Information Resources Overview - Fall 2007
Information Literacy: Information literacy is the ability to access, evaluate and apply information from a variety of sources and in a variety of contexts. (American Library Association)
Types of Information:
Factual vs. Analytical
Objective vs. Subjective
Research: An exploration of a topic.
Research Process: The series of steps that you perform to retrieve relevant information for that topic.
Choose a topic
Find background information using reference sources
State your topic as a question or a problem
Identify and define the key concepts
Determine the information requirements
Identify potential sources that are most appropriate for your topic
Locate and retrieve relevant information (print and electronic)
Critically evaluate the information
Synthesize, organize, and apply information
Document sources
Reference Sources: Single, most important collection in the library and great starting point for research. They provide basic facts, background information and a beginning bibliography on most topics. Some examples are: dictionaries, encyclopedias, atlases, biographies, handbooks, etc.
Potential Sources of Information:
Library Catalog: A list of the books, videos, and periodicals that the library owns. Most libraries have their catalog online and accessible through a computer. The computer form of a library catalog often refers to as “Online Public Access Catalog” (OPAC for short.)
Periodical Indexes/Databases: Online research tools that will help you find articles on a topic published in magazines, journals, and newspapers.
The Internet: An international computer network made up of millions of linked computers.
Periodical: A publication that comes out on a regular schedule such as once a week, once a month, etc.
Magazines: Provide general information to a broad audience.
Journals: Report an original research or experimentation to other scholars. Provide thorough analysis of a topic.
Newspapers: Provide current, local, and regional information.
Search Techniques:
Boolean Operators/Connectors: A process that identifies whether a word or phrase is present or absent from a search query. There are 3 Boolean connectors:
AND: All search keywords must appear in the record. It narrows the search.
Use when you have a specific topic
Use when you retrieve too much
OR: At least one of the keyword must appear in the record. It broadens the search.
Use when you are not finding enough
Use for synonyms and related terms
NOT: The word following “NOT” will not appear in the record.
Note: “NOT” is a very strong operator. Use it with caution.
Truncation: Finds words beginning with a specific word stem.
Example: environ* will find environment, environmental, environmentalist
Subject Heading Search versus Keyword Search: Most databases have subject headings for each item indexed. These headings are found in the subject field. When limiting your search to a subject field, the result will be less, but more precise and relevant to your topic. Keyword searching retrieves words or phrases from various fields of the record and therefore finds more items and some may not be relevant to the topic.
World Wide Web: A hypertext system providing access to the Internet.
URL: Use addresses to go to the specific sites known to have information on your topic.
Subject Directories: Use subject directories to browse for information on your topic. Directories provide categorized lists of Websites that help you browse for information on your topic.
Search Engines: Use search engines to do keyword search to find information on your topic.
http://www.google.com/ An excellent search engine. Unlike many other search engines, Google only produces results that match all of your search terms.
Evaluation of the Web Sources
Why evaluation:
Þ Anyone can publish on the Web
Þ Very easy to publish anything on the Web
Understanding different parts of the URL:
Þ Transfer Type
Þ The server’s name
Þ Top level domain
Þ Directories
Þ Subdirectories
Þ Files and file types
Criteria for evaluating the WWW sources
Þ The Author (use biographical sources)
Þ The Institution sponsoring the author (decode the URL)
Þ Accuracy of information (use fact checkers and check the links)
Þ Currency of information (depends on the nature of the topic)
Þ Lack of bias (the key is the recognition of the bias)
Þ Appropriateness for the intended audience and ease of use
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