Search Skills Test

Take the following test. The answers themselves are not as important as how you find
them, as well as the problems you encounter and solutions you discover. For the first
round, allow yourself only 15 minutes to see how many questions you can finish. Then
do another round to finish all questions. Use any search engine or database you like
(e.g., Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ivy Tech’s databases, etc.) but try several, and document
your answers with search engine and search terms used, where answer was
obtained, and further sources needed to verify answers. The purpose of this skills
test (beyond our objectives in LIBR 105) is to get you acquainted with the advanced
features of today's web search engines, and to give you an appreciation for the
complexity of information retrieval tasks, and when to use other resources (from the Ivy
Tech Virtual Library). Biggest tip of the week: Get to know your library subscription
databases; explore all search options (advanced/browse/subject/ filters)—for articles
AND reference (check Ivy Tech’s collections).

1. What is Donald Knuth's first published paper? (3 pts.)

“The Potrzebie System of Weights and Measures” in Mad Magazine 1, 33 (June 1957)
36-37.

I saw it was mentioned on the Wikipedia page, but those sources were just OK. I found
a list of everything Donald Knuth has published from a better source: the Standford
University website: where he worked. I searched “donald knuth biography” in Google
and on the first page I found this list of entries in a PostScript file:

https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/vita.ps.gz

2. Who invented the water bed, and where was it first mentioned? (3 pts.)

The old version of the waterbed was invented in 1833 by Scottish physician Neil Arnott.
It was mentioned in North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. I first found the answers on
the Wikipedia page for Waterbed after searching for “Waterbed history”. I wasn’t sure at
first if “North and South” was actually the first mention of waterbed. I looked in Google
Books and set the parameters to 19th century and by Date and searched “Neil Arnott
water-bed”. The absolute earliest note I can find about Neil Arnott’s water-bed is in the
1839 edition of Chamber’s Edinburg Journal Volume 7 on pg. 93-94. “North and South”
may have been the first popularized mention of the water-bed, but I’m having a hard
time confirming anything popular before that.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Chambers_s_Journal/DVoyAQAAMAAJ?
hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=waterbed

LIBR 105 Search Skills Test

 3. Who wrote "A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig," and where did he or she get the
idea? (3 pts.)

It was written by Charles Lamb, and according to the first sentence of the story, it was
based off a Chinese Manuscript of which Charles’s friend M. read and explained to him.
I was hoping to find some letter which detailed the influences of Charles Lamb. I
searched “Charles Lamb Essays of Elia influenced by” and found this sentence in the
Wikipedia article about Essays of Elia: “Critics have traced the influence of earlier
writers in Lamb's style, notably Sir Thomas Browne and Robert Burton[4] – writers who
also influenced Lamb's contemporary and acquaintance, Thomas De Quincey.” I looked
up the source of that and found a book by Moody and Lovett called A history of English
literature. I read the bit with Charles Lamb and found this excerpt on Pg. 301: “The style
of these essays is curiously compounded of elements borrowed from older writers,
especially from Burton and Sir Thomas Browne”. I found the book on loc.gov

https://www.loc.gov/resource/dcmsiabooks.historyofenglish00mood_0/?sp=315&r=-
1.538,-0.085,4.077,1.8,0

4. What was the ruling of the Indiana legislature on the value of pi, and when did it
occur? (3 pts.)

The value of Pi, according to a law voted on in 1897 by Indiana legislature, is 3.2.
I first searched “Indiana Pi bill” and came up with a number of sources from
Forbes, Wikipedia, and one from the Purdue edu website. I decided to try and
look up the actual source and looked up what exact bill it was, which was “House
Bill No. 246, Indiana State Legislature, 1897”. I found this link which seems to be
from Indianapolis Journal in 1897 and has a lot more information about the
proceedings: https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/ias/article/view/4753/4589

5. Who was Joe Pye? (3 pts.)

I searched “who was Joe Pye” in Google and originally came up with a New York Times
article detailing the story (https://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/12/nyregion/gardening-
how-joe-pye-gave-his-name-to-a-weed.html). I wanted a better source however and
looked at some more of the results. I found this link, a PDF from the “Great Lakes
Botanist”, that appears to be rather scholarly (https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/p/pod/dod-
idx/joe-pye-joe-pyes-law-and-joe-pye-weed-the-history.pdf?

LIBR 105 Search Skills Test

c=mbot;idno=0497763.0056.303;format=pdf). It says that Joe Pye may or may not be a
Native American who used the weed named after him to heal people during a sickness
in New England, it said the earliest use of the name “Joe-Pye” was 1824 in that article. I
also found a preview of an article in 1945 on jstor.org
(https://www.jstor.org/stable/18535?seq=1) which detailed a bit of stuff about it.

6. How are the digits of a Social Security number determined? (2 pts.)

Searching Google with the above question, I found a source directly on the government
website for Social Security (https://www.ssa.gov/employer/stateweb.htm#:~:text=The
%20first%20three%20(3)%20digits,assigned%20by%20our%20field
%20offices.&text=See%20also%20High%20Group%20List%20of%20SSN's.) “The first
three (3) digits of a person's social security number are determined by the ZIP Code of
the mailing address shown on the application for a social security number.” I also found
a link of a PDF from the Social Security bulletin in 1982 detailing what each section
meant (https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v45n11/v45n11p29.pdf). The first 3
numbers were the area code, the next 2 are the group number, which have no
significance, and the last 4 have a certain way they were assigned, which did not really
have any significance besides in the way they assigned sequentially (also 0000 was
never used). However, I saw that they have since changed their process in 2011
(according to a link at the top of the page of the .gov website). According to this
webpage: (https://www.ssa.gov/employer/randomization.html), the process is now as
follows:

SSN randomization affected the SSN assignment process in the following

ways:

It eliminated the geographical significance of the first three digits of the

SSN, referred to as the area number, by no longer allocating the area
numbers for assignment to individuals in specific states.
It eliminated the significance of the highest group number and, as a result,
the High Group List is frozen in time and can only be used to see the area
and group numbers SSA issued prior to the randomization implementation
date.
Previously unassigned area numbers were introduced for assignment
excluding area numbers 000, 666 and 900-999.

7. Who said, "If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?" (3 pts.)

I started with Bing for this one. I searched “’If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this
one?’” with quotation marks and at first got a result of Abraham Lincoln as the speaker

LIBR 105 Search Skills Test

of it. However, I found a website that said he did not say it
(https://www.greatamericanhistory.net/lincolnneversaidthat.htm). Using the process
detailed on that website, I searched the three sources for the quote
(http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/), (https://rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln56.html), and
(https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln). At best it appears to be disputed. At
worst, Lincoln never said it and no one knows who did, at least on the Internet. Going to
Google Books I found a book that says Lincoln said that after Stephen A Douglas called
him two-faced. But given I cannot find it anywhere else I think it is disputable still. The
earliest source I could find was somebody saying it in a Congressional Hearing in
1941(https://www.google.com/books/edition/Congressional_Record/Dzs4AQAAMAAJ?
hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22If+I+were+two+faced%22&pg=PA4702&printsec=frontcover).

8. At the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, which medal did the United States win in
baseball? (2 pts.)

After searching “1996 summer Olympics results” in Google and looking for the official
Olympics website. I found that America finished to the Bronze according to this link:
https://www.olympic.org/atlanta-1996/baseball/baseball-men.

9. What is your aunt's zip code? Assume she lives at 3600 Hillsborough Street in
Raleigh, NC. (2 pts.)

Using Google Maps I found that the address would be in the zip code 27607. I also
used another website to verify: https://www.unitedstateszipcodes.org/. I found that it
was 27607 on there as well.

10. How can you find information about Bill Clinton that does not include Hillary
Clinton? (Include a screen shot of your first page of result)
In most Web Search engines, one can use the minus dash to remove a phrase from the search. I
used “Bill Clinton -Hillary Clinton”

LIBR 105 Search Skills Test

LIBR 105 Search Skills Test