Finding Information

Though it has been said that you can find whatever you are looking for on the Internet, that isn’t a completely accurate statement. Some things aren’t available yet because they haven’t been digitized. Other things are available but require a subscription to the site. However, through careful searching, you can find a vast amount of information. Printed books can play a crucial role in the search for information online. If you are collecting information on Beretta pistols, for instance, you could look in J. B.

Wood’s books on the subject as well as yearly released gun books to get a more complete model listing. I have been collecting table of contents and indexes from various guides and books to Some of these have duplicate models listed, but some have a few older models that aren’t listed in new books. If you have a digital copy of a manual that isn’t listed, I encourage you to send it to them. help me collect information.

Once you have this information, you can use those model names to search using a search engine such as Google, Bing, or many others to find more information. I find including the words "owners manual" and/or "PDF" helps narrow the search down. Adding "exploded view" to the search query sometimes will find the picture online. Once you have exhausted one search engine, it may help to try another to see if there are any new results. Many factory pages have current model owner’s manuals available for download.

A few have manuals for older, obsolete models. Occasionally, you will stumble upon a gem containing a large number of files, like the New Manuals And Diagrams section and Manual Chart of Steve’s Pages (StevesPages.com/ page7b.htm) organized by the late Steve Ricciardelli. Steve’s Pages contain one of the most complete lists of owner’s manuals I have seen. One page has owner’s manuals, one has military manuals, and another has exploded views.

They are taking donations to keep the site online and ask that to save bandwidth, only needed information is downloaded. Sometimes, factory manuals can be supplemented by military field manuals and other documents, the AR-15 being one example. These can be found on Archive.org by searching for "military field manuals". Other pages may have information that could be transferred to a word processing program and saved as Acrobat (PDF) files, which are more universal and can be opened on multiple operating systems.

If you have access to a public or educational library, it may offer access to online databases. These databases, such as General Onefile,

org is basically a back up of most of the publicly-available Internet pages. may have access to recent magazine or newspaper articles related to the firearm you are researching. Some of the databases, however, may have limited titles or date ranges available. Depending on the database, there may be an option to set email notifications, so that if an article appears that matches your search terms, you will receive an email. In academic research, Wikipedia. org isn’t usually counted as a scholarly source.

While it may not count in a research paper, I find it helpful to read the article to get abroad overview of a topic, which can give Most of these require a username and password to access. Check with your local library to see what is available. you keywords for further searching or new sources the original authors used. For instance, Wikipedia’s list of firearms may be missing a few but is a good place to start for general information.

In the same way, people are often critical of Youtube because of the people making videos that are unsafe. On the other hand, some companies and/or individuals, like Brownells, produce quality content. Once you visit a few pages like Brownells and Midway, Youtube will start recommending similar pages. It is important to remember that, while the Internet has made it possible for anyone, anywhere to produce content online, not everyone should take advantage of the opportunity.

Safety violations should not be glossed over, but could be used as a teaching tool. That is why it is important to do off-line reading, to have a knowledgeable person with whom you can discuss ideas, and to have multiple sources for information. When you find helpful pages, you should save them as a favorite in your browser, so you can find them again.

If you work on multiple computers, you can install a browser such as Firefox on a USB drive (sometimes called a flash or thumb drive) using Portable Apps, so you can take your bookmarks with you. PortableApps.com is very convenient to use. You can choose from 300 different applications, from web browsing to games to office-type programs. Naturally, the more apps you install, the larger the USB drive you will need. I usually use Mozilla Firefox as the portable browser, but Opera is also available.

Apache Open Office and Libre Office are available for creating documents and spreadsheets. They may not have every feature of Microsoft Office but they are quite usable. GIMP Portable is available for image editing. I have not used them but you can choose from a few different PDF tools, too. With a large enough

you can save your documents in a folder on the drive and carry them with you. In the age of electronics, I still like to have books. Books don’t need to be charged and don’t run out of power and shut off in the middle of a project. I am gradually building a small collection of books as I find them. However, I am also a collector of electronic documents. Books are usually large and bulky; to store 200 books would take serious shelf space. Transporting these books is an ordeal.

On the other hand, you can fit thousands of elec- Portable Apps also have other software that runs directly on a portable USB drive. Keep in mind, some public Internet access locations block the use of USB drives. Don’t forget to make a backup. tronic documents on a card about the size of a stamp. This card can be read on a computer, tablet, or some phones. You could take the entire collection to the range, if needed. If you choose an SD card, you will need to keep the maximum readable size for your device in mind.

I have an older tablet that will read up to a 32GB SD card, which seems like a large amount of space, until you almost have it filled up.. To have a print copy of everything would be an economical and possibly ecological disaster. Once you have found your information, be sure to make a backup copy, in case of loss or theft, or if the device fails. Always have a backup of every important document or file on a second device. Since not every book has been digitized, print material still has a place.

This material can be enhance by digital materials available online – just don’t forget to make a backup copy. Though not everything is available, there is a wealth of information on the Internet ready to be found. As a gunsmith, you’d be wise to investigate. AG Alexandria VA 22310 American Gunsmith Reader Services 1.