven outlined the ethical safeguards that are necessary to protect our personal information (1491). In an interesting comparison, the article that generated only 1% relevance to the subject of privacy was concerned with some of the same issues. This article illuminated the point that, by using national ID cards proposed and promoted by Great Britain, we would have some protection against the terrors that fill our world ("National" 423). The cost of handing our personal lives to a computer program and unseen individuals may be high, however, and may introduce a new kind of terror into our society.

The Wikipedia article gave an overview of several privacy issues, sometimes overlapping concepts by using similar terms, but without linking the thoughts together. I found the discussion area for those who wish to edit the content more on the defensive side. Not only did it shed light on some of the areas that needed clarification within the article, but also demonstrated the difficulties of presenting accurate information in a Wiki. There is a multitude of opinions and anyone who takes the time to invest in bringing their information to a forum such as a Wiki is bound to fight hard to defend their information as appropriately presented. Nevertheless, I found the article informative and interesting as it gave a broad view of the subject and spurred new thoughts regarding the scope of the topic.

Unfortunately, none of the articles I chose in GVRL and Wiki dealt with specific details regarding the laws and policies currently in use. In addition, they did not reveal whether specific regulations have been proposed today to address some of the serious issues facing our world in the area of privacy. This led to my questions regarding current laws, attitudes, and plans for future in the area of privacy.