Creativity Based Information Resources

By Judith Donaldson, 1999

CBIR Online

Creativity Based Information Resources (CBIR) is a specialized, computer database which provides a means of accessing and exchanging information in the field of creativity. CBIR has approximately 11,000 annotated citations from periodical literature, dissertations, theses, books and audio-visual materials. It is the only known database in the world focused specifically on creativity. CBIR is housed at the Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffalo State, State University of New York.

History of CBIR

The 1983 Mission Statement of the Interdisciplinary Center for Creative Studies (now known as the Center for Studies in Creativity) contained goals for designing a system for easy access to information related to the study of creativity. The goals were the precursor to CBIR:

• to develop, maintain and disseminate a comprehensive database regarding resources for creative learning and problem solving in various settings or application areas;
• to develop, maintain and disseminate a comprehensive database regarding applications (users) of creative learning and problem solving concepts and resources in many different fields; and
• to initiate and sustain a network or national clearinghouse of information and resources about creativity.

Dr. Richard Wiesen, Vice Present of Academic Affairs funded the purchase of an IBM-PC/XT, monitor and printer to begin structuring the database. In 1985, the computer was installed and the first attempt was made at developing CBIR. Kim Canfield, a student intern, developed a prototype descriptor list from abstracts supplied by the Center staff and recommended a commercially available software package known as PBS. The Center acquired the software. An upgrade was made in October 1986 for greater flexibility and speed of operation (Fox, 1988). The first manager of CBIR, 1986 to 1989, was J. Michael Fox. He contributed to its growth by helping secure initial grant funding, identifying hardware and software needs, and by developing the controlled vocabulary that is used today. Fox and other graduate students wrote the first annotations for CBIR. Kenneth J. Lauer managed CBIR from 1989 to 1995. During these years, graduate students from the Center for Studies in Creativity began to annotate materials for CBIR as part of their coursework. Lauer instructed students on how to annotate and index new materials. CBIR was growing, by 1994 there were 5,000 entries (Lauer, & Puccio, 1994).

CBIR in 1999

Andrew Dutcher has been manager of CBIR since 1995. During this period, he has contributed to its growth and success. He performs most of the CBIR searches and continues to give instructions to graduate students on writing, and entering annotations directly into the computer. In addition, he developed plans to put CBIR onto the Internet and worked closely with a programmer to develop a search engine and supporting web pages. CBIR can now be searched via the Internet and users can submit annotated materials. Since CBIR went onto the Internet there have been requests for approximately two hundred and fifty searches per month (Dutcher, 1999).

The demand for accessing and exchanging information in the field of creativity has grown since 1983, and CBIR has kept pace with that demand. Entries in CBIR have increased from 5,000 in 1994 to 10,921 annotated bibliographic records in 1999. Creative studies students annotated approximately 250 new publications during the fall semester, and another 350 were added into the system in the spring of 1999. The editors of the Journal of Creative Behavior, and Creativity and Innovation management have joined the editor of the Creativity Research Journal in providing complementary subscriptions for CBIR. Newly published material from these three major creativity journals is regularly updated on CBIR.

Developing and maintaining CBIR continues to be a high priority of the Center for Studies in Creativity. Providing information on creativity that is timely, accessible and relevant is still an important part of their mission. Users of CBIR are encouraged to examine the results of their search and share their observations. With feedback CBIR can be further developed to meet the needs of organizations, educatiors, and researchers (Dutcher, 1999).

References

Dutcher, A. J. (1999). Creativity based information resources: Bibliographic resources for the field of creativity. CreativityÇs Global Correspondents-1999, 214-217.

Fox, J. M. (1988). Computer based innovation resources: A computer based system of citations and annotations of the periodical literature on creativity. UnpublishedMasterÇs project, Buffalo State College, Buffalo, NY.

Lauer, K. J. , & Puccio, G. J. (1994). Creativity based Information Resources: 5000th entry added to database, International Creativity Network Newsletter. 4 (1), 5. Available: http://www. buffalostate. edu/~creatcnt/reading. html/ICN4(1). pdf