Online Research Process From End-To-End: Net Snippets

As any researcher will tell you, research is a process. However, it is rarely a seamless, end-to-end flow of integrated tasks and one of the key skills of information professionals is to be able to provide neatly distilled, easy-to-digest products for the end-user, without necessarily inundating them with hefty appendices, comprised of the datasheets, workings and back-up source documentation that went into creating them.

Nevertheless, the supporting material (and, of course, the researcher's time) is what makes up the cost and, to a major extent, determines the value of a piece of research. It should, therefore, be available for 'post-processing' reference - by the final user, by the researcher or by others.

As previously mentioned, weblogs provide a highly efficient medium to keep a record, or a 'journal', of the process behind a particular piece of research. Net Snippets may further enhance this capability.

Net Snippets is a company, which according to its website,

"was founded in 2001 to address the growing individual and enterprise requirements for online information post-processing solutions from content capturing and aggregation to research collaboration and delivery...Post-processing refers to the management of online information from the moment it is found, and includes the ability to capture, annotate, document, report, collaborate and disseminate..."

Net Snippets enables you to:
Organize your findings in one location
Drag any information item from the web, your local files or emails into your Net Snippets folder right inside the browser.
Keep information not links
The web is highly dynamic. Information found today may no longer be there in the tomorrow. Net Snippets saves the information itself, not its links.
Save anything - not just HTML
PDF files, MS Office files, Emails, Video and Audio files from the web or your computer can all be dragged and saved into Net Snippets.
Access the information offline
Saves the information locally on your computer
Keep track of source information
Automatically saves the source information with every item you capture for future reference. The source information contains the name of the original page, data and time of access and a live link back to the site.
Annotate
Add your personal comments to the item you collect not only for your benefit but also for those with whom you share your research findings.
Share your findings with colleagues and end-users
Instantly package all your snippets into a zip file. Maintains the folder structure, comments, source information and other metadata in an organized and simple-to-navigate manner.

Other details:
You need Internet Explorer 5.0 (or above), Windows 98/2000/Me/XP/2003. Windows 95/NT with Active Desktop

You can download a free 30-day trial version from the Net Snippets website. Subsequently, an individual license is priced at between $80 and $130 per year.

Jerrold S. Parker has published an excellent and detailed review of how Net Snippets works within a legal research environment.