DTC 101 – Spring 2013

The three sources I used to research locative art were Wikipedia, Leonardo Electronic Almanac, and the WSU WorldCat.  I had never heard of Leonardo Electronic Almanac before, and I expected to find the most information on the subject through Wikipedia.

The Locative Art search on Leonardo Electronic Almanac did not go so well.  I could not find a clear article describing what it was or what how is was being viewed in art culture.  I was a little on the fence using this search site because I had never used it before either, so I didn’t expect much from it.

The Wikipedia was not very helpful because it came up with a search of Locative media so I was confused at first wondering if this was the actual topic I was needing to search.  After reading it, the article somewhat explained what it actually was, but it was not totally clear.  This was due to the fact it was not 100% about the topic.  Wikipedia is always somewhat of a gamble to use, but as long as you double check the sources the information is coming from, it can be very useful for research.

The WorldCat search I did through the University Library I expected to somewhat of a broad selection of search results that involved the locative art or anything slightly to do with it. I ended up only getting three search results though.  This must be because the idea behind locative art must be a new concept so not much is written about it.

Overall, I did not find much on the topic of locative art in general.

@KyleChinn1

I searched for “locative art” on Wikipedia, WorldCat, and Leonardo Electronic Almanac. Wikipedia, the “free encyclopedia”, is an online database, which has articles on a variety of topics and usually appears at the top of every Google search. It allows users to update pages to correct misinformation or cite new information. Thus, it is formed from the layers of many people’s opinions. However, it still offers quite a bit of information.
WorldCat is an archive of scientific tomes. The information includes the name of the author, and most of the texts are peer reviewed. Thus they are more trustworthy than Wikipedia articles, though less accessible.
Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA) publishes the work of credible authors. There work is shown for users to read, and is followed up with biographical information. The texts are more accessible than WorldCat, and less edited than Wikipedia, but still contain author bias.
None of them are the perfect database, but all are very helpful.

@Reneejo714

While searching the term “locative art” in Wikipedia, Leonardo Electronic Almanac and the “WorldCat” WSU’s database, I had found that all search engines gave me correct information on the term “locative art”.  I did see that WorldCat and Leonardo Electronic Almanac had given the best definition and creditability on sources.  You were given multiple links to read up on locative art, in different sources. When it came to looking up the term “locative art” in Wikipedia, it was short simple and to the point. Wikipedia’s definition of locative art had less credentials compared to the WorldCat and Leonardo Electric Almanacs search engines did. Wikipedia gives links where locative art is a topic, the WorldCat gives books that are about art and techniques then the Leonardo Electronic Almanac gives links to blogs, and discussion groups on the topic of locative art. I would agree with “Evaluating Information Found on the Internet,” had said, Wikipedia is the first site to usually pop up in your Google search engine, because it’s right there of course majority of people are going to click on that link and use the given information because it’s less work, fast and simple. I believe people and I will most likely continue to use Wikipedia because we want everything at the snap of our fingers. If I had to rate these sites it would be World Cat, than the Leonardo Electronic Almanac and then the Wikipedia, WorldCat first because the references did have weak references, and Wikipedia last because it didn’t expand and had extremely weak references.

@brandonluc01

In this assignment I was asked to search the term “locative art” in Wikipedia, Leonardo Electronic Almanac, and “World Cat” WSU’s library database. In doing this I found many differences between the search results. Wikipedia had numerous sources at the bottom of the page and summarized them all into one condensed page on the topic “locative art.” I also found that Wikipedia gave a concise definition of the term opposite of the search done on Leonardo’s Electronic Almanac which gave numerous sources on the topic for me to choose and read from. Leonardo’s Electronic Almanac did not summarize or condense the information of the topic “locative art.” When searching “locative art” on the WSU database I found that the search yielded more journals than articles and summaries. All of the journals had accredited sources listed.

After completing these searches I’ve concluded that the WSU database ranks the most reliable search engine, Leonardo’s Almanac second, and Wikipedia third least reliable. I have chosen this order because WSU’s library database and Leonardo’s Almanac does not condense the information. The two sites reveal separate links to the journals and articles written on the topic “locative art.” Wkipedia condensing the information is less reliable because pertinent information could be left out for the sake of saving space on the Wiki page. Also Wikipedia is less reliable because it can be manipulated by those who are not fit to write about the topic or are not esteemed and accredited sources.