The Internet and the World Wide Web

Library Research 101

Class 8 - Using the Internet & World Wide Web for Research

Supplemental to "What is the Internet?"

Most of this page was incorporated in Chapter 6 of the text. Therefore, only the links and minimal text has been retained here. Read Chapter 6!

If you want to know how the Internet works and how it evolved, we recommend that you take some of the workshops or courses offered by the UNCA Computer Center or Computer Science Department, or that you visit some of the excellent tutorial sites on the Web itself.

One of our favorite sites for learning about Internet history is Web 101 at http://www.hotwired.com/web101/97/31/index4a.html, a site sponsored by Wired Magazine, at. The writing style is irreverent, concise, and understandable, and the information is accurate. You’ll learn how the Defense Department designed the Internet as a decentralized system that can re-route data if part of the network is inoperable. This underlying philosophy created a system that protects vital national security data against nuclear attack, but more often comes into play when some old guy with a backhoe cuts a data line.

To give you some idea of how the Internet has grown, there were only about 1,000 hosts (computers connected to the Internet) in 1984, a million in 1992, and more than 16 million today.

Think Critically!

It is important to think critically when surfing the Internet for information. You must question everything you encounter. Of course, this applies to printed books, magazines, and journals as well. But on the Web, where there are usually no editors or fact checkers to help filter out the bad or incorrect information it is doubly important to be on guard.

Just like a printed book or article, a Web page should clearly indicate the author or organization responsible for the information. It should have a clear title, and if the work is part of a larger Web site, that site should be identified and a link should be provided to it as well. These key elements are essential not only for evaluating a Web page's authenticity and usefulness, but also for citing it in any research paper you may be working on. The current proposed standards for citing Web resources in APA, MLA, and Turabian styles require at least an author and a complete title, as well as the date and the Web address.

Identify the source

Take a look at the sample Web page shown in your text from the Library of Congress Web site at URL:
http://lcweb.loc.gov/global/classics/clastexts.html

The corporate author is clearly indicated. In this case, the Library of Congress is the organization responsible for the information contained in this page. The title is clearly indicated as well, "Greek and Latin Classics Internet Resources," as is the date it was last updated. If you were to scroll down this page with your Web browser, you would find a link back to the Library of Congress Web Site as well as an e-mail address to which you could send comments regarding the content of this page.

Know your source

Internet resources are often categorized by the type of institution or group from which they originate. A Web site's affiliation is often designated in its Web address, technically referred to as its uniform resource locator or URL. This address usually contains a three letter suffix (for example, .edu for educational institution, .gov for governmental body, .org for non-profit organization, and .com for commercial or for-profit business), which can key you in to what type of institution or group is responsible for the information.

Not all Web pages are created equal. Always be mindful of a Web page's intent or purpose. Many Web sites may be trying to sell you a product or service, or even an idea or position. We have seen increased commercialization of the Internet over the last several years. What may appear to be a good and reliable information resource may be just an online advertisement.

The Good Stuff Out There

While we should be cautious when surfing the Web for information, it should also be pointed out that there is a lot of really good stuff out there. For example, you can:

Take a virtual tour of the Louvre Museum in Paris (http://mistral.culture.fr/louvre/)
Access full-text house and senate bills and other U.S. Congressional information at THOMAS (http://thomas.loc.gov)
View scanned-in images of papyrus from ancient Egypt at Duke University's Special Collections (http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/)
See cryosections of a human brain from the Visible Human Project (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/visible/visible_human.html)
Download the full text of Dante's Divine Comedy in either English or Italian at Project Gutenberg (http://promo.net/pg/)
Read the latest cancer treatment news from the University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center (http://oncolink.upenn.edu/)

Colleges and universities, research centers, and federal, state, and local governments have contributed much to the information capital of the Internet, but so have many for-profit companies and businesses, including the print and broadcast media, online merchants, and others who have a product or service to sell. For example, you can find up-to-the-minute national and international news at the CNN Interactive site (http://cnn.com), read today's Charlotte Observer online (http://www.charlotte.com), search the Yellow pages of metropolitan areas in North America at BellSouth (http://www.yp.bellsouth.com/), read online interviews with best-selling authors at Amazon.com (http://amazon.com), or use a free online dictionary available from Merriam-Webster (http://www.m-w.com).

Ramsey Library Resources on the Web

Ramsey Library has subscriptions to several commercial online search services exclusively for the use of the UNCA community. Also, NC LIVE, which began in April 1998, made many new databases available. Go to the Electronic Resources page for more information.

Web Searching Tools

See the Almost Compleat Web Searching Toolkit.