INFORMATION AGE

"Information is power." These words reflect the value and significance our "information society" places on access to information. Unprecedented volumes of information are being produced at incredibly rapid speeds while the value being placed on this information is rising at unparalleled rates. Every day hundreds of new book titles are published, thousands of different newspapers are circulated and tens of thousands of different magazines are available. At the same time, the cost of buying or just getting a hold of such published data is skyrocketing.

This rapid increase in the volume and value of information has led to a growing uneasiness among more and more people throughout our society. This uneasy feeling has been dubbed "information anxiety"-- that sense of being overwhelmed by the "information explosion", of not knowing how to find the information that is really needed. Information anxiety is common even when a person finds some information related to what he is looking for, but is not able to translate it into something useful-- called knowledge. That is, people are not able to truly grasp-- to find and understand-- the information they actually need.

In response to this widespread inability to retrieve and deal with information, a national effort has begun in the last several years to promote "information literacy". An information-literate person has been defined as someone who is "able to recognize when information is needed and has the ability to locate, evaluate, and effectively use the needed information... Ultimately, information-literate people are those who have learned how to learn. They know how to learn because they know how knowledge is organized, how to find information, and how to use information in a way that others can learn from them." (American Library Assoc. Presidential Committee) The goal of this book is to help transform your information anxiety into information literacy. You will learn how to efficiently access-- find and get a hold of-- the information you need, and analyze-- make sense of-- that information.

Let's briefly review the revolution in information technology-- the merger of information and computers-- that has taken place over the last couple of decades. Twenty-five years ago, the vast majority of information in libraries was produced, organized and stored in printed form. Books were available only in paper form and card catalogs were the only means to look up books in libraries. Magazines, journals, newspapers and specialized documents were available only in paper or microform (a method of photographically reducing paper copies) and the use of printed indexes was the only way to look up articles or documents.

Today, print on paper is still the normal form for books, but some books have begun to be made available in electronic format and the number of these digitized books is gradually increasing. Although most books may look basically the same as twenty-five years ago, most other types of information found in libraries has been revolutionized by computer technology. The library catalog-- that is, the means of looking up books in libraries-- is now most commonly computerized (usually called an "online catalog".) Magazines, journals, newspapers and documents are still more commonly available in paper or microform, but more and more articles--especially those from popular magazines and major newspapers--are now accessible electronically from various types of computerized storage and retrieval systems, most of which can be accessed on the World Wide Web. To look up articles and documents, computerized databases are now the most popular tool. In addition to the computerized information that was formerly available in print, there are also various new forms of online information-- World Wide Web sites and other online resources including multimedia databases, online discussion groups, conferences and bulletin boards--that had no direct precedents in print. It is still necessary to use printed volumes to find certain types of information, but the use of computers--especially computers connected to the World Wide Web--has become a critical element in accessing more and more of the world of information.

A key element in this information revolution has been growth of computerized databases. Using databases is the basic method of organizing information on computers. Data can be thought of as individual pieces of information. A database can be simply defined as a collection of information organized in a systematic form so that specific pieces of the information--data--can be easily accessed.

One example of a database would be a list of all the videotapes available from a particular library, video rental store or from someone's personal collection. That database could simply be an alphabetical list of the titles of all the tapes, or it could be organized so that you could look up all the videos on the list that feature your favorite actor. This database could also be set up to let someone select a video by many other categories, such as the type of film (comedy, drama, science fiction, documentary, etc.), the date a film came out, or brief descriptions or reviews of each video.

Thousands of computerized databases containing all types of information-- from books or articles on virtually every imaginable subject to international directories of people, businesses or organizations to transcripts or recordings of radio or television programs-- are now instantly accessible from libraries or from just about anywhere you can use a personal computer (as long as a phone line or cellular phone is available.)

The new computerized databases--especially much of what is now available on the World Wide Web--include not only electronic versions of traditional information forms, such as catalogs, indexes or journals, but also completely new forms such as multimedia, hypertext or electronic conferences. Multimedia integrates text, graphics, sounds and/or video into a single electronic database. Hypertext enables a reader to jump to different sections throughout a document or a network by making various types of associations or links. Electronic conferences allow ongoing communication on specialized topics between members of various types of special interest groups spread around the world.

Although the word "database" most commonly refers to computerized information, there are still many important information sources that have not been computerized. Many traditional print sources--particularly reference books such as encyclopedias--can be considered databases since they contain indexes or other systematic forms of organizing their data. It is important not to overlook many of these print resources since they are still often the only place to find certain information.

Throughout this course we will examine how to effectively use a wide variety of different types of online databases and other web resources--and some traditional print forms of information that are still important--in order to find, retrieve, document, organize and analyze the information you need to begin composing an effective research paper, report, speech, thesis, dissertation, article or any other type of project that requires research.

Works Cited

American Library Association Presidential Committee on Information Literacy. "Final Draft". Association of College & Research Libraries. 10 Jan. 1989. American Library Association. 5 Jan. 2000. <http://www.ala.org/acrl/nili/ilit1st.html>.

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These materials may be used for educational purposes if you inform and credit the author and cite the source as: LSCI 105 Online Research. All commercial rights are reserved. Send comments or suggestions to: Eric Brenner at brenner@smcccd.cc.ca.us