Last fall, Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (SULAIR) teamed with Groxis to provide Stanford Grokker to the entire Stanford community. Stanford Grokker is an innovative research and information management tool that simultaneously searches many data sources, and presents results in a topically organized visual map. Grokker has been downloaded almost 3000 times since last year and the response has been very positive. Whether you're new to grokking, or have been using Grokker for some time, this coming year will bring big changes in the way you conduct your research.
What Does Stanford Grokker Offer?
Stanford Grokker provides a single point of access to Socrates, HighWire Press, Expanded Academic ASAP, Academic Search Premier, the Library of Congress, the RLG Union Catalog, and the web. Grokker presents results from these sources in a topically organized visual map, rather than in the long list of results typically provided by most search engines. Grokker's innovative mapping enables users to quickly identify and save relevant and valuable information, and to discover relationships among results.
SULAIR and Groxis continue to work together to improve the Grokker experience, adding new features and new resources to search. Coming soon is a new web-based version of Grokker that will be accessible from anywhere. The new web-based Grokker will also feature an expanded number of research sources that you can access, such as JSTOR and several EBSCO-hosted databases. Visit http://www.grokker.com to preview Grokker's capabilities on the web.
When Should I Grok Instead of Search?
Use Grokker when you want to immerse yourself in information about a subject. Think of Grokker as a powerful research tool that complements search engines, making search results easier to manage and ultimately more useful. A search engine alone is great when you know exactly what you are looking for, but is less effective when you need to search for information in the process of researching and exploring a topic. When you don't necessarily know what you are looking for and you want to go beyond the obvious to explore and discover, an unending, unorganized list of results falls short and Grokker's visually organized approach works best.
Getting Grokker
Stanford Grokker is available now in the residence clusters and on computers in Green and Meyer Libraries. Stanford faculty, staff and students can download Stanford Grokker to their personal computers at http://grokker.stanford.edu/.
The Stanford Grokker team wants to hear feedback on how we can continue to improve Grokker. Please send comments and suggestions to support_stanford@groxis.com/.
To see how Grokker can help you discover relationships among topics - and to have a little bit of fun - visit the Grokker puzzle page at http://www.yougrok.com/.
