"Web Search Savvy: Strategies and Shortcuts for Online Research" provides readers of all skill levels with efficient search strategies for locating, retrieving, and evaluating information on the Internet. Utilizing her experience as a reporter working on deadline, author Barbara G. Friedman offers the most effective methods for finding useful and trustworthy data online, and presents these techniques in a straightforward, user-friendly manner.
Anyone who uses the Internet for research will find much of value here, including techniques that harness the power of advanced searches to optimize search results, avoid advertising clutter, and locate low- or no-cost databases. Screen captures and diagrams illustrate the steps, rationale, and results to accompany various search strategies. This book emphasizes techniques that make the Web work for individuals rather than for advertisers, such as choosing the most appropriate search engine for the job and tweaking its advanced options to narrow a search andoptimize results; identifying cost-free sources of online data; using creative approaches to locate information; evaluating the integrity of online data; and protecting the privacy of the researchers and the researched.
"Web Search Savvy" is an essential resource for students, scholars, and practitioners in journalism and mass communications, and it offers practical and useful guidance for anyone researching information online.

First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Applicable for all types of libraries. Needs assessment can be defined as the process of using one or more techniques to collect and analyze data on library users or potential users. The guide includes the methodology and techniques for carrying out needs assessment projects, ranging from short-term assessments to long-term research or comprehensive collection assessments. Various types of data, techniques, and methodology are described, as are associated pointers and pitfalls.

Electronic Resources Librarianship: A Practical Guide for Librarians will help new e-resources librarians to hit the ground running. Simultaneously a step-by-step guide and comprehensive toolkit, the book walks readers through their first few days on the job, giving them the practical skills to immediately begin engaging with vendors, diagnosing access issues, tracking usage, and making well-informed retention decisions. Further, it sets readers up for long-term success by talking about project planning and goal setting in an environment of continuous change, as well as advice on how to pass on their newly acquired e-resource knowledge to others. This easy-to-read guide addresses several ever-present issues for both new and established e-resource librarians: the need for concrete tools to implement in their day-to-day tasks, the need to gain goal setting and project management skills to thrive and not just survive, and the need to overcome feelings of anxiety and isolation. Acting as a ready reference, Electronic Resources Librarianship will help steer librarians through the intricacies of the daily e-resource grind while giving them the tools and the confidence to handle even the most complex challenges. Special Features include: *Extensive technology toolkit *Sample worksheets, email scripts, and checklists *Real-world troubleshooting problems and solutions *Practical strategies for organizing and prioritizing work *Comprehensive list of support groups, so readers are never at a dead end

Augmented and Virtual Reality in Libraries is written for librarians, by librarians: understanding that diverse communities use libraries, museums, and archives for a variety of different reasons. Many current books on this topic have a very technological focus on augmentation and are aimed towards computer programmers with advanced technology skills. This book makes augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality applications much more accessible to professionals without extensive technology backgrounds. This innovative title touches on possible implementation, projects, and assessment needs for both academic and public libraries, museums, and archives.

Using Social Media to Build Library Communities: A LITA Guide is a community-building action manual for practitioners across the profession. By bringing together an array of perspectives to explore community building through social media, this book serves as the go-to resource for professionals who want to take social media beyond marketing and promotion to build an inclusive and engaged community of library users. Each chapter contains clear explanations of important topics for building communities through social media, and readers will come away with cohesive approaches for their own libraries. Using Social Media to Build Library Communities demonstrates that an energetic and committed community exists to help and guide fellow community builders.

Teaching Google Scholar in your library instructional sessions can increase students' information and digital literacy skills. Students' familiarity with Google Scholar's interface works to the instructor's advantage and allows more time to address students' information needs and teach foundational information literacy skills and less time teaching a new database with a less-intuitive database interface. Teaching Google Scholar: A Practical Guide for Librarians will illustrate instructional methods and incorporate step-by-step guides and examples for teaching Google Scholar. It begins with providing you with essential background: What Google Scholar is How to set up Google Scholar using OpenURL How to design Google Scholar instructional sessions How to incorporate active learning activities using Google Scholar After reading it, you will be ready to teach students critical skills including how to: Use specific Google Scholar search operators Incorporate search logic Extract citation data, generate citations, and save citations to Google's My Library and/or a citation management program Use Google Scholar tools- including "cited by," "alerts," "library links," and "library search" Google Scholar is a powerful research tool and will only become more popular in the coming years. Learning how to properly teach students how to utilize this search engine in their research will greatly benefit them in their college career and help promote life-long learning. Google Scholar instruction is a must in today's modern information literacy classroom.

In the last decade library collections have rapidly evolved from a predominance of print books and journals to an ever growing mix of digital and print resources. Library patrons are predominately served by support staff that is expected to know how to help patrons select and use digital resources. Yet most library support staff (LSS) has not had training to become proficient in finding, using, and instructing others in the abundance of the digital resources of websites, databases, e-texts, digital libraries and their related technologies. Library Technology and Digital Resources: An Introduction for Support Staff is both a text for professors who teach in library support staff programs and an introductory reference manual for support staff who work in libraries. This book will guide the LSS to be able to: *Distinguish key features and enhancements found among vendors and providers of digital libraries, digital collections, databases, and e-texts; *Plan, budget, fund and write grants for digital resources; *Understand the complexity and options of licensing and usage agreements for digital resources; *Know copyright permissions and acceptable use guidelines for digital resources. *Understand the basic technologies that support library digital resources including network structures, software applications, and protocols; *Distinguish between directories and search engines as they relate to digital resources as well as be able to employ advance search skills effectively; *Explore the resources of global, national, and state digital libraries and their collections; *Use government databases and other digitized systems and information sources; *Find exemplary digital resources though other agencies such as museums, university collections and other sources that librarians can share with patrons. *Create local digital resources of primary and historical materials and artifacts with metadata and cataloging for searchable access. *Interpret meaning from library digital resources using visual literacy skills. *Promote library digital resources through a variety of means including social media and online options.

We live in an information-saturated environment and spend far too much time searching, surfing, skimming, contributing, and organizing the information in our lives. We spend too little time immersing ourselves in reliable high quality information. We are often so buried in information and strapped for time that we grab information like it was fast food, without bothering to evaluate its quality. Finding Reliable Information Online: Adventures of an Information Sleuth uses stories or "information adventures" to illustrate the best approaches to searching for information and to help us develop our aptitude for locating high quality resources in a rapidly changing digital environment that is becoming proficient at monopolizing our attention with useless or unreliable information. This book is about taking charge of the search process and not handing over the reins to search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo to dictate what information we consume. Each chapter focuses on a quest for different types of information while digging deeper into the complexities of finding credible places to look for information and ways to think about evaluating it. As the Internet evolves and becomes more sophisticated, our strategies for finding and evaluating information need to evolve as well. The stories in this book range from investigating challenging research questions to exploring health issues and everyday life questions like finding a reliable restaurant or product review. These chapters go beyond the simple and more mechanical checklist approach to evaluating information, though these factors are also discussed.

Websites and digital news stories disappear daily; researchers can't access their own data for reuse; students don't know how to make their work last for the next 10 years. Knowledge is built on previously gathered information, but what happens when that information is no longer accessible? And where does the librarian or archivist fit into this picture? This book describes the basic steps of data curation, in clear easy-to-follow language, and clarifies the many potential roles that a librarian or archivist can play to help make our information future viable for generations to come. Digital Curation Fundamentals is for anyone who wants to help save knowledge for future use, but knows little-to-nothing about digital curation or how it fits with their jobs. This book is also for administrators who need to stay on top of things but don't yet have a good grasp on the purpose and scope of digital curation and how central it is to the future. Additionally, this book is a reference handbook for those who are involved in digital curation in some form but who need the context to know how their work fits into the big picture, and what comes next. This book takes a straight-forward, commonsense approach to a complex problem, and portrays the challenges and opportunities in an approachable conversational style which lowers the bar to include those with little to no technical expertise.

This guide enables school librarians and teachers to make the best use of government information available on the Internet. It provides details about necessary hardware and software, as well as guidance on using catalogues, indexes and services from the Government Printing Office (GPO).

Using the I-Search process, your middle grade and high school students will find new ways to enjoy the process of research. This innovative technique for creating research and term papers avoids the pitfalls and frustrations of traditional research methods by having students write in first person about the topics they're interested in. With step-by-step clarity, this manual will help teachers and media specialists collaborate successfully to make the reading and writing connection click in their schools. Content includes: starting the process; narrowing the topic; using information; assessing progress; writing the final paper; and conducting in-service training. Appendixes provide sample questions, a time frame for keeping students on track, and student instructions for reading a chapter or magazine article for research purposes. The companion CD-ROM includes worksheets, tools, and sample I-Search papers.

Virtual libraries offer a single interface from which users can find out about (and even tour ) the library, examine its catalog, go to online databases, enter an interactive children's room, find out about special collections or community services, and explore the rest of the Web. Now, MCI Cybrarian of the Year Frederick Stielow has written a guide for librarians who are planning, setting up, and maintaining a virtual library. This detailed manual will help even the smallest institution localize Web resources without costly equipment and phone lines. Part I, "Rethinking the Web", considers the Web as a new medium for providing library services and offers advice about rethinking Web design principles in a library context. Part II, "Project Planning and Technical Framework", covers all stages of putting a virtual library online: needs analysis, planning, maintenance, and eventual enhancement and change. Part III, "Collections and Special Resource Development", lays out the principles for electronic collection development and shows how to build special collections ranging from children's sites to multimedia collections. Librarians will find successful strategies here to ensure that the special qualities of their physical library are translated into cyberspace.

When front line librarians improve awareness of under-utilized resources, thereby increasing demand for more of the same, it can also encourage increased funding for the library. The authors' evidence-based approach to effectively promoting electronic resources made the previous edition of this guide a bestseller. Newly expanded and updated, this manual shows library marketing staff how to get the job done from beginning to end and in a variety of library settings. Comprehensive yet to the point, this book includesseven complete programs from both public and academic libraries; an examination of the e-resource life cycle; cutting edge guidance on COUNTER usage reports and other web analytics; advice on making the most of marketing opportunities from learning management systems, discovery services, LibGuides, and more; a step-by-step organization guide, with a variety of feedback and assessment forms which can be used as models; and numerous examples of well-executed plans and outcomes. This book's flexible, step-by-step layout makes it an ideal resource for a wide range of learning styles, institutional environments, and levels of marketing experience.

This work aims to provide a format for taking data traditionally collected by library media specialists and show how it can be used to talk about existing programmes - or to document the need for a programme change.

Every day 50,000 new pages hit the Net - from the scholarly to the frivolous. If large commercial indexes fall short in meeting the needs of your users, then this text may help. It offers details on how leading international projects use library skills to organize Internet resources.