Reference Sources on the Internet

Book excerpt: The most user-friendly book on Internet library research to date, Reference Sources on the Internet: Off the Shelf and Onto the Web gives you a core list of online resources that will save those who visit your library considerable time. Its menu of current reference sites will help you wade through the mire of irrelevant, unreliable material and zero in on the cyberinfo that will more economically and accurately satisfy your users’needs. While online research has by no means replaced in-house paper materials, Resources on the Internet makes it clear that you can?t ignore the timely information that hovers only in cyberspace, outside the traditional library?s four walls. In this book, you?ll learn which search tools are out there, how to determine source reliability, and how to quickly frame a reference need in light of the existing collection of Internet resources. Here?s a quick search list of what you?ll find: a comparative study of existing search engines pinpointing career, government, patent, and geographical information sites covering education, psychology, finance, social science, and private business international trade sites accessing information on gender and cultural issues the performing arts, architecture, world history, languages, and literature sports and entertainment sources life, biological, and earth science sites In an era of library research where surfing the Internet for germane data too often means plowing through the home pages of Vanna White and Pennzoil, Resources on the Internet will teach you the idiosyncracies of the existing search engines while schooling you in how to weed out the propaganda. You?ll save yourself and your researchers time, and you?ll find yourself surfing from the stillwaters of research stagnance to the pipeline of library productivity.