Tech Informer
Sifting through cyberspace
Finding, evaluating and keeping track of reliable online resources
By Jennifer Gregor,
Virtual Reference Coordinator
Have you ever heard the Internet compared to a library with all the books piled on the floor? The Internet includes everything from personal shopping lists, YouTube videos and dating sites, to government documents and professional research. How can anyone cope with this much information? How can we, as information professionals, sift through all the chaff to find the real kernel of actual information that will satisfy our patron’s need? As librarians we face a three-pronged challenge: how to find online resources, how to evaluate them, and how to keep track of or organize them.
Finding
Finding online resources can be easy. Essentially it only requires a computer and an Internet connection. Finding the right resources quickly can be a challenge. There are several tools and strategies that we can use to aid us in our search for online resources. For this article, the online resources discussed will be free websites, rather then library databases or subscription content.
Search engines are one of the fastest and easiest ways to find a lot of resources quickly. There are a few choices as to which engine to use and what type of search to perform. The key is to find a couple of search engines that you like and learn them thoroughly. Google is a popular favorite. The site loads quickly, doesn’t have graphical advertisements, is easy to use and its page ranking algorithm helps put useful content near the top.
There are a few tricks everyone should know in Google or their favorite search engine. These include how to do a site search and a domain extension search. To do a site search try typing Irish dance site:www.youtube.com into the search box and you will find videos of Irish dancing on YouTube. To do a domain extension search try skin cancer site:.org to find pages about skin cancer that have the .org domain extension (this also works for .edu, .gov, and so on). Spend a little time on the “help” section of your favorite search engines to learn more about the features they offer.
Directory sites are another great way to find reliable websites. Directories offer the advantage of sites that are selected by humans and organized into categories. Some extensive ones include www.refdesk.com, www.lii.org, and www.ipl.org. Need 10 to 15 great sites on art history and don’t have the time to carefully review each one? Try one of these directories. There are other directories out there also, many of them cross-referenced in the ones mentioned.
If you aren’t searching for something in particular, but just want to be aware of high quality, human-reviewed websites or you want to build a bookmark collection of your own, RSS feeds are a great way to have content pushed to you. Many directory sites like LII publish an RSS feed of their weekly updates.
Del.icio.us is another great tool to discover new sites. Not only does Del.icio.us allow you to collect bookmarks (more on this later), it also lets you see who else has publicly saved that bookmark and what else they have saved. Del.icio.us will even let you subscribe to an RSS feed from someone’s account. Find an expert or someone who shares your interests, and every time they add a new bookmark, you will know about it too. You can also subscribe to tags so that every time someone adds a new bookmark with that tag you can see the link. Try subscribing to the tag “genealogy,” or a new technology that interests you.
Evaluating
Now that you have found some sites, you will need to evaluate them to see if they are useful and reliable as a source of information. This is where we have to ask ourselves the same questions that we would during the collection development process. Is it authoritative, accurate, unbiased, up-to-date, and appropriate for the user and community that we serve? Is there a better source we should use instead?
How do we find all this out fast? There are many tricks and techniques, but you can start with this five-step process.
1. Look at the URL. Does the URL look like the site should contain the information? When you are faced with a list of search engine generated results, this can be a quick way to start sifting through them. When searching for information on “forensic anthropology,” does the URL contain the name of a research university or a TV show? The domain extension (.edu, .gov, .com) is another great clue as to the reliability and authority of a source.
2. Do a quick scan. Quickly scan the content, layout and graphics of the site. Are there advertisements? Are the images professional looking? Is there a logo for an organization sponsoring the page? These context clues should help you decide quickly if the page is worth any more time.
3. Find out who and when. Is there a statement of responsibility or contact information that is easy to find? Does the site have a date when it was last updated? This should help determine if there is a bias to the site and if the information is current.
4. Read a paragraph. Use the keyboard shortcut “ctrl f” to quickly find the search term in the context of the site. This will help you quickly find the relevant part that contains the terms for which you searched.
5. Verify and cross-reference. Check the information you find on another site and see if it agrees with the first one (this is always a good idea with Wikipedia, Yahoo Answers or other user-generated content). See if anyone links to the site in question by doing a link search -- link:www.ibuystrays.com. Who links to the site and what they are saying about it should help you gather some information about how biased or reliable it is.
Organizing
Now that you have found some great websites, how do you keep track of them? Keeping bookmarks in your web-browser is an easy choice. The main disadvantage of this is that you probably can’t access them easily from another computer. To make your bookmarks portable try saving them to a flash drive, or use a bookmark synchronizer, like Foxmarks.
Foxmarks is a web service that automatically synchronizes your bookmarks between two or more computers running Firefox. You can also access your bookmarks (in their correct folder organization) by visiting your account online at my.foxmarks.com.
Another great way to keep your bookmarks handy on the go is a web-based bookmarking site like Del.icio.us or Ma.gnolia. These sites let you create an account and then save your bookmarks with tags or keywords and descriptions so you can use them anywhere. Keeping a blog is another useful way to collect websites along with your comments or review of a site. Creating a collaborative wiki with all your favorite sites could be a great project that could have real value to your patrons or library staff.
There is an overload of information available to us on the web; we just have to find it, evaluate it, and keep track of it. Using directory sites and the advanced search techniques available from search engines we can find high-quality resources. Sharpening our evaluation skills will help us quickly determine the usefulness and reliability of a site. Keeping track of and organizing our favorite sources can be a fun challenge with the web 2.0 tools available to us. In the ever-changing world of online resources we have to be ready to constantly adapt and develop new techniques to find, evaluate, and organize information. It is our job to sift through the pile of books and other miscellanea on the floor and pull out that perfect resource.
Jennifer Gregor is the virtual reference coordinator for TBLC. Jennifer’s primary responsibility is with the statewide chat reference service, Ask a Librarian. She would be happy to learn any tips or techniques you find helpful for online searching. If you have any, please send them to gregorj@tblc.org.