SHASTA COLLEGE LIBRARY
L.I.F.E. Learning Community
Course: Learning Integrated with the Future Environment
Instructors: Turner/Gorden/Waite Evaluating Information: Website vs. Printed
Books are the resource of choice when you're after comprehensive coverage of an issue.  A quick glance at a book's title page and jacket will afford you a title, place and date of publication, author bio and credentials, and even some reviews.  Examine the preface, table of contents, index, and bibliography and you begin to gauge the volume's strengths, shortcomings, and bias.  But many important topics, especially those of a local nature, don't have the large readership that economically justifies publication of an entire book.  Other stories are too current  to be well represented by the mainstream press (there's a lag of at least nine months between a book's completion and its publication). For these stories, the Web, where publishing is inexpensive, instantaneous, and simple, is heaven sent.  But when anyone can publish anything, finding the right site among the billions and evaluating the information contained in that site requires a healthy measure of skepticism.  Clicking to a webpage from a  search engine is like hopping off a plane in a foreign land without a tour guide or maps.  How do you orient yourself when the documentation is sketchy?   The helpful publication information taken for granted in print books and magazines is often hidden or missing from webpages in this territory where the author also serves as editor and publisher.  Determining bias and reliability requires some detective work and much critical thinking. Below are a few tutorials and guides to website selection and evaluation. Locating Information: Books/Videotapes/Maps Locating Information: Articles

The Library has subscriptions to several excellent online databases to help you locate magazine and newspaper articles:

Other useful databases are available on the Library's Articles & Databases web page.

*A Library Card is required to access this resource from off campus. For information about acquiring a Library Card see "How do I get a Library Card?" on the Library's Frequently Asked Questions web page.

§To read PDF files you must install the Adobe® Acrobat® Reader. Information about this application, which is available for free, is available on the Library's Software Tools web page.

Locating Information: Internet Resources

Remember to be careful when choosing Internet resources for your research as some web sites contain unreliable
information. To help you determine if the information you found on the Internet is good information, consult a web site
evaluation tool such as Consider the Source: Evaluating Research Tools or Thinking Critically about World Wide Web Resources or one of the other Internet guides listed on the bottom of the Library's Internet Search Engines web page.

One way to search with confidence is to use a classified list, that is, a list of sites that have been evaluated, selected, and indexed by subject area.  Philip Roche, the Shasta College Library webmaster, maintains Internet Reference a list of sites selected with Shasta College students in mind.  Librarians' Index to the Internet is an annotated directory to nearly 10,000 Internet Web sites.  These sites have been selected and reviewed by librarians (if you can't trust a librarian, who can you trust?).  LII is indexed by subject and searchable by both subject and keyword.  Because it's a small collection, remember to search broadly (water might prove more successful than Klamath Basin Crisis).

Some excellent online sources for LIFE: Learning Integrated with the Future Environment include:

INFOMINE-- http://infomine.ucr.edu/
A Virtual Library created by librarians at the University of California campuses.
For class project research:
Select the area “Biological, Agricultural & Medical Sciences” then search the alphabetic listings for “Agriculture” and “Environment” for many useful links. U.C. Davis

Information Center for the Environment (ICE)--http://ice.ucdavis.edu
Links to current environmental projects such as “California Rivers Assessment”
“A cooperative effort of environmental scientists at U.C. Davis and …over 30 other organizations interested in environmental protection.”

Agricultural Issues Center--http://aic.ucdavis.edu/
Links to an overview of the Center’s activities, publications, and more.

U.C. Davis Related Links--http://aic.ucdavis.edu/links/default.html
Links to government agencies and research programs in environmental resources and agriculture.

Additional Useful Web Links

Shasta College Library Information
  • If you need to come to the Library to conduct some or all of your research, you can see a listing of open hours for the Fall 2001 Semester on the Library's Library Hours web page.
  • If you would like to contact a librarian for assistance during hours when the Library is not open, please leave a phone message at (530) 225-4975 or send email to webmaster@library.shastacollege.edu.
  • All of the resources listed on this page (and more) are available via the Shasta College Library web site 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
    • Shasta College Library - L.I.F.E. Learning Community
    URL: http://library.shastacollege.edu/life.htm
    This page last updated: 03/28/02
    Electronic Mail: webmaster@library.shastacollege.edu

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